Week 7 - Apprenticeships and authenticity in learning
"In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn." - Phil Collins
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Regardless of your educational philosophy, it is well known that best practices in K-12 education point toward collaboration, authentic learning experiences, and in scaffolding educational experiences to benefit the learners. Looking at the statistics in Brown et al, it's undeniable that the process of encouraging students to take the role as teacher, especially in the context of reading comprehension, can benefit the students in the ability to transfer the process to the next paragraph or reading task.
Reading the sample conversation, however, I wonder if the authenticity discussed in the article on apprenticeship is there. With so much quality content available, the article about crows seems odd. Are the students especially interested in crows? Would an article or story about a child their age or a favorite music star, or a video game they are interested in be more appropriate? I got the sense from the response from some students (ie "Anything need to be clarified?" "No." and "Ain't no questions in here.") that there may be a lack of interest, and maybe a lack of authenticity.
I do think the small group approach is great when looking at the apprenticeship process in learning - teachers know how THEY learn, and maybe have some ideas how others may learn, but the participation by several students can open up more ideas and cognitive processes that exist that the others may not have considered, including the teacher. Learning is personal, and it would be a mistake to let students believe there is only one correct way to make connections with text.
Overall, I think that when designing outcomes, assessments, activities in the classroom, teachers SHOULD think about their thought process and find ways to guide students through this. The statistics prove that it is a successful process in learning and will transfer to other learning situations.
This is very deepen reflection about the authentic learning and real classroom situation. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to agree the benefits of discovering learning such as authentic learning, but doubt its applicability to the real classroom. We agree that students can learn by teaching peers and themselves. We think that students can learn more if they actively participate in the learning activities. However, this learning approach is not being used in a real classroom.
Why? The number of students in one classroom is the biggest barrier of applying this learning to the classroom?
Best,
Sunmi
Hi Sunmi -
DeleteHonestly, after the discussions in week 8, I think there are a number of barriers. If k-12 instructors simply had to teach, they could incorporate all of these best practices, but they have to manage and organize and discipline and parent and communicate etc. So many different hats are worn before teaching can even get to the top of the list.
When I was teaching, I had students that hadn't eaten before school, who were exhausted from being up all night due to young siblings or children or poor parental supervision - these students weren't in a position to learn, they were in survival mode.
This is where some of the taxonomies come in - being aware of where a learner starts can help us bridge the gap to where they need to be to be successful. These learners are, however, very aware of real life problems that they will have to solve, so incorporating that sort of message can be very effective.
When I was teaching college English, some of my students' best papers were on topics they were already interested in (favorite musicians, arguing for the legalization of marijuana, just to name a few)! You point is well taken that the topic should be tailored to be authentic for students when possible. Will they eventually have to write about something they may find dry or boring? Sure, but in my case, I was trying to get them understand the mechanics of academic writing (citing sources, writing a thesis statement, creating transitional phrases, etc.), and they could certainly learn the structure while writing about something they found highly interesting. Once they had the structure down pat, they could apply that later to writing about things that might require more of a cognitive load, and the good news is that they'd be so practiced at the formatting and structure by then that they could give their full cognitive abilities to the content.
ReplyDeleteWe did a lot of think-pair-share in my class, and I used to tell my students that the best way to know if you really understand something is to try to explain it to someone else. Try to explain it and note where you get hung up. That's where you need to go back and review. That said, I really empathize with your point that teachers don't just get to teach. I recall doing my teaching practicum in a high school class, and the teacher kept granola bars in her desk drawers for the hungry students and had a desk in the back of the room where the tired ones could take a cat nap. It's hard to make room for best practices when your students are just trying to survive.
This is one of the biggest secrets in education and one that the legislators and decision makers don't realize. It's also one of the biggest cases against cameras in the classroom - all of this non-educational stuff that happens that is SO important and impactful, but could be humiliating to students.
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