Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Creating Life-long Learners: Three Prerequisites

One of the blogs I follow is Digital Lives, Media Musings. The author, Sasha, is a teacher (Head of Media) in a school in England. (He commutes from his home in France.) He’s a great resource to things educational and technical. I like that.

Recently Sasha posted a piece called The Pace of Change. In it he shared a short embedded video called Did You Know 3.0.




I think the video makes a strong case for educators to help students learn the processes of content mastery, in addition to mastering the content. My goal as an educator is to inspire life-long learning.

That's why I often pause at the end of a lesson and pose three questions. These questions are: What did we learn? (content mastery) How did we learn it? (the processes of mastery) and Why did we learn it? (affect/meaning of mastery) These are the prerequisites to creating life-long learners and creative problem solvers. These are questions that students can use to self-regulate their learning and prepare themselves for the unknown future.

The video ends with the question: What does it mean?

To me, as an educator, it means content mastery is insufficient. More important that content mastery is learning to learn (process), and learning to enjoy learning (affect).

So what does it mean to you?

Sasha's post validates for me why teaching content is only 1/3 of the curriculum.

7 comments:

  1. Good, frightening video.

    "More important than content mastery is learning to learn."

    Exactly.

    One cannot simply memorize facts and equations, which unfortunately at this tme is still almost all that is required of students in the U.S.

    One thing I noticed this year while helping kids with their homework is that they're doing a lot of things in math much earlier than I did. Fourth graders are doing equations. Aren't equations part of algebra? And didn't my first algebra class come in the eighth grade? (technically seventh grade, with pre-algebra)

    I feel like those in charge are trying to push our kids to keep up with, let's face it, the Asians, yet they're not taking into account the fact that those kids have entire cultures that support their type of learning. We're still pretty much a mess, in my opinion. I don't think this is going to work.

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  2. Saphron: Excellent comments. You are right about math content migrating to lower grades. Language arts is too. Even Kindergarten is no longer a free ride.

    Most insightful to me is your comment: "I feel like those in charge are trying to push our kids to keep up with, let's face it, the Asians, yet they're not taking into account the fact that those kids have entire cultures that support their type of learning."

    A real make it or break it factor in a student's success is family support. Not only is our culture a bit soft by comparison, but the ability to support student achievement at home is often most difficult for those in the lower socio-economic strata of society. For them, lower wages is almost a cultural vicious cycle.

    Harvey Mackay, a columnist I follow, wrote a column this week on the very same video. (My blog came out first! Sasha's before that.)

    Here's what it "means" to MacKay: "The amount of change is overwhelming—in demographics, technology, standards and the employment market. But every time I reflect on change, I always think about how certain principles endure."

    And, " Start to take the true measure of your success now. What do you possess that you can offer to other people, to your community, to the world? To simply ask the question, "How can I make a difference?" is to answer it, because the answer is to never let yourself stop asking the question. Some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined to."

    How to stay ahead of the game? Ask the right questions. Here's a link to Mackay's piece: http://www.harveymackay.com/columns/column_this_week.cfm

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  3. I watched that video awhile back and was left with the thought "how flippingly-fitting postmodern of an ending. End by questioning the meaning of the whole thing... and of course, don't answer the question."

    I say fitting, because I think that alone is as much a commentary on our culture as the rest of the video.

    I love your "content mastery" questions (mind if I steal?). I think those are the questions students are asking themselves in every classroom - consciously or not.

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  4. Great post. Again, it seems we have ideology in common. I too ask my kids the same three lessons, and if they can't answer them on their, I take it upon myself to make sure they can. I've found that teaching a kid to learn from others (not just me) and from themselves is one of the most important lessons we can teach. Clearly the facts in this video show why it is so important.

    Thanks for sharing the link to the latest Did you know video... I've used the others in presentations before, but this one is by far one of the better ones. :)

    Thanks for your thoughts! :)

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  5. Chase: Your comment, "I say fitting, because I think that alone is as much a commentary on our culture as the rest of the video," reminds me of a quote by a philosopher named Dykstra who said something like, "There should be no philosophy department, but a philosopher in every department." I say, "To criticize is easy, to do better may be more difficult." That's why we as educators must teach our students to be philosophers. (As you are already doing.) And yes, you may steal the three prerequisites. I spent a Sunday a month for a year or two learning Theory of Constraints in order to distill a purpose for education, and the three prerequisites. Yours for free! ;-)

    Miss H: I especially like your comment, "I've found that teaching a kid to learn from others (not just me) and from themselves is one of the most important lessons we can teach." Amen! Too often teachers present themselves as the central authority and instructor. Teachers who teach their students to listen to others (and themselves) outfit their students for a better future. (PS: Our shared beliefs/paradigms make us a mini-community of online clinical scientists. Our blogs are also our professional journals.)

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  6. Hi Don,

    Thanks for quoting me. I appreciate it and I'm glad I've helped stimulate debate. The whole point of Web 2.0 is what's been termed 'collective intelligence' and it's how we take those traditional three questions you ask and embed them into a technologically driven and data saturated world that's occupying my thoughts right now. As well as being Head of Media I've also been promoted to Head of ICT, with a brief to enable and empower the use of e-learning across the curriculum.

    When I give a talk to all the staff in September, at the start of the academic year, I'll be focusing on the philosophy and pedagogy of ICT and education.

    One of the key points is that teachers and students have different levels of expertise, so trying to keep up with the Jones's or anyone else becomes a futile excercise. Sure, we need minimum standards but that shouldn't make everyone jump through identical hoops.

    We've got a raft of ideas, some of which are happening now and many more that will roll out over the next year. Coinciding with that we're introducing thinking skills classes to our sixth formers (aged 16-17) and I'll be running a similar program, in conjunction with the library, for our year 7-8 kids (11-13 years old).

    Knowing how to gather, synthesise, evaluate and analyse will become core skills in the near future; more so, I would suggest, than an ability to reel off long lists of facts, learnt and regurgitated in order to pass an exam.

    We live in challenging times and that makes them exciting!

    With kind regards,

    Sacha

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  7. Sacha: Your comments remind me why I read your blog. You know stuff! And you ask good questions. You're a thinker and you're interested in teaching your students to think. You also aim to meet your students on the ground of their interests (technology among them). Congrats on the promotion!

    I discovered that a Thinking Skills class needs to involve "lab" work. Puzzles, activities, real life situations and projects. Let the little thinkers make an attempt, and then perform an autopsy. "What worked?" "What didn't?" and "What will you do different next time?" Those were my weekly debriefing (autopsy) questions on student attempts. Thinking Skills are perhaps best learned by personal failure or partial success. ;-)

    As always... thanks for your input/comments.

    Don

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