Right on the Mark: Sharing the Center

The author was right on the money this week. I do not have much to add. As I read through the article I was becoming increasingly concerned. It seemed that the center of the learning environment was becoming quite crowded. Then the concept of alignment was brought up. I couldn't have said it better myself. I still think the two most important considerations should be learner-centered and knowledge-centered. Understanding what knowledge a student brings to the classroom before adding new information is critical. But building upon that knowledge effectively is the challenge. I do not believe we do that well enough today at all. We keep coming back to the discussion on breadth vs. depth. Here's another great example. If we are truly aiming for an effective degree of alignment, or even just aiming for an effective degree of knowledge-centered learning environments, we need to focus on the depth of knowledge we hope learner's will gain. If we really understand the base knowledge a student brings to the start of class, we can teach new material that will be able to stick with the learner thus increasing their knowledge. This is where I think assessment and community applications come in to play. First of all, giving helpful feedback, giving encouraging feedback even when prospects look dim should be done often and without hesitation. Formative assessment is so easy to execute if the teacher simply cares enough to consciously commit him/herself to it. Of course summative assessment is an important tool to evaluate students at the end of a unit of learning; however, summative evaluations mean nothing if there was inadequate formative feedback occurring during the learning process. Drawing connections to the community is something I eluded to many times in my paper. The students who watched the Jasper movies were connected to the outside world by watching a real-life scenario unfold in the video. I firmly believe this is one of the most effective ways to promote information transfer from the abstract to the practical. Connecting new knowledge with the world around us is an invaluable approach. Finally, another great point that was brought up was the values and norms of a school community. If a teacher creates and fosters an atmosphere where students are afraid of being wrong, then not only will students not raise their hands, but they will not be motivated to continue exploring.

Overall, I absolutely agree that the "center" needs to be shared by an effective balance of each of the four approaches (learning, knowledge, assessment, and community centered). The idea that teachers are the workers and the administrators make all the educational decisions they are not qualified to make needs to be completely eradicated. The teacher must be able to take over the learning environment and be given the creative control to design the learning environment. That is not to say that a consistent curriculum should not be followed, but teachers need to run the process. Again, as I say almost every week, this also means a higher standard of teacher accountability. Formative and summative evaluation must apply to teachers as well.