Category: Uncategorized

  • Learning to Perform in the World

    This is an extremely thought-provoking blog entry from Grant Wiggins (one of the authors of Understanding By Design) that questions much of the conventional wisdom underlying curriculum design in schools.  I particularly appreciated the following questions:

    • If curriculum is a tour through what is known, how is knowledge ever advanced?
    • If learning requires a didactic march through content, why are movies and stories so memorable – often, more memorable than classes we once took?
    • If a primary goal of education is high-level performance in the world going forward, how can marching through old knowledge out of context optimally prepare us to perform?
    • If education is about having core knowledge, and we are more and more teaching and testing all this knowledge, why are results on tests like NAEP so universally poor, showing that over decades American students have not progressed much beyond basic “plug and chug”?

    Building off of Plato, Kant, Piaget, and Dewey, as well as the 8-year study, Wiggins makes a strong case for problem-based learning:

    “…suppose today’s content knowledge is an offshoot of successful ongoing learning in a changing world – in which ‘learning’ means ‘learning to perform in the world.‘”

    Amen!

    Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really.

    by Grant Wiggins

  • Promising research on mindfulness in urban schools.

    Meditation transforms roughest San Francisco schools

    From the article:

    “The research is showing big effects on students’ performance,” says Superintendent Carranza. “Our new accountability standards, which we’re developing in tandem with the other big California districts, emphasize the importance of social-emotional factors in improving kids’ lives, not just academics.

    A good way to describe learning is “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In some cases, learning leads to passion which is how people impact the world. My big question is, what if we don’t even have all the “parts”? Developmental and social-emotional skills and mindsets are just as important to learning as content.

  • What do we actually NEED from education?

    Progress and Proficiency: Redesigning Grading for Competency Education 

    Progress and Proficiency

    by: Chris Sturgis

    Pretty decent paper on traditional grading systems vs. competency grading. It quotes The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined by Salman Khan quite a bit. My critique is this focus on gaps in knowledge. People seem to be so concerned with gaps in knowledge. Here is my perspective. As you get older the importance of the gaps in knowledge goes down because (presumably) your ability to learn goes up. In other words, we start to learn different skills that allow us to learn new things, learn from others, rely on others, work with others, apply different skills, etc. When kids are young, it is really important for them to receive a solid grounding in numeracy and literacy. Some of those basic skills are absolutely necessary in order to construct more advanced knowledge. A 17-18 year old does not need to know chemistry, physics, calculus, advanced algebra, classic literature, the history of everything from 10000bc to now, biology, etc.

    NEED.

    That word is key to this conversation. What do they NEED? My answer? They NEED to be exposed to experiences and opportunities that allow them to find their passion. Gaps in knowledge are allowed and expected.

    The big question? If we assume that’s true…

    What in the world does graduation look like?

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