Education Could Transform in the Wake of COVID 19 But it Probably Won't

Check out the 7th grade e-learning plan from a local school district.
Do you notice the nice mix of technology and non-tech work?
Do you see the choice?

Wouldn't it be great if education was more like this?

I'm not saying kindergartners can be expected to work with this level of autonomy. I'm also sure many parents are working their butts off trying to keep their kids motivated and doing something constructive. To this end I'm sure many parents are sacrificing work. I also have to admit, in my own house my kids are not being very productive.  That being said wouldn't it be great if schools transitioned to this model as the standard rather than the exception? Not the work from home model, but the choice and independent work as the rule rather than the exception.

What if the expectation was that students would be spending the bulk of their time in a classroom working independently? What if students had projects all the time? Big ones, small one, individual assignments, and group assignments, and anything in between. What if they were asked to explore the almost limitless knowledge gathering dust on the internet first, then asked to apply it, and then got feedback from the teacher? What if we only gave feedback and not grades until the students felt they mastered a topic. Can we change the gradebook so students and parents could see the progression of work and feedback with a rubric and examples good bad and ugly so they have an idea of what high quality work looked like?

I don't know about you, but when I try to give a short ten minute example on the board it always turns into a 30 minute tooth extraction, mostly because I can never get more than half the class to pay attention at the same time.

When students in my class don't know an answer more often than not the response seems to be, let me chat with my friend. I'm mean what is that? Not a raised hand, Mr. Murphy how do you do this? Not asking said friend if they know how to do this. Not even a quick search on the internet. Just an off task chat and annoyance when they are asked to get to work. Or sometimes the other extreme, after explaining in detail the task ahead, giving an example or two, writing the directions down, as soon as I release student to work I'm inundated with questions and no I can't start until you answer my question. What do you mean I'm third in line already can't you see I jumped out of my seat the second you stopped teaching to ask you a question. Fine then I'll talk to my friend.

In my school students are always surprised when I give them permission to look things up on the internet. I'd love it if, when they pulled out their phone, it was to google how to do the day's work, not to FaceTime someone in another classroom.

I know, I'm supposed to teach these things, and I could do a better job. The thing is, we aren't consistent. Some teachers are all about giving students the freedom to use their independent brains to explore and expand their learning, but why does everyone always assume its wrong if they don't get the answers from the teacher?

Is I do, We do, You do. the best method of teaching? I find getting past the I do stage gets harder and harder as the year progresses. Students learn, if they never actually do the We Do part nothing happens and they don't have to do the You Do part. Well they fail, but they aren't making that connection.

And does any curriculum really get into this project, problem based teaching? Well yes, but not the one we use. To be fair I have been told problem based learning is part of the plan. I've also been on standards based grading committees. I also built a curriculum from scratch using projects (it needs a lot of work). yet here I am using a curriculum that doesn't have any projects.

So I go back to the beginning. What if school were like this COVID-19 interruption? What if students were given choices every week and told to pick one a day? What if they were asked to use a set of resources to explore and learn skills on their own, or with a couple of peers? What if they got feedback but no grades? What if the teacher was a knowledge base of last resort?

Could we do this in kindergarten? Yes, with a modification. The last time I was in a kindergarten classroom we spent quite a bit of time in centers, thanks to parent volunteers. What if the school set up the expectation that students would learn to be more and more independent each year so that by the time they were in high school almost all of their work was independent or group projects and almost no teacher directed learning? What if they could miss a day, or even a week of class time, but still be productive and learn? What if...


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