Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
This was the first piece of advice given to us by our professor in our two-week, three-hour-a-day School Systems class. I love it. My six-year-old just received her last report card of grade one and we have been stressing to her that we really don't care about what the numbers are. We care far more about the comments given by the teachers because they give us a much more detailed picture of where she is at in her learning than a number between 1 and 4 or the letters C(onsistently), U(sually), S(ometimes), and R(arely).
It reminded me of this article from cultofpedagogy.com. Simply delaying the student from seeing their grade lets kids focus on the feedback and improve, rather than being blinded by the percentage or letter grade on the front of their assignment. I try to take my own advice as well, but it’s difficult when I know that scholarships are closely tied to our academic performance and my competitive nature gets the best of me. However, I try to remember that “Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves” (E. Joseph Cossman). For best results in learning, I will do what I can to get students to focus on the feedback and stop the grade grubbing from happening.
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I feel really good about today's fur trade lesson. The essential questions were:
I posted these two questions on the whiteboard at the beginning of class and asked the students to have the questions at the back of their mind, because after the activity, I would be asking them what the questions had to do with what we did. Then, we had some fun. I had them sort themselves into pairs and then sent half into the hallway while the other half arranged the room into an obstacle course. When it was ready, I had them lead their blindfolded partners through the obstacles they had set up. Next, I had the partners switch places, only this time, the blindfolded group would not be getting any help from their partners. The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate how the fur trade would not have been possible without First Nations guides providing technologies such as canoes, moccasins, snowshoes, medicines, and various other survival, hunting, and trapping techniques. The group that had to navigate the obstacle course without the help of a guide was meant to show that when people first arrived in North America 12 000 - 40 000 years ago, they had no guides at all and managed to survive and eventually thrive in difficult environments with only their wits and the the materials available to them.
The point I wanted to drive home was that the primary sources we have available to us come mostly from white Europeans because they had written histories while Indigenous Peoples had oral histories. Europeans believed themselves to be superior to the people already living here when clearly they were not. However, Europeans were able to exploit the Indigenous Peoples through disease, alcohol, waves of immigrants, cultural genocide (residential schools), and broken promises. One thing I would definitely change if I were to do this lesson again, would be to require an exit slip at the end of the lesson. I would have them answer 2 questions:
When my friend, Sean Giesbrecht (@SPGiesbrecht), found out I was in education, the first thing he told me to do was to read George Couros' blog. The second thing he told me to do was to DRINK. THE. KOOL-AID. So I've been making my way through the archives and it is some really great stuff. Based on Mr. Couros' recommendation, I read Daniel Pink's Drive, which I also highly recommend. It's mostly advice on what science has to say about how to motivate people in business but it does have sections devoted to parenting and teaching and it's all fascinating. In the appendix, or the Type I Toolkit as it's called, there are several suggestions about how to harness the power of intrinsic motivation in the classroom. My favourite one that I'd like to try with my daughter and eventually my classroom, is the DIY report card. In an ideal world, report cards should be a way for students to receive meaningful feedback in the service of real learning. Unfortunately, all too often, getting good grades becomes the goal rather than learning and the easiest way to do that is to simply play it safe and comply, always telling the teacher what you think they want to hear. Dan Pink suggests, "At the beginning of the semester, ask students to list their top learning goals. Then, at the end of the semester, ask them to create their own report card along with a on- or ttwo-paragraph review of their progress. Were did they succeed? Where did they fall short? What more do they need to learn? Once students have completed their DIY report cards, show them the teacher's report card, and let the comparison of the two be the startof a conversation on how they are doing on their path toward mastery." (Pink 177) This recommendation fits very well with #3 and #7 on George Couros' 8 Things to Look for in Today's Classroom. I can see why he recommends Drive. Next, I'd like to read The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros and Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess.
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David Wiebe
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