The Change to Come

            School really has evolved over the years in regards to societal norms, the technology explosion, and the theories we practice. We are in a time were knowing is simply not enough, we can access the ‘know’ whenever we please in a variety of different ways. There needs to be a shift from understanding concepts to using these concepts in a variety of different contexts. Students are bored, uninterested, don’t care, and have their attention elsewhere.

The following video is TEDtalk video that outlines how math classrooms should look like compared to how they actually look like right now. I choose a video related to math because I find that to be one of the tougher subjects to get intrinsically motivated about for most students.

http://www.naturalmath.com/blog/tag/math-2-0/page/3/

I feel like this video and the ideas behind it are easily transferable to other subjects that currently exist or may exist in the future. Why spend all your time focusing on questions that can be solved in exponentially less time? Do something with those questions, make mistakes, make corrections, and discover something new.

Through my time in EDUC 4P19 at Brock University (a curriculum based course) I have learned about the new story of education that is on the near horizon.  Changes are coming, and they are going to be big ones, but will we really be ready for the changes once we enter the teaching force? I don't think we fully understand what the changes will actually be, but we can definitely see a trend in teaching styles that involve interaction, applying, experimenting, exploring, and discovery. Knowing that these themes are going to guide the next curriculum change, all we can do is prepare ourselves to be flexible and open to change for when the time does come. I think that whatever is coming is going to look different across Ontario and the communities within it. There is going to be no 1 right way to educate in schools, it will have to be based on the needs of each specific school and the people within in (both staff and students). With this in mind I hope that myself and my current and future colleagues will be able to embrace these changes and make the most out of a great opportunity.

Integrated Curriculum: Long Process That Is Quickly Approaching

            Starting as early as kindergarten and all the way through high school, and even into post secondary, transdisciplinary approaches are becoming more and more played with in schools abroad. There doesn’t seem to be 1 way to implement this type of approach that supersedes all the rest; it is a trial and error assignment that will vary from school to school. Especially since we are making a switch from a specialized design, there is no way of knowing ‘the correct’ way apply the integrated curriculum. It is something that will have to play with and experiment with in order to improve upon it and find any consistency from school to school. Long-term patience is going to be the key in making the integrated curriculum more successful this time round.

            There needs to be a process in order to at least have some direction in such a chaotic practice. Clark Jr. (2011) points out a few general steps to consider if you or your school decides to implement the rapidly approaching integrated curriculum. The change Clark is looking for in these schools is starts with going from unawareness to awareness of a need for change. Recognizing that there is a need to do something about our struggling education system is necessary to fully invest yourself this type of approach. From there you need to go from that state awareness to understanding the change needed. We need to wake up to the fact that the lack of relevance and practicality is a primary issue in teaching students today. Moving forward Clark Jr. (2011) says there is then a need to go from understanding to visioning the integrated change(s) that can be implemented. There is no distinct platform to build upon, so teachers and administration need to be able to be innovative and come up with their own ideas to experiment with. Even though there is lots of research out there, it is not enough to suffice alone without others continuing to add to the ideas already that are already out there. Finally from there the final general step to consider is going from this innovative visioning to committing to the change and trying to improve upon it. Completely investing yourself into your program design is the only way to give the integrated curriculum a fighting chance. If teachers aren’t ready to commit to what they have created, then there is no point of implementing as the students will only buy in as much as their teacher allows them. Once you are committed, the only place to go is up.

            If teachers and administration are prepared to be patient with a long, slow process of trial and error, then there is a chance that integration could be a major leap forward in the teaching and learning process. There is clearly a need for change out there; it is just about finding which ways are right for you. Future teachers should prepare themselves for the long haul because this change is coming quick, and it will not be an easy transition. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsromhDmsyc

Integrated Curriculum: Beneficial or Detrimental?

            We are currently in a time of major transition in the elementary school system where specialized classes are slowly being eliminated to make way for generalized (or interdisciplinary/integrated) classrooms. Integrated versus specialized classrooms is something that has been debated and experimented with throughout educational history, yet time and time again boards of education continue to change their mind and go back to previously explored methods. Attempts at improving each method are of course applied wherever possible, but I truly believe that changing methodologies as often as we are is only hurting our teachers and students and consequently the working society abroad. We should be sticking with the specialized classrooms for a number of reasons.

            The integrated system has been misinterpreted by schools and boards all over. What we should be doing in this format is have teachers who teach the same class work together to make sure that all the subjects line up so that they can relate to each other. For example, if you are in an ecology unit for science class, then the other involved teachers can make sure that language arts involves writing/reading about ecological topics, social studies involves talking about environmental issues such as global warning, and math includes patterns and graphs that represent important ecological issues. What is actually happening instead however is that teachers are being forced to teach all the subjects by themselves (excluding Phys Ed, Music, and French) and none of the subjects line up with each other whatsoever.

            I have been involved with a middle school that utilizes the integrated curriculum for the last 3 years of my life, and it is clear to see that most of the teachers are not comfortable teaching more than 1 subject. Many teachers seems to struggle with both instructing and answering questions in math/science; but I have also seen a few teachers struggle with teaching the language arts effectively too. Speaking specifically with math, we are aware of the ongoing numeracy scores issues in Canada as the scores continue to drop and show no signs of improving. Teachers who don’t fully understand math themselves are being forced to try to instruct and engage their students in higher level math. How is this going to help our numeracy scores at all? I’ve heard on more than one occasion teachers say “we are doing well with our writing right now so we’ll just catch up on math later”. Subjects continue to get shoved aside and there is simply no time left to discuss in detail these left behind subjects. As well, the resources required for teachers to teach all these subjects are astronomical. Microscopes, calculators, computers, textbooks, and the list goes on. How are we supposed to fund all these materials? How are non-science teachers supposed to know how to carefully maintain microscopes and slides? It is completely unfair to force teachers to change what they have done and been trained for their whole life. Finally, when it comes time to switch from elementary to secondary school, students are forced into a setting completely different than their used to. Virtually all high schools involve class rotary, if students have never been exposed to this before then they will have to make even more adjustments than already required (it’s tough enough already going into grade 9 without this major change!).

            In theory the integrated curriculum sounds ideal, but it is simply not practical since it isn’t being implemented appropriately. If schools were better able to represent the integrated curriculum, then I would be able to support it a little bit more. Instead we should be focused on improving teaching methods rather than rearranging the classroom set-up. I am sincerely hoping that this switch to integration is not long-term.

Education: Assessing or Stressing?

            The education system, schools in particular, is supposed to be a location of mistakes, exploration, experimentation, and discovery. That is how deeper understandings and true learning take place. Yet, we see schools more and more focused on administering tests and producing higher grades for greater funding. Clearly somewhere down the road we lost sight of what is truly important in society. We are at a stage in life (globally) where knowing the basics and regurgitating it on paper or in words does not offer much value. We need to get to the level where innovation, improvement, and creativity are more focused on in order for human kind to continue evolving, rather than staying at a stalemate. The world is in a time period where major change is occurring: culturally, gender roles, environmentally, population wise, and the list goes on. With so much change going on that is beyond we need to adapt as necessary in order to function effectively in society, otherwise we are doomed to be beaten by the changing world around us. Change needs to start at the beginning, which we all know our educational lives begin within the school system. By initiating change in the school system, the hope is that future generations will be able to make these adaptations and continue to make our world a better place.

This change in the school system is already underway, specifically with the way teach and assess our students. We have been so used to teaching our students in a way where we give them the vital information and test them to see if they remember what they have been taught. Slowly we are realizing that this is not the best way for students learn. Students are writing down information they see on the board and trying to memorize the material to be tested in order to get a good grade. By doing this, and I’m sure most of us feel the same way, we remember the information for only a short period of time before forgetting it and try to memorize information in a new unit or even a different subject. Through strategies such as Backwards Design, and recalling tips like Know, Do, Be (KDB), we can find better ways for students to actually understand the material they are hearing about. Backwards Design, where the goals of the unit are determined before creating instructional methods or assessments, allows for teaches to plan how they can get to necessary information into the students minds. Teachers are being more and more exposed to different methods of teaching, like guided discovery and more interactive activities. When students are physically engaged as opposed to sitting and reading/listening, they tend to gain a better understanding of the material as well are more willing to ask question when they are confused. This is the kind of atmosphere that needs to be praised in schools; unfortunately the formal curriculum really restricts us as teachers in how we can deliver our information since we have requirements to meet. However I won’t go into detail about this since teachers and many administrators have no control what goes in and out of the formal curriculum. We can control though how we assess and evaluate our students based on how we taught that specific lesson or unit. Sometimes testing is the best method, but teachers can’t forget about the active involvement part of teaching. Tests and evaluations can only take us so far; they are great for marks, but the assessment side of it has proven time and time again to be better for knowledge and skills building. With this in mind, teachers need to come up with their own ideas in how to do this effectively. With the help of the education system, we have the power to change our world in a more positive way. Here’s a great video of some people in the educational field and how they interpret authentic assessment and backwards design:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l5m66Y607U

Education: The Old Story to the New Story

            Education is so vastly prevalent in the global community that without it society would not be able to function. The problem is that in an ever changing world, education has not adapted as needed to new and challenging facets of the real world. The real world as we know it is not like the world of 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago. We can see cultural and societal changes year in and year out, yet the schooling system remains relatively similar. Only now are we just beginning to recognize the dire need for change in our educational system.

            When the education system was first implemented as tool for sharing information, it was at a time where society was appreciative of the opportunity to go to school and learn. The teacher was highly respected and could easily deliver information while have the uninterrupted attention of their entire class. However now we have reached a stage in life where the basics have become boring for students to learn and students are more and more unmotivated to intrinsically take an interest in the subjects they are being taught. There is a genuine lack of respect for authority as well, making delivering information effectively a real challenge for teachers. For this and many other reasons that I could talk all day about, the old “factory” model of teaching is simply not good enough anymore for achieving our national and societal objectives.

            There are many models that have been explored and theorized, like Traditional, Project-based, Holistic, Social reconstruction, Guided discovery, group work, lectures, concept attainment, and so on. But there is no one that has proven to be head over heels more effective than all the others. More often than not, the best method involves using parts of all the models depending on the learner, the teacher, the lesson being taught, and the general environment around. For example, lectures for exam review would be appropriate, while group work for learning about solving an application type problem would also be appropriate. The concept of personalization is something should be greatly considered while choosing your model of teaching. I really like the idea of students driving their own learning since it allows for them to make progress in subjects and information that is relevant to them. Through personalization, the student can get out what they put in (if they put in effort they will gain much more than those who don’t try). This puts the responsibility on the student for learning; the teacher merely facilitates and answers and questions the student might have. I honestly believe that virtually all students have great potential, but they don’t rise to the occasion since they are being force-fed information that they may or may not care about at all. Through personalization students can at least learn through methods that are effective to them about information that is relevant to them. In addition, encouraging good work and effort rather than trying to eliminate mistakes can lead to more productive work by students on future learning opportunities. We need to remember that mistakes are actually good; they facilitate learning and lead us to deeper questions and greater discoveries. Underlying this movement is the switch of focus from assessment of learner to assessment for and as learning. All 3 of the assessments are important for normal school functioning, but using assessment for and as learning are much more personalized, which in turn is exactly where I want to see education go in the future.