The themes suggest that the main barrier to student engagement is the idea that they do not feel a part of the classroom. This can be related to the idea that in most cases the teacher feels that they are the expert and that they are the knowledge holders. As a result they may not value what students have to say or accept their input. This is the old way of teaching or as Drake (2010) suggests, an old story in education. In order to transition to the new story we have to look back on what we have done and use that information to guide our present and future story. It also suggests a lack of involvement of student feedback in shaping a teacher's pedagogy. While Hattie and Timperely (2007) demonstrate feedback as being beneficial for students and their learning, it is also beneficial for teachers to receive feedback about their teaching styles. If they do not receive feedback or acknowledge the feedback than they will be doing more harm to the student than good. It is essential for teachers to listen to what students have to say so that they may engage them more in the subject.
Whether teachers wish to acknowledge it or not, it is inevitable that they will lose the title as "expert" as the amount of information that is available to students is increasing exponentially. At their fingertips, students are able to go onto the internet and search anything regardless of where they are. This ties back into the interview responses the Brandon Zoras found in his project. Some of the responses involved the fact that there were to manny handouts and notes and the students simply wanted to experiment. When teachers are no longer the experts, they have to adapt their teaching styles and strategies.Similar to Neil Postman's argument (1990) in my last blog post, teachers should focus more on teaching students valuable skills to navigate through technology rather then teaching them how to use it. He also argues that we are creating information upon information, which starts to make the teacher less of an expert. While Neil's speech may be dated, the arguments are not especially when paired with the interview responses from Brandon.
One of the strategies that is becoming increasingly popular in science in terms of increasing engagement and 21st century skills would be inquiry. Inquiry involves students investigating and problem solving, while addressing relevant issues both in the curriculum and their personal lives. One of the main proponents of scientific inquiry that I have come across would be Smarter Science. Smarter Science is an educational program that highlights inquiry in the classroom. It originally start in the Thames Valley School District and has spread throughout Ontario. It was something that I witnessed both at a STAO conference in Toronto as well as in one of my practicum placements.
What I witnessed in the classroom was the beginning stages of inquiry and something that I would call "guided inquiry". Before beginning an experiment the teacher would do a pre-lab with the class to cover the basics of what they would be covering. In doing so, she would pose the class a question as ask them to come up with ways to answer a guiding question. She would then go over each of the responses as to what were reasonable experiments that they could perform and then eventually come to the experiment that they were going to perform. While it was the beginning stages of inquiry, it did have students become engaged with the material as they had to come up with ways to experiment.
When attempting to engage students in a 21st century classroom it does not necessarily require the use of technology to dazzle them. Instead it involves changing your teaching style and allowing students to have a voice in the classroom so they they feel as they are a part of the learning experience and not simply along for the ride. Especially in terms of science, teachers can use inquiry as a way to engage students by allowing them to come up with their own ideas to solve problems and let them experiment on their own.
Jordan, I agree with you that a big factor in terms of student engagement is allowing students have a say in what goes on in the classroom. As you mentioned, this means teachers letting go of the role of “expert” in the class and take on a role as “activator of learning.” I think one of the main reasons why some educators are reluctant to do this is because for so long teachers have always been viewed as the master or expert of all knowledge. As students, most teachers were taught the teacher was the “be all and end all” and as a result, they have trouble letting go of that role when it is something they have never experienced before. However, I do believe most teachers are doing a fairly good job of starting to let go of control in their classroom. Change is never an easy thing, and often it takes a long time for us to fully get to where we want to be. In addition, some of us will get there faster than others. With that being said, I have seen teachers provide their students with choice in what they want to learn, allow students to choose the topic of study and the way in which they want to explore that topic. These are all necessary first steps for transferring the control from teachers over to students.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting that you mention the use of Smarter Science. I did my teaching placements within the Thames Valley District School Board in a Grade 9 science classroom and tried to incorporate inquiry lessons. I used some of the charts Smarter Science developed as a way of walking the class through the process of identifying a question for an inquiry, selecting variables and planning a process of study (see http://www.tvdsb.ca/uploads/S&T_SmarterScience/00%20Initiate%20%26%20Plan%20Begin%20to%20Emerg%20May%205%202010.pdf). I found the charts to be extremely helpful and straightforward! I could have my class (SNC 1Ds) brainstorm inquiry topics on post-it-notes and stick them on the charts. Then, I would have students select a topic from the brainstorm list. This was a great way to get the students to take an active role in the learning process and work towards slowly releasing the responsibility for learning from teacher to student.
Hi Jordan
ReplyDeleteI like that you (and Allison!) provide the science-y side to our discussions in class, as well as on your blog. I feel like a lot of the discussion of 21st century learning is focused more on the social sciences where it is perhaps more easily implemented, and then the sciences and mathematics are left behind. I also think it's interesting that science and mathematics are often the subjects that are stereotypically the most valued in the curriculum (in comparison to the liberal arts), but there is seldom discussion about innovative ways to teach them. At least, I haven't heard a lot about it, maybe because I am not part of the science and math world.
I also like that you moved away from technology in this post. I think you're right in saying that often 21st century education falsely becomes synonymous with technology, when in fact it represents so much more. Technology is just one piece of the puzzle, and perhaps a tool to help students be more engaged, ethical, entrepreneurial, etc., but it is not the end all be all in terms of what 21st century educators should be focusing on.
I agree that student engagement is important is the learning process. However, literature and research states that engagement is difficult to define operationally, but we know it when we see it, and we know when it is missing. “Students are engaged when they devote substantial time and effort to a task, when they care about the quality of their work, and when they commit themselves because the work seems to have significance beyond its personal instrumental value.”
ReplyDelete(Newmann, 1986, p. 242).
According to the University of Alberta’s , Partnership for 21st Century learning the following suggestion is made “we need to look deeply into innovative ways to support 21st Century learning because current educational systems are not designed to support the new “multi-dimensional” abilities learners need and want to be engaged in learning. Such innovation require a paradigm shift in how we educate our teachers and students, manage our resources, lay out our classrooms and learning environments, design our curriculum and pedagogy, and assess our learners (www.P21.org, 2010).
Hey Jordan. I wrote a response to this but it must have gotten lost in cyberspace. Did you see it?
ReplyDeleteNo unfortunately I did not. :(
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