I found this article to be really interesting and several things jumped out at me. First I will address the learner side of things and the particular points that jumped out at me.
The first was point #2 How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know. I think this is a huge challenge in today's classroom. Kids today, I think, have shorter attention spans because of all the options available to them. They have over 250 digital cable channels, MySpace, Facebook, millions of YouTube videos, downloadable content, online TV, streaming video and audio, MMORPGs, virtual battles with opponents half-way around the world.... and more. I definitely think this affects how the learn, process and store information. I imagine alot of their connections are more random connections than organized systems, especially for middle school children who are all about learning who they are and very social to boot. This defiantly will have an impact on the classroom.
I also found 4 and 5 about teaching the skills and then the students how to know when to use it challenging. I find perhaps to be the most challenging thing we do as teachers. I especially think middle school is probably the hardest level because the kids are so social and all over the place. Actually, looking back at the article now... pretty much all of them are so intertwined that I'm impressed the researcher was able to pull them apart and describe them so well.
For the teaching piece, #4 (Effective teaching involves prioritizing the knowledge and skills we choose to focus on) is the one that strikes closest to home for me. I am teaching in a relatively new subject area for me and trying a lot of new things this year. My school is trying making a big literacy push across the board. I have been reading a lot of books and talking a lot with our school reading specialist. My thing is how much to bite off this year... because I know I can't do it all and also struggling with the feeling like I should be doing more.
Additionally, my school is also making the switch to standards based grading (or really... shouldn't it be called assessment). We all need to cover X amount of standards in each class in each grade. This ties into the piece about having a universal set of expectations. So while I think it's a great idea and I love it, I'm still concerned about how it will all work.
This is what I was thinking about after reading the article. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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Recently I've heard and read much about taking advantage of the media focus of 21st Century Learners. Think about the things that make these media appeal to kids: clear goals, timely and appropriate feedback, recognition, reward. How can we use technology and teaching practices to incorporate these features in our classrooms?
ReplyDeleteShawn,
ReplyDeleteI agree that kids have incredibly short attention spans. I attribute it to a couple different factors, the amount of commercials during a 30 minute show (just when you start getting into a program and can concentrate on it, it goes to commercial), instantaneous gratification - nobody waits for anything anymore (you can instant message or text, DVR, hulu and watch what you want when you want). Try telling a adolescent that they can wait to text someone, it's not the end of the world if they have to wait to respond to a text.
A couple years ago, my daughter was a senior in high school. On the eve of the 2nd day of school, we rushed her to the hospital and she received an emergency appendectomy. She was texting her friends while doubled over - writhing in pain on the way to the hospital. I did not think she was as ill as she was since she was texting. I just don't get it.
Count how many people, not just young, are talking on their cell phones while driving. Do they really think they are that important? Are they carrying the "launch codes" and need to be in constant contact with some other important person?