I love this video!! It is very inspirational.

Class Make up

What do babies think? The TED Talk was about how do we know what babies are thinking. Many years ago people believed that babies were very egocentric and we unable to put themselves in other shoes and take on someone’s perspective. Alison Gopnik conducted a study with 15-18 month old babies. They gave each baby one bowl of goldfish crackers and one bowl of raw broccoli. Then the researcher would pretend to either like the broccoli or the crackers while disliking the other. When she would ask the baby to give her some the baby would hand her the food she expressed that she liked even if it was t=not the food that the baby had liked and chosen. This occurred with the 18 month old babies, however the 15-month-old babies did not do this they handed the researcher what they liked which was typically the goldfish crackers. This was a very interesting TED talk. Gopnik’s work draws on psychological, neuroscientific, and philosophical developments in child development research to understand how the human mind learns, how and why we love, our ability to innovate. This talk just reminded me that children are brilliant and it is important as an educator to remember this.

Will Richardson "Why School?"

At the beginning of this semester, I was asked to read an essay by Will Richardson entitled "Why School?" Why School discusses how technology and how people are learning are changing. This short book describes different types of learning and how the Internet now offers students a new mode of learning. We now have the ability to look up facts and dates quickly with the use of the Internet. The need to memorize these dates and facts are no longer needed. Will Richardson challenges us to ask why we need schools, and how they should be changed to meet the needs today’s learners. With students having the ability and access to learn practically anything on YouTube or by communicating with other experts online, how does school need to change? I enjoyed this quote, “I believe there remains a great deal of value in the idea of school as a place our kids go to learn with others, to be inspired by caring adults to pursue mastery and expertise, and then to use that to change the world for the better. Communities built around schools are better for it. There is still much worth having a shared experience, a common narrative for learning. And, crucially, schools are a public trust, a function of our belief that every child deserves an education. It’s an ideal that still works” (Richardson, 2012). I thought out Common Core and how we are now asking students to not focus on the answer itself, but answer questions like, “How do you know?” “What strategy did you use to get your answer?” or “explain your thinking” Richardson mentioned that “The world cares about what you can do with what you know, Not what you know in and of itself.” This also led me to think about how we as teachers will design our lesson plans now, not only to fit with Common Core, but also to foster these questions of, “How do you know?” “What strategy did you use to get your answer?” or “explain your thinking.” Then I thought about when I taught for the DoDEA in Guam and we used Backwards Design for lessons. I also had a closer look at Backwards Design in my curriculum writing class at USD. One important point I took away from writing lessons using Backwards design is that the answer to your questions you want you students to know at the end of the lesson should not have an answer that can be googled. If the question can be googled then it is not provocative and will not be remembered by the students’ long term. Using Backwards Design and Common Core will help to push schools in the direction that needs to occur. There is still a need for school, but what it looks like needs to change based on technology and current job market. We are no longer working in factories and therefore, memorizing facts are not needed.

Digital Pedagogy

http://www.tildee.com/W6KV5i

Stop Stealing Dreams Book response 3

What is School For? By Seth Godin Sections 36-46 I have read some more of Seth Godin’s Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For? for my Learning and Technology class. Although Godin is a bit repetitive I am still enjoying this reading. Section 36 Godin says “Think about the fact that school relentlessly downplays group work. It breaks tasks into the smallest possible measurable units. It does nothing to coordinate teaching across subjects.” I do not think this is true of all schools. I really believe that with the switch to Common Core that schools in general are trying to teach across subjects. As we see more and more charter schools popping up we will see a shift in how school is run. For example, in Montessori every subject is integrated into another. Section 41 Godin is talking about making students care. He says, “ Can we teach kids to care enough about their dreams that they’ll care enough to develop the judgment, skill, and attitude to make them come true?” I struggle with this very question. Teaching in a Montessori charter school we foster following the child and their interest, which essentially are their dreams. However, I am still not sure how to teach kids to care enough about their dreams and have an attitude to make them come true. Section 42 I really like his comparison of school content and tests to the love of food. Godin poses this question, “ If culture is sufficient to establish what we eat and how we speak and ten thousand other societal norms, why isn’t it able to teach us goal setting and passion and curiosity and the ability to persuade? I wonder if it is not just the influence of culture around us, but the direct people in our lives. Like our parents, friends, close mentors, teachers, grandparents etc. that influence how were learn to be goal setters, and passion or lack there of. After I completed my undergraduate degree I got married and a few years later I had my daughter, while working full time as a teacher abroad in Guam. When we moved to San Diego I wanted to fulfill my goal of going back to school to get my masters. I set that goal many years prior, even before I was married. I can’t help but feel that I learned to be passionate about my job and set goals from my relationships with my parents, and close friends and mentors over my lifetime. So if what Godin says is true that society can’t teach us all these things then where do we learn them? Is it genetic? I just can’t believe that is the answer.

1st chat storify

What is school for? Book reflection: Section 25-35

What is School For? By Seth Godin Sections 25-35

I am continuing to read Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For? For my Learning and Technology class.  I am still enjoying this reading.  Godin makes powerful arguments and has really made me think.

In section 29 The other side of fear is passion really resonated with me.  Godin talks about how there is only two tools for an educator.  The easy one is fear and the other is passion.  “Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being ridiculed”.  As Godin explains that individual passion is hard to fit into the industrial model, like school.  Passion fuels dreams and creates change, but we are not creating  passion in schools right now and by default not fueling a change.         

In section 31 Godin says “Our new civic and scientific and professional life, though, is all about doubt. About questioning the status quo, questioning marketing or political claims, and most of all, questioning what’s next”.  If we want our students to question then our schooling model needs to resemble and foster this ability. 

I was reminded of my trip to Tokyo of the last summer by the quote in section 34.  “If a school is seen as a place for encouragement and truth-telling, a place where students go to find their passion and then achieve their goals, it is not a school we would generally recognize, because our schools do none of this”.  Japan’s public schools have taken how society functions and mirrored school and school mirrors society.  There seems to be a definite overlap, that what they are teaching in school is relevant to the real world.  Students take responsibility for cleaning the schools, they don’t have any custodial staff, which you not see in the U.S. public schools.  Omoi is a term that is learned early on in the Japanese culture.  It has to do with your passion and your drive.  If you were to ask anyone what their omoi is for their job they would tell you why they chose that job based on their passion.  When asked why do you go to school many people not just educators would answer that it is for the purpose for completion of a human being. This idea of completing a human being, is not the idea that we would often hear in the U.S.  Often I hear people say we go to school to get a good job.  This is what adults think, and this is what our children think.  They don’t go to school for the love of learning they do it to train for a job.  How in the world can we change this thought and change our schools? I often grapple with this very thought.  How can I make a change, especially when I am just one person.