Thing 5 RSS & Google Reader

Ok, once again, it was like I was “slap happy” and clicked on everything in site.  My google reader was loaded! No problem…I just deleted them all and started over in a more organized fashion.  Thank God for the delete button.

                             Task/  Part 2

I really enjoyed reading the article on the Students 2.0 site about What is Learning?  Every time my department gets together, we struggle in the reading department with the concept of how best for our students to learn.  Some teachers think we should have everything in neat little boxes that the students will read, memorize and spit back at the appropriate time.  I don’t.  “Rote learning” requires very little of the learner. It doesn’t challenge them to think or take responsibility for their learning.  My philosophy  has been and will always be that students must take responsibility for their learning and become independent learners asap.   I know we have to hold students to a body of knowledge that they must show proficiency with, but I love to give open ended questions which give students a chance to “think” about something beyond what they have learned in the classroom.  I enjoy grading 18 answers that look and feel different.  My rule of thumb is…produce an answer that is thoughtful and insightful, showing extended thinking beyond what we have discussed in the class. Support what you say with facts and details, but draw some conclusions on your own and have an opinion.  I’m tired of students using every example I give in class almost to the point that I want to eliminate examples.  It is wonderful to read answers that are beyond even what I have come up with and it motivtates me to be a better teacher.  And I don’t feel obligated to put an A or B, etc. on everything they write. (The idea may have been creative, but they did not organize their thoughts well….and so on and so on.)  Sometimes our writing and sharing are purely  for learning/sharing purposes.   There are guidelines for what they are doing, but it is not a “spit it back in my face” kind of assignment.

The sad, but truthful conclusion in this article was that many students want to be kept in a box.  They like knowing exactly what to do, when to do, and how many lines it should take.  They don’ t want to think about anything.  They have no confidence in their ideas and have not had opportunity to test out their ideas in class or their writing which is another reason I like for students to collaborate with ideas after reading a selection.  They hear their peers saying things that maybe they thought, but were not comfortable saying themselves.  I guess that would be the outlet for “voice” before blogging came along. Now, we can let students share their creative ideas to more than just their classroom which may motivate them to do more than basic answers—everyone is reading and commenting.

I agree with the quote by a student in the comment section of this article about using the term “student and learner” as synonyms.  They are not.  He said “ that all learners are students, but not all students are learners! ” So true.

Another concern I have about whether students are learning is this:  there are students that sit in my class, have all their notebooks organized, study the material, and spit back information.  They have high executive function and are very successful in my class, but they are only doing what I ask them to do…….nothing more.   Then I have that messy, unorganized person who can’t remember their book or notebook, but what I do get from them in the way of writing is insightful and has meaning.  They give synonyms on SAT cards that are higher level vocabulary; their sentence writing shows a uniqueness missing in my other students.  At the middle school level, you’ve got to love them all, but push the messy, unorganized ones to the top, and don’t discard them–they are the thinkers of the group in many cases.

In response to this article, I would like for students to understand that education today is driven by grades—not necessarily by the  learning taking place.   It may be frustrating for students, but KNOW that it is frustrating for teachers also.  I wish I could teach without having to log in grades every two weeks for parents.  The education system seems to want immediate feedback when realistically learning takes place over a longer period of time, not to be measured in classes/grading periods and semesters.  So maybe technology will allow us to change some of the formatting of how we teach and learn within this system that up until now has held us captive!