Bobbitt, Franklin. "Scientific Method in Curriculum-Making" Public Domain, Preferance and Chapter VI in Franklin Bobbitt, The Curriculum, Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1918.
Both Bobbitt and Dewey’s articles spoke of what they believed education should look like. Bobbitt sought to define curriculum objectives in terms of social shortcomings, whereas, Dewey viewed education as the social processes an individual must undertake, and the school as the social institution in which these experiences could be had. Both of these articles were written in a very similar time, Bobbitt’s in 1918 and Dewey’s in 1929, however their ideas were different. Even though they had differing views, one thing that stood out to me is the fact that both Bobbitt and Dewey spoke very confidently in their beliefs. With multiple viewpoints on education, how do we know whose ideas are the ‘right’ ones to follow? Early in my teaching career I believed that there was a single educational model which was superior to all other models, but now I realize that there is value to having multiple models for students to choose from, such as: public schools, Montessori schools, Outdoors schools, Waldorf schools, and more. Although there are such choices, in order for a student to move on to a post-secondary school, a student must graduate from a high school which follows the government mandated curriculum. This is where I feel the system needs to change. Perhaps as Cochran-Smith and Lytle mention in their book ‘Inquiry as a Stance’, the issue needs to be addressed starting at the University level, because as it stands our current model of High School is a set of hoops that students need to jump through in order to get into post-secondary schools. So my question is how can our education system offer a variety of educational choices, such as Independent Schools, yet still ensure that students are able to attend post-secondary schools? Dewey, John. "My Pedagogic Creed," Journal of the National Education Association, Vol. 18, No. 9, pp. 291-295, December 1929.
Bobbitt, Franklin. "Scientific Method in Curriculum-Making" Public Domain, Preferance and Chapter VI in Franklin Bobbitt, The Curriculum, Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1918.
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“Why do I have to learn this? When will I ever use it in real life?” These are the questions echoing off my classroom walls. In my first year of teaching these questions always flustered me, I would spend hours in my spare time trying to relate each Achievement Indicator to a real life example. I wanted to be able to answer my students swiftly and confidently, I wanted to be able to shut down any doubt that they had about the meaning of their education. To combat this I had posters listing the types of jobs that require a knowledge of math and science, I created math problems and science inquiries on real life experiences and I had students’ interview family members on their daily uses of math. But, if I’m being totally honest, I didn’t always have the answer. Then one day I had an epiphany, it isn’t about what students are learning, it is about how students are learning. Kieran Egan in ‘What is curriculum?’ explores this very shift from a historical standpoint in which he outlines a change in the definition of curriculum over time from what is to be learned and in what time frame, to how curriculum should be learned. The truth is, a student may in fact never use much of what they learn in their adult life, but it is the skill set that they obtain through learning the material that they will carry with them for life. So now when a student asks me “When will I ever use this in real life?” my answer is honest “You are right, you may never have to know this specific fact in ‘real life’, but you will use the skills you are obtaining through the process of learning, which include but are not limited to: problem solving, perseverance, time management, stress management, social skills, leadership skills and reliability.” No student has ever argued this answer, they are in total agreement, and they finally understand why they are learning what they’re learning. While I am happy that I can finally satisfy the students’ questions, I become concerned with the fact that the students did not already know this. This is where I’d argue curriculum is failing our students. Cochran-Lytle and Smith say that the education system hasn’t changed in over a century, and that it is high time the emphasis on fact memorization be removed. While I have been telling my students that their education relies on the skills they learn through education experiences, the curriculum has not truly reflected this. This is where I feel the curriculum needs to shift towards including more dialog on how students learn. Egan says the definition of curriculum has had too much emphasis on what in the past, and that although there has been a shift towards how it is more important that we find a balance between the two. The new BC Curriculum mandate is certainly a step in this direction, in which the numerous Achievement Indicators have been reduced to overarching themes called ‘Big Ideas’ which are broken down into specifics as ‘Content’. This reduction in what the curriculum is to cover was much needed, but it is the addition of the ‘Curriculum Competencies’ that is the most exciting part of the new curriculum. It outlines how students will be learning and demonstrating their learning, while still allowing for the freedom of the teacher to interpret. The new curriculum also includes the addition of indigenous knowledge. As a white woman with no indigenous heritage, I worry about both what to teach and how to teach indigenous content. My instinct is to lean towards a ‘move to innocence’, a concern that Tuck and Yang say is a step in the wrong direction for the decolonization of indigenous peoples. While I am in unfamiliar territory on how to address the indigenous curriculum, I think that this addresses a third feature of curriculum, and that is who the curriculum is for. So after all this reflection, what is curriculum? Curriculum is ever changing; curriculum needs to be debated on, questioned, and changed to reflect the needs of society. Curriculum is both what and how students learn, and it is also who the learning is for. So what is your curriculum? Egan, K. What is curriculum? In Gibson, S. (Ed.) (2012). Canadian curriculum studies: Trends, issues and influences. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press.
Tuck, E., & Yang, K.W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1). Today we adventured out to explore the pumpkin patch!! Check out what we learned while we were there... This week in Biology we were talking about osmosis so we thought we'd see osmosis in action. Experiment 1 - Egg Osmosis
Experiment 2 - Gummy Bear Osmosis
Bioman Biology is a great site full of excellent biology based virtual games, on topics like cells, ecology, body systems, evolution & classification, genetics and meiosis, life chemistry, respiration & photosynthesis and the scientific method. This is an excellent way to get students to interact with the information, as each game is loaded with facts and information. _ These folders are where I place work that students missed. Each coloured paper is laminated so that I can change the date. These folders save me a lot of time, whenever a student missed a class they know where they can find the handouts that they missed. Each course that I teach has been given a colour. For example Apprenticeship and Workplace Mathematics 11 (AW 11) has been given orange; students store their notebooks and workbooks in the orange bin, they retrieve missed notes from the orange folders and they check the orange notes beside our calendar for any important course reminders.
I can't wait to use this really awesome online tool called BioDigital Human with my Biology 12 students. This site allows you to select and de-select parts of the body arranged in systems or regions. For example take a look at the 3D angle of the digestive system or a heart with angina. Sarah Kay defines Spoken Word Poetry as the idea of “creating poetry that doesn’t just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands that it be heard out loud or witnessed in person.”
Sarah Kay’s mission is to use spoken word poetry to:
Sarah identifies how scary it can be to write poetry and she shares her advice on how to “trick teenagers into writing poetry” by having them write lists instead. The first list she assigns is ’10 Things I Know to be True’; the results of writing such lists is that at some point you would realize four things:
Sarah says that “this is where great stories come from, these four intersections of what you’re passionate about and what others might be invested in.” Sarah uses spoken word poetry to help her students “rediscover wonder, to fight their instincts to be cool and un-phased and instead actively pursue being engaged with what goes on around them so that they can re-interpret and create something from it.” Sarah teaches spoken word poetry because it’s accessible to everyone, she says that it is not necessarily always the ideal art form, but that it is something that everyone is able to do. Watch Sarah Kay’s TED talk titled “If I Should Have a Daughter…” for more inspiration and advice on getting your students to write Spoken Word Poetry. ‘Too much of anything is bad’ this is a very common saying and I feel that it suits the debate about Internet making us smart or stupid/dumb. As soon as I thought of this saying I knew it was a perfect fit, but the first question that came to mind is ‘who said that?’ My instinct is to immediately turn to the Internet and Google it!
So who should I reference when I’m using the saying ‘Too much of anything is bad’? According to Google quite a few people have made reference to this saying and modifications of this saying, but it appears that Mark Twain was the influence in this saying with his quote “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough”. Well this is not quite what I had in mind for a quote – in fact it’s kind of disappointing as I really had no intentions on referencing ‘good whiskey’. So, why don’t we get back on track here, is the Internet making us smarter or dumber? To begin thinking about this subject I read an article online called ‘Does the Internet Make you Dumber?’ by N. C arr. This article scared me as it is full of scientific facts about how the Internet is making our society dumber, for example the article states that “The picture emerging from the research is deeply troubling, at least to anyone who values the depth, rather than just the velocity, of human thought. People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read traditional linear text. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. People who are continually distracted by emails, alerts and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time.” By the time I was finished reading this article I was nearly convinced that I should turn off my SmartTV and return my new Galaxy S3 cell phone, as surely both of these devices is holding me back from my full potential! HOWEVER, I did neither of these things. I proceeded to watch Netflix on my SmartTV while Tweeting, text messaging and emailing on my Galaxy S3 AND I opened the link to another article called ‘Does the Internet Make you Smarter?’ by C. Shirky because to be honest, I like the Internet, my cell phone and social media and I DESPERATELY want Internet to be making me smarter…..cause I’m just not ready to give it up. In this article the author compares the media revolution to the 17th century and the invention of the printing press. “The case for digitally-driven stupidity assumes we’ll fail to integrate digital freedoms into society as well as we integrated literacy. This assumption in turn rests on three beliefs: that the recent past was a glorious and irreplaceable high-water mark of intellectual attainment; that the present is only characterized by the silly stuff and not by the noble experiments; and that this generation of young people will fail to invent cultural norms that do for the Internet’s abundance what the intellectuals of the 17th century did for print culture. There are likewise three reasons to think that the Internet will fuel the intellectual achievements of 21st-century society.” So what do I think? I return to the partial quote which states that ‘too much of anything is bad’. I think that the Internet is no exception to this rule – too much Internet is bad. HOWEVER, just the right amount of Internet is good. I think that we should utilize the Internet and tools that use Internet into our classrooms because it is an irreplaceable tool, it allows for information searching, it allows for information creation and BEST of all it allows for information sharing. I think that if used correctly, the Internet can help make our society SMARTER! I recently discovered a SUPER AMAZINGLY AWESOME web app. This app is called Remind101 and it is a one-way mass text messaging service that allows teachers to sign up for FREE! The great thing about this app is that it is RIDICULOUSLY easy! Step 1) Sign up 4 FREE Step 2) Set up a class – NOTE: you can set up multiple classes, this is a great tool to separate each section you have if you are a senior years teacher Step 3) Give your students the code and have them text in the code to sign up for your class. Step 4) Quickly & Easily send out mass-text messages to your students and/or parents This is an app that I have not used before but I am DEFINITELY going to be using it for my upcoming student teaching placement. I am going to have one for each of my classes, it’ll be a great way to send out reminders to students, class updates and even video or web links. The great thing about this app is that it is a safe way for teachers to send mass emails to both students and parents. There is no concern for the teacher about giving out their cell phone number. The downfall to the app is that students cannot reply to the messages. Overall a great app that I totally recommend. |
AuthorI am Ms. Jennifer Adams, I am a high school teacher in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Archives
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