This week, I had the opportunity to examine learning, failing, and making and how these ideas tie into my professional learning context. In my current position, I run the media centers for both middle schools in my district, as well, I help both students and teachers with technology integration within the classroom setting. Being the only person who holds my position within the district, I have found myself on numerous committees examining what our new middle school will look like as my district works on designing and building a new building to combine both schools. One of the purposes of these committees is to address how our students going to learn and what can and how we will ensure the success of all students.
In the middle school setting, we often find that students are socially promoted without ever mastering the content of their current grade level. They have not learned the basics or have the foundation that is necessary for them to go to the next grade level and be successful. Due to this, we are looking at overhauling how we teach our students to ensure that they are gaining the necessary skills to be successful as they continue throughout their school career and beyond.
I recently watched a video, “Constructionism.” In the video, Udacity points out that “constructionism is really about putting the learner in the center of learning activities, and having them actually construct an understanding of whatever concept we are trying to teach them.” Since I was a preservice teacher, I have always found a strong tie to the ideals of constructionism. However, as new teaching initiatives are introduced and implemented and constraints of standardized testing come about, it is easy to stray from these ideals back to a more teacher-centered style of teaching and learning. However, we are focusing on how to help students gain a strong understanding of the concepts. Over the next few years, we are moving back to putting the learner in the center of learning activities. We are going to shift our entire curriculum to a multi-age, competency-based platform that heavily relies on Project and Problem Based Learning (PBL).
This shift will put learning back into the hands of students! Students will have more control over choosing the path their learning will take which will in turn help to drive student engagement and ownership of their work. Currently, I find that I struggle to get students to come into the Makers Spaces that I have set up in the media centers. This shift will help drive students to become active makers. I find that my students currently struggle with making because they have a huge fear of failure. Throughout their school career, we have not taught students that it is ok to fail as long as they learn from the failure and try again. Too often, when students fail at something it is simply a failure and then they move on to the next assignment or concept. By shifting our learning style for students we also have the ability to help them overcome this fear of failure which will in turn allow them to explore the world around them in more creative ways and allow them to see themselves as Makers.
By shifting our teaching style, we will help students gain a better understanding of the concepts being taught and how they can be active participants in gaining this understanding. According to Bransford et al. (2000), “In order for learners to gain insight into their learning and their understanding, frequent feedback is critical: students need to monitor their learning and actively evaluate their strategies and their current levels of understanding “ (p. 78). Shifting to PBL will allow staff members more time to help students self-reflect on what worked for them and what did not. This will also allow students the opportunity to go back and learn from their mistakes and try again to gain a better understanding of the concept.
Overall, I am excited about this shift in teaching and cannot wait to work with students and teachers to find a path that works for everyone and to see students make stronger achievements through making and learning from their failures. Check out my self-reflection on these topics!
References:
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington: National Academy Press.
Bridges, M. (2020, July 5). Melissa Bridges teaching self reflection. [image]. Canva.
Jarmoluck, M. Innovation business information presentation graph. [image]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/images/id-561388/
Surviving middle school is tough. [gif]. Tenor. https://tenor.com/view/middle-school-middle-school-is-tough-surviving-middle-school-gif-12389458
Udacity (2016, June 6). Constructionism. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qsiqetMlCg
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