This was a great video! The school was willing to test methods of how to best engage and teach students; they weren't willing to just do what everyone else has always done. By the staff openly showing curiosity and creativity, that curios behavior was modeled to the students. The entire Kindergarten is driven by creativity and curiosity, so the kids would just naturally follow that lead. This taught them to WANT to learn, leading to being MOTIVATED learners, leading to ENGAGEMENT. As an end result, these children are capable of real-life problem-solving and finding resources to learn on their own. I love the way the principal talked about "authentic learning"- at first, I thought that was a funny term, because isn't all learning authentic? But then as the video continued, I saw what she meant- they learned through real life situations (like the student's experience of having a virus) and personal stories that were meaningful to them. I do worry about if they are learning all they need to learn. For instance, they spent so much time studying how to get to Brazil (which was great!), but what about the other countries? I had such a traditional curriculum in home school- it was definitely rote leaning-based. So I always am hesitant to attach myself to this progressive and discovery teaching, but I do like parts of it. I think rote is still important though, but we can balance that with fun activities. My Mom was good at that during home school- if we really buckled down and did the book work, we would get to do really fun activities like field trips (to airports, architects, etc...) or games like geography quiz bowl. But I still see much value in rote, also.
This Kindergarten class used much technology. Because of the personal experience-based learning, they have a karaoke machine for the kids to talk into when telling a story. They also have a TV and smart board in the room. The smart board increases literacy- they can write letters and match them together to make words. They also frequently use the Internet, and watch educational videos. This use of technology supports the students' learning, because it lets them be curious and experience how to find answers. For instance, they can drag and drop letters on the smart board in order to see the differences between letters.
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Jess,
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog responses. You have a different perspective than most students because of your homeschool background. I have many, many friends that homeschool their children and I truly love and honor that model of education.
I think one thing to remember about the difference between homeschool and a public or private school environment is the sheer numbers of students with different learning styles effects how the teacher delivers instruction. When you teach 15-25 (or more) students at a time, it is important to choose an instructional model that engages the entire class. Within that model, the teacher then needs to customize instruction to the individual learners. For example, if you think about this video where the students were writing their letters, this activity works well for those learners that need work with their motor skills when it comes to writing the letters. By choosing the size the letter is drawn on the board, the teacher could assist the child with either their fine or their gross motor skills. For the child that is challenged with learning letter sounds, the computer could speak the letter for that child until they mastered the letter's sound. So while the whole class is engaged the lesson still has to be tailored to everyone's needs.
I agree with you that rote learning is important, but not all students can learn well with that model. That would be a great example of where technology could help. There are several computer programs that could assist the student with rote learning and could be adapted to an authentic model. The teacher could teach a rote lesson and then follow the concepts up with an authentic model. My son's classroom teacher does this all of the time. They are learning to write the letters on worksheets, but they are also doing things like writing letters to famous people using the letters they learned in the rote lesson.