STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

Regular updates and musings on curriculum and technology in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA.

Unlearning

In his article, “The Steep Unlearning Curve,” Will Richardson suggests 10 things we need to unlearn in education. What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Is there any thing you would add to the list?

1. We need to unlearn the idea that we are the sole content experts in the classroom, because we can now connect our kids to people who know far more than we do about the material we’re teaching.
2. We need to unlearn the premise that we know more than our kids, because in many cases, they can now be our teachers as well.
3. We need to unlearn the idea that learning itself is an event. In this day and age, it is a continual process.
4. We need to unlearn the strategy that collaborative work inside the classroom is enough and understand that cooperating with students from around the globe can teach relevant and powerful negotiation and team-building skills.
5. We need to unlearn the idea that every student needs to learn the same content when really what they need to learn is how to self-direct their own learning.
6. We need to unlearn the notion that our students don’t need to see and understand how we ourselves learn.
7. We need to unlearn our fear of putting ourselves and our students “out there” for we’ve proven we can do it in safe, relevant and effective ways.
8. We need to unlearn the practice that teaches all students at the same pace. Is it any wonder why so many of our students love to play online games where they move forward at their own pace?
9. We need to unlearn the idea that we can teach our students to be literate in this world by continually blocking and filtering access to the sites and experiences they need our help to navigate.
10. We need to unlearn the premise that real change can happen just by rethinking what happens inside the school walls and understand that education is now a community undertaking on many different levels.

Comments

Sometimes I think we have to rethink the entire education process entirely.  What we really learn about teaching comes when we do it, not from coursework.  Most of it comes from learning how to deal with these kids, and some of that takes years.  My students are so technologically savvy that I am intimidated, but my passion is reading, and although I regret that books seem to take a backseat to technology, if my students will read from a screen, they are still reading.  And if technology allows them to communicate with and start to understand people from around the globe, I’m for it.  I wish I were as comfortable with it as kids are.  But the important issues remain the same.  Our society has been made smaller with technology and allows us to communicate globally.  Learning from each other is what it’s all about.

1.  Global connections mean that my students can communicate with an astronaut, an author, pioneers in the field of technology and mashups—quite literally anyone.  All I need to do is make those connections come alive for my students.
2.  Every day I learn something new from my students.  Last Thursday, a 10th grader showed me an encryption program he and a friend made for fun, just because they could.  I was impressed with the product and the lesson that made encryption comprehendible to me at last.  On Friday another student showed me how to convert and compress a video to make it iPod ready.  A small but growing group of students participate after school [7-8 PM] in DEN webinars.  Six of them are joining us for the Dan Pink webinar and several are joining us for the Gaming and Virtual Reality videoconference after school.
3.  Learning is collaborative, constructionist, 24/7, transparent.  Any time, any where [my new Blackberry Curve gives me the world and GPS too].  Amen.
4.  Collaborative learning inside the classroom is a starting point, but with classrooms without walls, collaboration is truly global with a teacher’s focus and outreach.  Just tweet your twitter group and you can find international learning partnerships faster than CILC.
5.  With CFF initiatives, the playing field is leveled for all students to access and direct their learning portals.  Teacher-directed structured choice is important, but our roles shift to facilitating students’ awareness of self-directed learning.  Will Richardson’s blog about using pageflakes as a student portal delivers the potential we as teachers can leverage in assisting students to craft their professional development.  Check this link: http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/using-pageflakes-as-student-portal/.  And if you are thinking that merging Reading Apprenticeship and Technology initiatives is possible only by adding templates, this model rethinks that paradigm and truly integrates interdisciplinary, multi-genre reading to technology—seamlessly.
6.  How we learned then is not how anyone learns now.  It’s a very simple concept, really.
7.  Agreed.  AMEN.
8.  Put any random 10 teachers in a room and then watch them learn.  I’m willing to bet that it will not be at the same pace.  And we expect that from our students—why? 
9.  Thank you, Will Richardson. 
10.  Learning is about navigating our way through learning communities to create learning networks.

To the list I would add:

11.  We need to unlearn the practice that content remediation occurs in a same page, same way delivery system because our students do learn digitally, in and out of school.
12.  We need to unlearn the notion that all teachers learn at the same pace, especially in technology integration.  Real professional development happens when all teachers are engaged at their learning level and not put on hold until catch up occurs.

Add a comment