chapter 8

Communities of Learning seems to be the catch-phrase that is going around in education circles. Though there are a number of ways in which collaborative learning and cooperative learning can benefit students I think that there needs to be a balance of collaborative or cooperative learning and learning that is done independently. I don't want to sound heretical but I think that the traditional view of cognition does have some merit to it. I think it is important and necessary that educators critically think about ways to incorporate both views of cognition and learning (individual and social). Having too much of one or the other doesn't seem, at least to me, to be the best approach to teaching students.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 illustrates very well the 21st century skill of knowing how to navigate all of the information that is available for students. The one statistic that is astounding to me is the one that states that more information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5000 years. We truly are living in the information age.
Teaching students to be critical researchers/thinkers is not more necessary than ever. The process of being an information user is not linear. Nor can it be expected that teaching students in a linear fashion will yield the best results.
Something that stuck out to me was the concept of the WebQuest and integrating that into classroom learning. Being able to design learning opportunities that bring the whole process of teaching students to become effective users of information is both challenging, but also super engaging/effective for the students.

Reflections Chapter 6 and 9

One of the most important points that I think the author made in regards to designing literacy instruction is the idea that instructors should choose relevant contents taken from student interests and the larger social context. How many times have we come across curriculum that did not pertain to our students' interests or were relevant to them?
An example of a really good lesson that I read about involved a teacher who used the youth culture of her classroom to improve her students' ability to articulate who they were with poetry. Two aspects that were addressed in the process of using youth culture were the need for students to develop a critical lens with which to view youth culture and dominant society, and the need to incorporate academic skills, or traditional, authoritative literature, into the curriculum.
Appealing to the youth culture of the classroom, the teacher used several songs from the an important popular culture and hip-hop icon, Tupac Shakur, as his contested life as both an articulate poet and a "gangsta thug" exemplifies the "hybridity" in which many youth are drawn to and offers an important example of the way in which educators can design literacy instruction to best benefit students.

Chapter 9 I thought was a good reminder about the state of education in America today. The phrase "teaching to the test" seems to be synonymous with many public school curricula today. With NCLB policies being enforced in public schools, it almost feels as if these alternative assessment methods would at best be supplemental forms of assessment. When push comes to shove, teachers/students/schools get evaluated based on the students' test scores. Much of the different alternative assessment practices seem like they would best fit independent schools that weren't restricted by the NCLB policies that public schools are subject to.

Chapter 5 discussion

This chapter talks about problem solving as a general set of heuristics (memory, information-extending processes, and information-rearranging processes), which must be linked with content-specific knowledge. This can best be done by using an anchor for instruction. Problem-centered approaches are good ways to build anchors for instruction.

Additionally, the crux of the the chapter seems to be about the ABC's of problem solving design: Authentic activity, Building knowledge, Constructing activities, and Sharing activities. I agree with all of the points the authors bring up about the importance of the ABC's of design and especially appreciate her explanation of the Authentic activity.

"Authentic activity is defined as the ordinary practices of a culture. Authentic activity is important for learners because it is the only way they gain access to the standpoint that enables practitioners to act meaningfully and purposefully in solving problems related to their practice."

I feel like many teachers lose their students' attention and motivation because they do not do a good job of providing authentic activities for them. Being more reflective about relevant authentic activities by asking questions such as "How do people use this particular type of knowledge in the work?" can serve to produce more engaging and effective curriculum.

Chapter 4 Designs for Knowledge

One of the key takeaways I got from this chapter involved the point that there is a great need for today's learners to understand the structures and processes of a discipline rather than a mass of facts or a sequence of events.

"Facts, concepts, and theories are the grist of the disciplinary thinker, but it is the 'lens' of the discipline that empowers students to interpret their world. Supporting students as they extract a discipline’s characteristic observations and inferences and habits of mind from the grist of facts and concepts and adapt them as their own is the central goal of designs for knowledge" (Pg.73).

I think of this in religious terms, specifically in Christianity. Growing up in a religious family, I was taught very early on that it was of the utmost importance to memorize certain versus of the Bible and all of the Ten Commandments as a way to become a "better" Christian. I think missing in all of this was someone explaining to me how being able to look at my surrounding world through the "lens" of Jesus' life on earth would have been a far better way for me to understand Christianity and the importance of it in the context I was in. Rather than just attempting to memorize and retain facts and concepts in my mind, I think the central goal should have been to try and think and act as Jesus would have.

Reflections for 6/9/09

I felt that the chapters from the book do a good job of demonstrating why, in light of contemporary developments in cognitive theory, many of the old learning models and instructional design principles are inappropriate. The chapter questions the traditional efficiency model of technology instruction by contrasting the main tenets of behavioral theory with recent advances in human cognition. An important distinction is developed between the nature of learning in and outside of school, and the work of Resnick (1987) highlights the limitations of traditional classrooms.

Surprisingly, the authors don't seem to make much use of Vygotsky (1978) other than to mention the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Hopefully, his theory will be discussed more in detail in the chapters to follow considering much of the authors' thesis is built upon new models of intelligence, the power of today's electronic technologies, and Vygotsky's social cognition learning theory.

The funniest video ever!