Listening to the lecture by Dr. Gee, several key ideas became evident. The first implied idea is that students are learning, just not necessarily in the school setting. In his speech he discussed the knowledge kids should have in order to be successful in card and video games. He identifies the card game, Yu-gi-oh and reflects on the complex language skills children would need to be masterful at the game. He calls this the "capitalist" being better at teaching than the schools are. His second big idea is that schools and learning need to be motivational, more applicable and more meaningful to students. I agree with him on both ideas. It is not that we need to necessarily make school more "fun", it's that as educators we need to reform how we approach teaching. Darling-Hammond also broaches this subject in her final chapter. She addresses the need to modernize teaching to make "thoughtful... content and skills needed for success in the 21st century..."
So where to begin? Both lecturers note that the current state of assessment clearly is not working. Dr. Gee muses that simply changing the test will not help, as it is human nature to teach directly to the exam. Rather, he would like to see a marriage of learning and assessment. In that the teaching and learning are so rich, and accessible that the assessment naturally presents itself. Darling-Hammond notes in her section on Meaningful Learning Goals, that assessment needs to actually assess real-world abilities. In my own classroom, I see the need to adjust my instruction. For math, I find that the students are better able to understand complex ideas if they have an example of its application. For example, when recently discussing percents in my math blocks, they could not understand how an 18% tip at a restaurant would change the final total. While many of them understand taxes, etc. it wasn't until they actually had to budget for it in a sample scenario did it finally make sense. It is clear that my job is make more of math applicable and accessible to my students, rather than here is your formula, now solve situations. While this may not be a 21st century skill, it is certainly a skill that needs to be developed.
2 Comments
Diana
10/30/2017 10:59:07 pm
I also have students with similar deficits, It's not enough to provide a math formula to solve a problem, It makes more sense for them, if I can connect it to a practical example. What are you doing differently to keep your students motivated during math?
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Heather
10/31/2017 06:39:16 pm
If we were taught math like we teach today, I think I would have been more successful in math! It wasn't until I took math for educator classes that I finally understood a lot of concepts. Real world math instead of memorization!
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