Education

Classroom technology should be the teacher’s friend.

Schools need to reflect the big picture of what’s happening in society, and teachers need to feel confident they can use the technology which is the common currency of the world we live in.

Of course technology in the classroom is nothing new. The need to enable large numbers of students to acquire and retain knowledge has meant that schools have always relied on the technology of the day, from basic communication media such as books, chalk and pens via the huge advances of radio, TV, video, Xerox machines et al, to the staggering power of the very latest classroom technology of today, powered by the microprocessor.

Traditionally however, teachers have not always appreciated the benefits that technology can bring to the classroom.

It’s surprising just how many classrooms, even now, rely on traditional methods of teaching and learning: textbooks, notebooks, students collecting information using pen and pencil.

Actually,whiteboards have replaced blackboards in most classrooms, and of course all schools have invested heavily in computer suites, but these are used mainly to instruct students in how information technology works, as a discrete discipline, complete with proficiency tests and examinations, but often not used outside these narrow parameters, in real applications.

Computers have become an end in themselves rather than a means to an end – to assist learning and the pursuit of knowledge.

This is a generalisation of course: in truth, many teachers do embrace classroom technology and use it in very imaginative and exciting ways to enhance the quality of the learning experiences they offer students.

Laptops and data projectors have become essential tools for many teachers who spend a lot of time exploring the ever increasing store of teacher software that is available.

The digital revolution has not stopped at laptops and projectors.Students who have grown up as part of the digital generation are very savvy about all applications of digital technology and some teachers, especially younger ones, have become equally savvy about how to tap into this common digital inheritance and use it in class to great effect.

Cell phones, SMS messaging, MP3 downloads, cloud technology can all now be harnessed to ‘keep it real’ as far as classroom learning is concerned.

Blogging and social networking sites are also starting to play a part in pushing the envelope for technology in the classroom.

There is even a place for, and a growing body of expertise in how to use, digital gaming and simulations in class, as ways not only to explore new areas of knowledge but also to reinforce learning. Part of the problem with digital technology for schools is how easy it has made access to all kinds of information, and schools, rightly, see the need to introduce security measures, for all kinds of reasons, not least child protection issues.

The digital revolution has made access to information much more democratic; when anyone can find out anything about anything by going online, schools face a difficult balancing act. On the one hand they need to ensure safe and principled use of available means of accessing information through technology, but on the other, they know they have to embrace classroom technology to retain credibility with their students and to ensure they adhere to the principles of giving all students an education fit for purpose in the modern world.

As with all technological advances some teachers are ahead of the curve, most appreciate the professional need to keep up to date, and a few will try hard to ignore anything that requires them to change old habits, some of which they have had,literally,for a lifetime, professionally speaking.

It’s useful to consider classroom technology in the contexts mentioned above.

A useful starting point is to look at the possibilities that teacher software offers.

Often teachers feel that special, possibly expensive, software is needed to address the needs of the modern learner. This is sometimes true, but a lot can be achieved by making wide use of the basic productive functions such as word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program and database.

Probably most teachers are comfortable now with basic word proceessing, but are less confident about using spreadsheets, let alone databases. Presentation programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint have proved to be great tool for teachers in conjunction with data projectors.

It’s not necessary to spend a lot of money on software such as Microsoft Office, although it now comes bundled at competitive prices with many computer packages. There is an excellent free alternative called Open Office that’s easy to download. It has a wide range of functions to meet just about all your needs for basic classroom productivity. This is just one of a number of programs available as open source teacher software.

Most teachers will also feel less confident about using MP3 technology for classroom purposes. It’s not as difficult as you might think and there’s free software for recording MP3 files called Audacity.

A second major strand of classroom technology should be more accurately labelled classroom management software ,because it’s more directed at enabling teachers to track the huge amount of information about individual students that now forms the complex matrix of details that make up student profiles, and that teachers need to have at their fingertips. This information includes, cognitive ability measures, prior attainment, discipline and behavior records, family and domestic issues, attendance records and many other factors.

Teachers are now held more responsible for student achievement than ever before, and being able to have access to the ‘big picture’ of student profiles is the very least that schools should provide to teachers.

Many schools have invested heavily in this kind of classroom management software, but not all have done so yet. Decisions about the kind of system to use are out of individual teachers’ hands, but teachers can contribute to making the process a success by familiarising themselves with what classroom management software systems offer.

When the next generation of this type of software comes along, with luck, manufacturers will have taken note of what teachers have told them works well and what could work better.

Teachers have a role to play in deciding the future applications of classroom technology:the process should be a dialogue – as teachers we should get classroom technology providers to do it with us not to us.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

All teachers want to achieve effective classroom management.

Now that you’ve identified your personal goals and created your classroom management plan it’s time to start thinking about how to develop some techniques that will lead to really effective classroom management. These are the techniques we should plan to use every day with every class, they should be priorities, because this is where we need to spend most of our time now, putting first things first, and developing classroom management that works.

These effective techniques are much more than ‘classroom management tips’ or ‘handy hints’. They are the good habits we need to start to develop, they are the features of the way we conduct business with our students, helping them to learn, in the very specific context of the classroom.

There are 4 dimensions to developing effective classroom management techniques. Sometimes they are grouped together in the acronym ACTS [sometimes this is changed to CATS or SCAT]. These four ingredients of effective classroom management are:

• A – Activity
• C – Climate [ie classroom climate, mood or ethos]
• T – Time [ how to use it effectively]
• S – Space [how to exploit it to best effect]

Let’s look at these techniques in turn.

The first dimension of effective classroom management techniques.

The first technique we need to master is activity because this is the most important technique of effective classroom management to get right. Everything that happens in the classroom should be driven by learning, and learning cannot happen unless students actively engage with it. So our first priority as educators is to create activities that give students something to do that will result in learning. It sounds obvious enough, yet often we take it for granted that learning will happen, but in reality we need to choose carefully the activities we offer students. The point for me is that there is a direct link between the quality of learning experiences we offer our students and the level of engagement on the part of students.

So what do we need to keep in mind when devising learning activities for students?

Successful learning activities are likely to show some or all of these features:

• have a clear purpose that leads to specific learning outcomes
• have a clear structure
• be appropriate to the age of learners and to their stage of learning development
• be suitable for use in the classroom space [if the learning is taking place in a normal classroom]
• be safe for both teacher and students
• appeal to different learning styles – in practice it is likely that students will experience a range of different learning activities that are linked so students have a chance to learn in a range of different styles
• be engaging, interesting and enjoyable

Of course it’s difficult to guarantee that every learning experience we offer students meets all these criteria and often in our search for classroom management that works we will compromise and find the ‘best fit’ for our students. We need to use our judgement about what the ‘best fit’ might be, and we should learn by trial and error what works well and what proves to be less effective. The important factor is that,when aiming for effective classroom management, our starting point should always be to use a mental checklist similar to the list above when we’re planning classroom activities

The second dimension of effective classroom management techniques.

The second most important dimension of effective classroom management is the classroom climate we create for, and with, our students. The issue here is not really the physical climate of the classroom, although the research evidence does suggest that extremes of temperature and the lack of natural light can have negative effects on learning. What I mean by classroom climate is the emotional or psychological climate that exists in the classroom, and the teacher plays a major role in establishing a climate that promotes learning, or, if we’re not careful, a climate that negates learning.

What are the features of a healthy classroom climate?

The first thing to say is that the climate we create in our classrooms will be a direct expression of the personal goals we set for ourselves. If we don’t value core principles such as respect, honesty, integrity, and certainly if we don’t commit to them, we have no hope of achieving a classroom climate that will consistently promote effective learning. So our first step is to remind ourselves of our core value principles and use them as a basis for deciding what our classroom climate should be.

A healthy classroom climate seems to have the following features:

• positive relationships where everyone, students and teachers, agree to help and support each other in the classroom
• teachers encourage students to grow as learners and as human beings, and all students feel able to do so
• routines and procedures are clear and explicit, so that students understand not just what they are doing,but also how and why
• classroom routines respond to learners’ needs and so can adapt to changing circumstances

The important thing is to create a classroom environment or ethos where students feel safe yet challenged, relaxed yet alert, able to take risks without fear of ridicule, are motivated, productive and successful.

The third dimension of effective classroom management techniques.

The third of the effective classroom management techniques we need to master is the use of time in our classes. Apart from the obvious consideration that the time we have with students is limited, teachers need to become skilled at managing pace and progression in lessons, and need to make judgements about how much time to devote to direct learning and how much time to spend on meta-cognition activities, in other words how much time to spend involving students in thinking about how they learn[meta cognition] as opposed to what they learn[direct learning], and in particular, how to help students find out how they can learn more effectively.

This strategy is sometimes known as assessment for learning, as opposed to the more traditional assessment of learning. Both are important, but time is finite and teachers need to develop clear structures for what is inevitably a ‘trade off’ between product [what students learn] and process [how they learn]. I have found time and again that time spent on helping students learn more effectively has been worthwhile, because students can learn skills and strategies that they can transfer to other areas of learning, and they find that learning facts and information becomes easier after that.

The fourth dimension of effective classroom management techniques

The fourth technique which helps bring about effective classroom management is the use of space. Like time, space in classrooms is finite, and most teachers have to operate in classrooms that are ‘traditional’ in shape. It is true that in some countries ambitious school building programmes are providing updated spaces, although in many cases these spaces are simply newer versions of the traditional classroom.

It is possible to use classroom space creatively, in order to enhance the learning experiences of students. Many teachers worry that anything other than a very formal arrangement of students sitting in ordered rows will lead to a breakdown in classroom discipline, and so they never experiement with informal seating arrangements.

This is not an easy fear to overcome, and the solution probably lies in defining in more detail your personal goals, your own classroom philosophy, as well as proactively looking to specific behaviour management techniques to help give you the confidence that you can be in control of your class no matter what the seating arrangement is.

It really is worth considering how you can best use space in your classroom: as in other areas of classroom management, start small, pick a specific activity which requires a different seating arrangement, and try it.

Over the years I have found it helpful, when considering how to make effective use of classroom space, to keep in mind the following:

• decide what the purpose of the learning activity is [e.g. if you want students to use kinesthetic learning techniques you need to make it easy for them to move around in the classroom - this is more difficult if the tables and chairs are left in rows]
• decide what you are comfortable with [if you have an 'autocratic' style you may want the 'default' seating arrangement to be formal rows - if you are more 'democratic' you may be less comfortable doing most of your teaching in front of students sitting in rigidly ordered rows]
• put learning before teaching: in other words, it’s more important that students learn than that you teach – students deserve a varied menu of well conceived learning activities, and some of these, at least, should be activities that encourage students to learn by themselves, investigating, ‘exploring’, and to learn cooperatively with other students, problem solving, discussing, sharing ideas – which almost certainly means using your classrom space differently to when you are in ‘teacher talk’ mode
• like all other aspects of effective classroom management – use your judgement, try and test different strategies for using classroom space

It’s worth spending a lot of time and effort to become proficient in these four techniques because they really are the ‘bread and butter’ of the educator’s role. It’s what we do, day in day out,it’s classroom management that works. When we master these effective classroom management techniques our professional satisfaction reaches new levels. Not only do we feel successful, we also gain the confidence to meet new challenges positively, because we have established a framework for classroom interaction that we know works and we can also look to take our classroom management expertise to the next level

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Classroom behavior management is a fundamental part of a teacher’s job. It’s what all teachers have to do every day with every class. A better phrase might be classroom behavior leadership because classroom behavior management suggests ways of dealing with with a situation we find ourselves in, and leadership suggests that we take control and create the situation we want.

Of course to some extent teachers have to react to student behavior, and some ways of reacting are likely to be more successful than others. However, being proactive towards student behavior in the classroom is likely to be better because it allows teachers to take the initiative and therefore gives them a much greater measure of control over classroom behavior management.

Proactive steps to take be in control of classroom bahavior management.

1 Make expectations clear

It’s important that everyone in the classroom should know exactly what’s expected of them and students need to know what the behavior expectations are right from the outset. Displaying a list of expectations to refer to is a good idea. Having a list visible in the classroom makes it easy to remind students frequently of what good behavior is.

It’s even better if you can involve students themselves in drawing up a list of behavior expectations because if they are involved in the process it’s much more likely they will not only understand the expectations but also that they will ‘buy into’ them. A good way to create a list with students is to get them to brainstorm ideas about what good classroom behavior looks like, sounds like and feels like. This technique neatly taps into the three main learning modalities – visual, auditory and kinesthetic. After sudents have brainstormed ideas, get them to choose the best ones and make a poster for the classroom wall. Make sure you don’t choose too many expectations – no more than four or five – and make sure you ‘persuade’ students to choose those expectations you really want them to choose. That’s great leadership – getting the type of classroom behavior you want by making students believe it’s what they want.

2 Emphasise the positives

The aim is to achieve effective classroom behavior management by good leadership, so there is more chance of success if students focus on what they can and should do rather on what they can’t and shoudn’t do.

It’s best to express any classroom rules and expectations in positive language. So you could say: ‘Everyone listens when the teacher is talking’ rather than ‘Don’t talk when the teacher is talking’. Or ‘Focus on your own learning’ rather than ‘Don’t distract others’.

There are many more examples like this that can work well, and it’s worth spending time on this when making an action plan for classroom behavior management.

It’s important also to focus on positive outcomes for learning, to make it clear to students that you expect them all to be successful and to show them how they can achieve this. One simple truth I’ve learned over 30 years is that there’s nothing like failure, or perceived failure, to discourage students from cooperating. This is true regardless of age or ability.

Some students might persevere for a while but if they can’t feel successful they will sooner or later opt out and find something else to give them success, such as poor behavior, which requires no talent at all, everyone can succeed at that, it’s much less demanding than striving for the apparently unattainable.

3 Make sure the learning has purpose

If students can’t see why they need to learn what you want them to learn they will find it much more difficult to stay on task. It’s always worth considering the WIFFM factor – What’s In It For Me – if you want effective classroom behavior management.For example, students may very well be happy to cooperate in a heavy duty ‘reading and writing’ style of lesson if they know that it will help them directly with an important assessement coming up, in which scoring a high mark carries prestige and kudos.

Or students may be really motivated about creating a blog on the topic they’re studying, but not so enthusiastic when you tell them that first they’re going to have to understand how to create and upload a blog post, which in turn means spending a little time patiently learning how to do this. But they may cooperate willingly because they realise that being able to create a blog is worth the effort.

4 Prevention is better than cure in classroom behavior management

Actions that stop difficult behavior situations arising are likely to have much more impact than actions you have to take to rescue a situation once it has happened. Teachers need to have a wide repertoire of strategies and techniques to promote good behavior in their classroom behavior management plan. Having clear expectations consistently applied makes for a good start.

Good spatial awareness is another quality to develop – students know that teachers who ‘have eyes in the back of their head’ are usually much more effective at maintaining order because they pre-empt problems by being right there in potential trouble spots before the trouble has a chance to start.

If you can accompany this ‘here, there and everywhere’ tactic with a good line in verbal rapport that you can deliver without breaking stride you’re on your way to great classroom behavior management. This technique is sometimes called ‘overlapping’ and I’ve seen some great exponents of this technique in action.

The script may go something like this : teacher walks to the table where she knows some off-task behavior might occur – this is easy for her to do because she has the tables set out to facilitate easy access for just this kind of problem; she finishes explaining exactly what she wants the class to do while looking directly at the potential ‘off – taskers’; she then speaks directly to Jack – the most frequent student off-task and makes sure he really understands what to do; at the same time she reminds Sheryl, sitting near the door, that she expects all students to spend the next five minutes on the task and they’re only allowed to talk to their partner in a quiet voice and only allowed to discuss the learning task – no casual chat; out of the corner of her eye she notices that Harry still hasn’t got pen and notebook out so she walks to his table to make sure Harry complies, and while walking there she encourages Ashley and Harvey to make a start by saying “Are you with it, Ashley? Harvey, any problems? No? So you’re both ready to start?”; all this within the space of 30 seconds or so.

5 Use humor

Charles Dickens knew the secret of keeping readers hooked – make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em come back for more. We don’t want to make students cry but we should certainly try to make them laugh – well, smile at least – because there’s nothing like humor to lift the spirits and to get people onside, and, like Dickens, we want them to keep coming back willingly for more. It’s worth remembering, though, that humor can backfire.

Sarcasm is never a good idea and teachers have to judge carefully how some students might react to a seemingly harmless comment, intended as a joke or lighthearted remark. Some students may see this as completely inappropriate, and the consequences may lead to problems.

Often a nice line in self-deprecating humor on the part of the teacher creates the right impact. So making fun of some of your own shortcomings or lack of technical ability in some activity helps students see you’re human and not afraid to poke gentle fun at yourself, and you’re not making fun of the students.

Building up a pleasant, informal, cheerful, sometimes not too serious atmosphere, involving a bit of verbal to-and-fro between teacher and students, what’s called ‘banter’ in the UK, is worth its weight in gold: it’s often a good safety valve and students appreciate that you like them enough to have a bit of fun, and it’s a great tactic to use in your classroom behavior management.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Brainstorming is an excellent teaching strategy to generate ideas on a given topic. Brainstorming helps promote thinking skills. When students are asked to think of all things related to a concept, they are really being asked to stretch their thinking skills. All to often, a child with special learning needs will say they don’t know. However, with the technique of brainstorming, the child says what comes to mind as it relates to the topic. Brainstorming promotes success for students with special needs as there is no one right answer.

Let’s say that the brainstorm topic is Weather, the students would state whatever comes to mind, which would most likely include words like: rain, hot, cold, temperature, seasons, mild, cloudy, stormy etc. Brainstorming is also a terrific idea to do for bell work (when you have just 5-10 minutes to fill just prior to the bell).

Brainstorming is an excellent strategy to:

• Use in the inclusional classroom
• Tap into prior knowledge
• Give all students a chance to express their ideas
• Eliminate fear of failures
• Show respect for each other
• Try something without fear
• Tap into individuality and creativity
• Eliminate the fear of risk taking

Here are some basic rules to follow when conducting a brainstorm in the classroom with a small or whole group of students:

1. There are no wrong answers
2. Try to get as many ideas as possible
3. Record all ideas
4. Do not express your evaluation on any idea presented

Prior to starting a new topic or concept, the brainstorm session will provide teachers with a great deal of information regarding what the student may or may not know.

Here is a list of brainstorming ideas to get you started:

• What are all the things you can do with a ball? (marble, stick, book, elastic, apple, etc.)
• How many things are white? blue? green? etc.
• What are all the methods of travel?
• How many types of insects, animals, flowers, trees do you know?
• How many ways can you describe the way something is said? (whispered, shreiked, bellowed, yelled, retorted etc.
• How many things can you think of that are sweet? salty? sour? bitter? etc.
• How many ways can you describe the ocean? mountains? etc.
• What if there were no cars? rain? butterflies, cigarettes?
• What if all cars were yellow?
• What if you were caught in a tornado?
• What if it never stopped raining? What if the school day was only half days? went all year?

Once the brainstorming activity is done, you have a great deal of information on where to take the topic next. Or, if the brainstorming activity is done as bell work, link it to a current theme or topic to enhance knowledge. You can also categorize/classify the student’s answers once the brainstorm is done or separate it out and let students work in groups on each of the sub topics. Share this strategy with parents who have children who are insecure about sharing, the more they brainstorm, the better they get at it and thus enhancing their thinking skills.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I have been searching for many years for the Holy Grail of interactive learning, a distinction between collaborative and cooperative learning definitions. I am getting closer to my elusive goal all the time but I am still not completely satisfied with my perception of the two concepts. I believe my confusion arises when I look at processes associated with each concept and see some overlap or inter-concept usage. I will make a humble attempt to clarify this question by presenting my definitions and reviewing those of other authors who have helped clarify my thinking.

Collaboration is a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle whereas cooperation is a structure of interaction designed to facilitate the accomplishment of an end product or goal.

Collaborative learning (CL) is a personal philosophy, not just a classroom technique. In all situations where people come together in groups, it suggests a way of dealing with people which respects and highlights individual group members’ abilities and contributions. There is a sharing of authority and acceptance of responsibility among group members for the groups actions. The underlying premise of collaborative learning is based upon consensus building through cooperation by group members, in contrast to competition in which individuals best other group members. CL practitioners apply this philosophy in the classroom, at committee meetings, with community groups, within their families and generally as a way of living with and dealing with other people.

Cooperative learning is defined by a set of processes which help people interact together in order to accomplish a specific goal or develop an end product which is usually content specific. It is more directive than a collaboratve system of governance and closely controlled by the teacher. While there are many mechanisms for group analysis and introspection the fundamental approach is teacher centered whereas collaborative learning is more student centered.

Spencer Kagan in an article in Educational Leadership (Dec/Jan 1989/1990) provides an excellent definition of cooperative learning by looking at general structures which can be applied to any situation. His definition provides an unbrella for the work cooperative learning specialists including the Johnsons, Slavin, Cooper, Graves and Graves, Millis, etc. It follows below:

“The structural approach to cooperative learning is based on the creation, analysis and systematic application of structures, or content-free ways of organizing social interaction in the classroom. Structures usually involve a series of steps, with proscribed behavior at each step. An important cornerstone of the approach is the distinction between “structures” and “activities”.

“To illustrate, teachers can design many excellent cooperative activities, such as making a team mural or a quilt. Such activities almost always have a specific content-bound objective and thus cannot be used to deliver a range of academic content. Structures may be used repeatedly with almost any subject matter, at a wide range of grade levels and at various points in a lesson plan.”

John Myers (Cooperative Learning vol 11 #4 July 1991) points out that the dictionary definitions of “collaboration”, derived from its Latin root, focus on the process of working together; the root word for “cooperation” stresses the product of such work. Co-operative learning has largely American roots from the philosophical writings of John Dewey stressing the social nature of learning and the work on group dynamics by Kurt Lewin. Collaborative learning has British roots, based on the work of English teachers exploring ways to help students respond to literature by taking a more active role in their own learning. The cooperative learning tradition tends to use quantitative methods which look at achievement: i.e., the product of learning. The collaborative tradition takes a more qualitative approach, analyzing student talk in response to a piece of literature or a primary source in history. Myers points out some differences between the two concepts:

“Supporters of co-operative learning tend to be more teacher-centered, for example when forming heterogeneous groups, structuring positive inter- dependence, and teaching co-operative skills. Collaborative learning advocates distrust structure and allow students more say if forming friendhip and interest groups. Student talk is stressed as a means for working things out. Discovery and contextural approaches are used to teach interpersonal skills.”

“Such differences can lead to disagreements…. I contend the dispute is not about research, but more about the morality of what should happen in the schools. Beliefs as to whast should happen in the schools can be viewed as a continuum of orientations toward curriculum from “transmission” to “transaction” to “transmission”. At one end is the transmission position. As the name suggests, the aim of this orientation is to transmit knowledge to students in the form of facts, skills and values. The transformation position at the other end of the continuum stresses personal and social change in which the person is said to be interrelated with the environment rather than having control over it. The aim of this orientation is self-actualization, personal or organizational change.”

Rocky Rockwood (National Teaching and Learning Forum vol 4 #6, 1995 part 1) describes the differences by acknowledging the parallels they both have in that they both use groups, both assign specific tasks, and both have the groups share and compare their procedures and conclusions in plenary class sessions. The major difference lies in the fact that cooperative deals exclusively with traditional (canonical) knowledge while collaborative ties into the social constructivist movement, asserting that both knowledge and authority of knowledge have changed dramatically in the last century. “The result has been a transition from “foundational (cognitive) understanding of knowledge”, to a nonfoundational ground where “we understand knowledge to be a social construct and learning a social process” (Brufee, Collaborative learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge, 1993). Rockwood states:

“In the ideal collaborative environment, the authority for testing and determining the appropriateness of the group product rests with, first, the small group, second, the plenary group (the whole class) and finally (but always understood to be subject to challenge and revision) the requisite knowledge community (i.e. the discipline: geography, history, biology etc.) The concept of non- foundational knowledge challenges not only the product acquired, but also the process employed in the acquisition of foundational knowledge.”

“Most importantly, in cooperative, the authority remains with the instructor, who retains ownership of the task, which involves either a closed or a closable (that is to say foundational) problem ( the instructor knows or can predict the answer). In collaborative, the instructor–once the task is set– transfers all authority to the group.In the ideal, the group’s task is always open ended.”

“Seen from this perspective, cooperative does not empower students. It employs them to serve the instructor’s ends and produces a “right” or acceptable answer. Collaborative does truly empower and braves all the risks of empowerment (for example, having the group or class agree to an embarrassingly simplistic or unconvincing position or produce a solution in conflict with the instructor’s).”

“Every person, Brufee holds, belongs to several “interpretative or knowledge communities” that share vocabularies, points of view, histories, values, conventions and interests. The job of the instructor id to help students learn to negotiate the boundaries between the communities they already belong to and the community represented by the teacher’s academic discipline, which the students want to join. Every knowledge community has a core of foundational knowledge that its members consider as given (but not necessarily absolute). To function independently within a knowledge community, the fledgling scholar must master enough material to become conversant with the community.”

Rockwood concludes:

“In my teaching experience, cooperative represents the best means to approach mastery of foundational knowledge. Once students become reasonably conversant, they are ready for collaborative, ready to discuss and assess,….”

Myers suggests use of the “transaction” orientation as a compromise between taking hard positions advocating either methodology.

“This orientation views education as a dialogue between the student and the curriculum. Students are viewed as problem solvers. Problem solving and inquiry approaches stressing cognitive skills and the ideas of Vygotsky, Piaget, Kohlberg and Bruner are linked to transaction. This perspective views teaching as a “conversation” in which teachers and students learn together through a process of negotiation with the curriculum to develop a shared view of the world.”

It is clear to me that in undertaking the exercize of defining differences between the two ideas we run the risk of polarizing the educational community into a we versus them mentality. There are so many benefits which acrue from both ideas that it would be a shame to lose any advantage gained from the student-student-teacher interactions created by both methods. We must be careful to avoid a one-size-fits-all mentality when it comes to education paradigms.

As a final thought, I think it behooves teachers to educate themselves about the myriad of techniques and philosophies which create interactive environments where students take more responsibility for their own learning and that of their peers. Then it will become possible to pick and chose those methods which best fit a particular educational goal or community of learners.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »