As I am gathering more and more information, looking at more and more sources, I am getting scared. I feel totally lost in my own ambition and do not know what I am searching for anymore. But did I really ever know?
First, I had a huge problem with how teachers teach. ( I still do, don't get me wrong) I thought I wanted to change teacher's perspective on learning in order for them to improve teaching techniques. I believe they hold an enormous responsibility in how we are brought up to really think. Like I said earlier in my blog, they are totally extracting the entire thinking process that we are supposed to brought up to learn. We are not supposed to be learning how to use certain formulas. But instead, how to think about the problems. Analyze the problems. And in that way, we can solve anything. Not just a certain problem with a certain solution.
So in order to fix this, I wanted the entire teaching front to change. And somehow I was going to do that. But, my scope was too big. So I wanted to shift the focus. I wanted to help students take responsibility for their own learning. Imagine that. More students with more motivation and determination. They would want to see how stuff works, and how to analyze any problem, whether in sentence structure, or in calculus. So, then I was thinking to come up with a plethora of strategies to help students understand all types of information presented in all types of ways and most importantly, retain it.
2. List of Possible Directions this project can take me
A. Changing the way teachers teach
- manual
- video compilation of all the visits and my analyzations as audio
- present new methods for taking in information
- differential learning/instruction
- 3Ds: Design, Delivery, Device
- flip the CIA (Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment)
- a new way of viewing the classroom
- Choice Architecture: create an environment where anything student chooses is a win:win (within curriculum)
- Project part: Compare multiple teachers for different age groups in different school districts that are doing this RIGHT-- video montage/ multimedia presentation of the genius in Daniel Pink's work
-- Mr. Chinosi's suport/writing workshop with Choice Architecture: kid was given opportunity to write about anything. After some days, she exclaimed, "I need more words!" --> So what?: She understood the importance of learning vocabulary.
-- Education is essentially about how you think. Do you have the right angle to approach any complex situation? Can you use your skills to apply to many situations? That is what makes someone smart. Not if they can memorize the list of new vocab for the quiz on Monday. I mean, good for them, but what use will that list be to you if you did not find meaning in it? That is, in fact, a waste of your potential. We all do have the potential to become fabulous thinkers. Mr. Chinosi's student felt the need to master vocabulary in order to do better (get Mastery, gave her purpose, and most importantly, it was not fed to her, she got there on her own).
3. Beginning the turnaround- Week Six
I have been looking at a huge range of sources consisting of articles, books, and speaking to educators that I feel get it right. After watching the documentary, Waiting for Superman, and receiving critique from Chinosi, I see that I cannot simply focus on details about teaching and learning and string them together to see what I come out with. I need to look at the BIG PICTURE. Looking at essentially how schools are set up, and what problems arise from them. Then, as a go into classroom visits, I assume I will be noticing patterns in the ways things fail. I predict that could be student motivation, teachers' laziness, discipline, layout of the lesson plan, etc. Then, for my paper, I plan to pick out the most predominant and come up with a potential solution. Yes. A high school senior can find a way to fix public schooling. I have taken on the mission. I don't think I will be going to City Hall and applying my mission. But at least I will have published work on the matter, that if a politician is interested, they can use it. As of now, I am starting to find more problems. I do not consider that "gathering" still. I find that to be analyzation. I will still be looking for and sifting through new sources and building up my body of work for the final presentation.
4. Wednesday of Week Six- more freaking out to be done!
Since I have struggled to find the focus of my project and have bounced between sources relating to my focus, I'm now struggling with the Lit Review because I do not know what is relevant anymore. I'm frustrated writing about what isn't necessarily relevant and then having to change it as I gather more sources that are relevant to what my current focus. I just don't feel like I am even close to being an expert in my topic and it's hanging over my head.
5. Still Wednesday- Presentation Daydreaming
"In our society, I have observed and taken part in something I like to call, "The Quick Fix." What is the quick fix? It's exactly what you probably think it is- a fast and easy solution. We want these every day. I like to just heat up a Trader Joe's dinner instead of actually making mac and cheese balls myself- a fairly easy dish to start with. Others like asking Siri for a good fro-yo shop. Some even like learning through YouTube instead of through old fashioned online articles. We want to get our answers fast.
That has turned us into what I have labeled as, "A Compromised Society." We are lazy. This has completely flowed into our school systems, creating more compromised and lazy students. No one is angry when a formula is given to them in math class. All you have to do is just keep plugging numbers in, straight through to the test. Then, when the final exam rolls around, you know what you get as a reward for all your hard work? A note card. This blank note card is a student's dream. They get to write all the formulas they couldn't memorize onto this note card in order to continue to plug in numbers on their final.
I would like to be clear. I do not oppose the note card. I love the note card. I am against the meaning of the note card and all the steps before it. I oppose the fact that I have flowed through my math classes, and I have been frustrated. I get this formula. I 'plug-n-chug' as the text book says. Then, the next day, I am handed a slightly different version of the problem the next day and I have no idea where to begin. Now, why is that?
I have not gotten the chance to even ponder the formula. I do not understand why this formula is important. I have no idea what the variables even mean or where they came from. This is all because, my class and I did not derive the formula. Deriving formulas, from experience, is a torturous and malicious time in the classroom for everyone involved. Students are confused. My solution was to not even bother thinking about it, not even fight with the teacher on dragging out this tedious time, but I just shut up. I kept my mouth shut and waited until someone arbitrarily guessed the right formula.
Now, I consider myself a slightly more motivated student. I would get my formula and then as I am told to, I plug-n-chug, I am figuring out what each variable means and what it stands for. That is how I stayed afloat through my lovely thirteen years in the Newton Public Schools. If any one gave me a sheet of paper with any algebra or geometry problem from the past four years, I would only be able to solve the computation problems. The factoring and quadratics. This type of math as Dan Meyer put is, "really easy to relearn provided you have a really strong grounding in reasoning..."
Reasoning requires thinking. It is the part of mathematics that is crucial to the understanding of the world around us. A common complaint coming from students is, "how will I use this in my life?" Reasoning answers that question very simply because it is giving us practice in thinking. If we are not trained for thinking, we end up using Siri for everything.
Our job market is changing. As Ilya Rifkin states, "there is a stark demand for someone that can genuinely think." We need reasoning more than ever. We are outdated. This is not the Industrial Revolution and all you need is a good pair of hands trained for the factory. We need minds that are trained to be constantly reasoning and thinking. I hope this is no surprise to anyone, but the world is a big place full of problems that we solve. Our math education is essential for preparing us to be better equipped for the world that we will emerge into.
So if I go to the 12th best public school in Massachusetts, why is there a math enrichment program down the street that has close 2,000 kids enrolled in the Newton branch, and has seven other locations in Massachusetts and two others in California? What do these programs have that the best public school systems do not have to offer?
6.
8. This Sunday, March 18, 2012, I went to a Simmons Accepted Students Open House. I had the opportunity to attend a mock class with Joy Bettencourt, an education teacher at the school. The class was titled, "Global Awareness and Individual Perspective: Activity- Based Teaching Strategies." I saw this excellent video that gave an inside look to a middle school math classroom with a truly gifted teacher that gets the brain thinking in a unique way. Here is a snip-it of how this gifted teacher, Miss. Toliver, teachers.
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