Common Core’s critique of the 21st century skills movement has highlighted the opinions of a host of scholars including Dan Willingham, Diane Ravitch, and E.D. Hirsch, each of whom exposed deep flaws in the program put forth by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Today, we’re bringing you the observations of another expert. And, this time, it is someone tasked with delivering 21st century skills-based education every day.
Emma Bryant is a pseudonym for a teacher at a New Tech High School. There are 62 New Tech High Schools in 14 states across the country. Substantial funding from corporations and foundations ensures that these schools are outfitted with all of the best and latest learning technology. And, even though the New Tech Network’s website says that the schools’ mission is to help students gain both ”the knowledge and skills they need,” skills take top priority–at least according to Emma.
Over the course of the next few months Common Core will be publishing a series of guest blogs by Emma, who will be describing her first-hand experience with 21st century-skills education.
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I teach in a school that typifies skills-based education. We practice project based learning, utilize the latest technology, and hold to a mission of helping our students acquire “21st century skills.” We work diligently to replace traditional classroom norms with those of corporate culture so that our students will someday thrive in an increasingly competitive global marketplace — a new world demanding innovation, collaboration, and critical thinking.
Unfortunately, bowing to the norms of 21st century business interests leaves little room anything else. Literature, poetry, music, theater, or even a solid understanding of history are either omitted or given short shrift in favor of developing skills. Utility takes precedence over “fluff” and most content, after all, can be Googled anyway.
So, how does my school help build the much-hyped 21st century skills? Roughly once a month we present students with a new project which must result in a “product.” According to our model the more “real world” the product, the better. Real world, meaning the product mirrors what could reasonably be demanded in a corporate setting — from a redesigned company logo and slogan to a promotional video or a press release. Students work in small teams to complete projects, with each team member receiving the same grade at the end. After all, it’s not about what individual students learn but the final product. Students are assessed on a handful of learning outcomes — collaboration, communication, innovation, work ethic, technological literacy, information literacy and content. Content usually makes up between 15 and 30 percent of a student’s grade.
So, what is the role of content in a 21st century classroom? Content is a shopping list of rubric indicators to be applied to the product. For example, students might work a quote from a short story into a reworded company slogan. Or perhaps they might work with Photoshop to create a company logo depicting an event from European history. They might write a press release in the style of a founding American document or create a user’s manual for a product using a particular rhetorical device mentioned in our state’s English Language Arts standards.
Apart from being grafted onto “real world” products, content is rarely discussed in the classroom. Instead, students deal with content in teams or individually, with little to no scaffolding from the teacher. Dialogue, questions, critical thinking, and debate surrounding content are low on the list of things you will see in a 21st century classroom. And so students end up with convoluted ideas about history, a cursory understanding of and appreciation for literature, and a shaky foundation in math and science.
Emma Bryant
What an interesting way of teaching. I like the idea of getting students ready for the business world and working with a community of learners rather than individual students. Giving them tasks monthly that they must work and create together sounds amazing and it is amazing that you have the time to get this all in. With state standards and benchmarks in place how do you get around meeting those?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Joe Virant, mrsebiology, Coopmike48, Lenore Fox, SmallSchoolsWorkshop and others. SmallSchoolsWorkshop said: Emma, a dissident teacher at New High Tech High: http://blog.commoncore.org/2011/02/22/need-content-just-google-it/ [...]
Right because that is a teacher’s job to prepare students to be worker drones for corporations . . .
I am all for cooperation in learning, so long as each person is learning something valuable rather than just a processes. Sure they can google content, and get crap answers that have no bearing on reality
As a former New Tech Network teacher, I take issue with many of the generalizations Ms. Bryant makes about New Tech schools and 21st Century education.
Content was always the focus in my Biology classroom; the rubrics I created for my projects were based around the state standards for my subject and required higher-order thinking about the subject. A well-designed project requires more than regurgitation of facts that can be googled; instead, the product should require synthesis, transfer, and elevation of the content. Additionally, a well-designed project requires a great deal of scaffolding from the teacher, including content workshops and activities. I spent almost all day, every day in my classroom talking about my content with my students.
If every rubric descriptor can be googled, and the project can be completed without scaffolding, the responsibility for that rests squarely on the teacher for designing a project that is rigorous enough for his/her students. While students may be able to google a vocabulary word, they can’t google the answer to, “Imagine a new species will evolve over the next million years” or “Give reasons supporting or refuting the plausibility of your favorite superhero.”
I have to wonder where Ms. Bryant teaches that standardized tests and benchmarks are not an issue. If content is truly de-emphasized in her classroom, how are her students fairing on assessments? While I’m the last to assert that standardized assessments give an accurate picture of what students know, they are a reality for educators. My school’s scores went up consistently during the time I was there, and as their teacher I can say this reflects the learning I saw in my classroom as well.
If Ms. Bryant feels that content is pushed aside in her classroom, perhaps she should turn her critical eye toward the curriculum she creates and how it is implemented in her classroom.
Have you posted any examples of your rubrics anywhere online? They sound amazing!
First, I must state up front, I am a teacher in the New Tech Network. I am about to complete my 3rd year with PBL and have taught from 8th grade to university level math classes since 1992. So, I come from many years of conventional math instruction. But, I am also, a proponent of what we do at our school and I’d be crazy to not be with the results I’ve seen. Another bit of irony is that our State Standardized Math scores are embarrassingly low and keeps our school from an overall Exemplary rating by the State of Texas (granted a VERY low performing state but, probably not much worse that the Detroit public school system of which Common Core has in their back yard).
I have some concerns with “Emma’s” school and/or her training in PBL. First, she stated that “bowing to the norms of 21st century business interests leaves little room anything else. Literature, poetry, music, theater, or even a solid understanding of history are either omitted or given short shrift in favor of developing skills.” I am very worried about any school that does NOT follow ALL of her State’s Curriculum standards (not to mention her school district’s standards). That is NOT the way we are told to teach in our model of PBL. You must include ALL of the standards and any superintendent who allowed anything less should be reporting to their school board.
Then, unfortunately, she follows that up by saying “Apart from being grafted onto “real world” products, content is rarely discussed in the classroom. ” I can see why she is staying anonymous. Any teacher not teaching content needs to look for another place to work and the principal here needs to lead her out the door. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE “Emma” come visit our school. Go through our Think Forward Institute where we are spreading the PBL method to other schools in our district and to schools throughout Texas. And, Common Core. Please consider coming to our school and observe what we do. Talk with the teachers. Talk with the students. We are FAR from perfect and we continually strive to get better as teachers – not just PBL teachers. We hold our state and district curriculum standards as just that standards that are the MINIMUM that must be taught. I look forward to you contacting us for a visit in Manor Texas at Manor New Technology High School.
My [real] name is Patrick Cronin and I teach tenth grade World Studies (Humanities) at nex+Gen Academy, a New Tech Network High School in Albuquerque, NM. As an educator and one whom is not employed by New Tech, I don’t feel qualified to dictate the New Tech model, rather I will provide some observations about “Emma’s” experience and attempt to point out some irony, a literary device extolled by Common Core, and one that also can be googled. In the preface to Common Core’s English Language Arts Standards (found here: http://commoncore.org/maps/resources/CCSSI_ELA_Standards.pdf) it states:
To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological
society, students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate,
synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct original
research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to
analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and
nonprint [sic] texts in media forms old and new. The need to conduct
research and to produce and consume media is embedded into every
aspect of today’s curriculum.
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but this verbiage appears to be nearly identical to New Tech-speak. There is mention of college, workforce training, life, technological society, answering questions and solving problems, research, production and consumption of media, etc.
It would seem that ‘Emma’ and her colleagues focus more on the ‘gathering’ of information rather than any of the other higher-order thinking skills needed afterward. ‘Emma’ expresses frustration in the formation of a product, yet Common Core states, “Often, several standards can be addressed by a single rich task.”
While I admit that a single re-designed corporate logo or slogan sounds lame—not rich, and without much incorporation of standards (from any discipline)—I would blame the teacher rather than the New Tech model, which the Common Core Standards and recommendations seem to echo. Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Tip: google ‘idiom’.
Hello, I’m … Mr. Snrub… Yes, that’ll do.
Anyway I totally concur with Emma. Content is king and everything else should be subservient to it, or preferably not exist at all. And I should know because I work for We-Do-Worksheets-All-Day-Inc. My High School career of sitting quietly at my desk and reading the textbook totally prepared me for life in the 20th Century. And sure, the 21st century is already radically different than the previous one, but I’m sure pretty soon now everything will go back to the way it was. And henceforth we certainly should not evaluate or change our own teaching practices.
I mean GIVE ME A BREAK. Teaching kids presentation skills??? What kind of nutty High School would teach presentation skills?? Back in my day – also known as the GOOD old days – we were slapped with a ruler if we dared speak! And now New Tech is teaching these kids how to be confident in front of their peers? How are they supposed to live meek, pathetic little lives if they’re learning to be confident?
Sitting quietly and listening to Emma lecture for 50 to 90 minutes should be learning enough for these students. I bet those kids would be hanging on every word about the Renaissance Era. Don’t tell Emma kids need to be engaged in their work. Listening to Emma lecture is engagement enough!
And the group work, UGH. I bet I can sympathize with Emma when she has to facilitate group work. Personally, I don’t talk to other humans and I’m all the better for it. So why should we try to teach group work in school? Seriously, name me just ONE job where you have to talk to someone else. You can’t!!
The point is, content is nowhere to be found if you look in the gradebook. OK, so the gradebook does have a place for content knowledge, but as Emma said, it’s only 15-30%! And sure, New Tech will claim that you can customize the gradebook however you want, giving whatever percentage to whatever category you deem fits your students’ needs, but we know they’d prefer to have as small a percentage devoted to content as possible. In fact, I’m guessing if New Tech had their druthers, they’d only give “content knowledge” a 1% weight and a 99% weight to “talking about their feelings.” Emma and I are on to you New Tech!
Anyway Emma, I look forward to your future posts. Here are some suggestions for topics:
• Presentation Skills: I’m such a good presenter that you should absorb them by listening to me lecture.
• Projects that relate to the “real world”: did you see how I just used quotation marks there?
• Google: How does it work?
• The Internet: Totally a fad and no one in business really uses it anyway.
• I know when the Battle of Hastings was. Do YOU?
• Writing in Math Class? Stephen Hawking must be rolling over in his grave!
• Why the AP US History test is exactly like life.
• Seriously who learned anything from Google anyway? No one, that’s who.
• Skills based education: did you know that modern kids spelled skills “skillz”?
• Why it’s totally not ironic that I’m deriding skills based, technology oriented education on an internet blog.
I teach math at a New Teach school in Texas, and this has not been my experience at all. I agree with Sara’s advice about implementing PBL, and I strongly recommend reading Doll’s views on a Post-Modern curriculum for more justification of the need of curriculum change.
But here’s the deal with 21st century skills; they are not really 21st century skills. The same skills were needed in the 20th century to be successful, or even the 5th century, for that matter. We label them as 21st century skills so that it sounds relevant, but the truth is that our education system has failed to deliver these skills to our students for centuries. We need people who can work together to solve problems which don’t have one clear solution. How do we expect them to do this if our educational system doesn’t teach the skills that are necessary for this? Do we expect them to google that?
Emma,
I appreciate your reporting –keep it up! None of your critics here are persuasive. They insinuate that YOU are the problem for failing to infuse robust content in your teaching, but of course the problem is the project model itself wherein the content is merely a vehicle for “practicing skills” and creating a fancy-looking-but-shallow product. These people don’t really grasp what a liberal arts education is all about, and thus blithely dismiss it and parrot all the fashionable cliches about new paradigms and the evils of “regurgitating” facts (why don’t they try on a less pejorative verb? Why not “mastering” the facts?) I would recommend that Sara, Patrick and Chris read E.D. Hirsch, Diane Ravitch or Stanley Fish, but their continued employment at New Tech would be imperiled by entertaining such heretical thinkers’ ideas. Safer to keep a closed mind, alas.
WOW. The only assumptions I can make about Ben F. is that (1) he’s not comfortable letting us look him up on twitter or google and (2) he came out and attacked me without knowing anything about me. I put my name out there along with my twitter handle, email, and blog so anyone could see where I’m coming from or what I’ve been up to.
So, all I can assume about this guy is that he’s not a very good speller (but neither am I), he’s heard of a few people who write about education, and he attacks people who he’s never met. Not a good way to make friends.
Ben, it’s unfortunate that you chose this avenue because I would have loved to have you come see my school and see what we’re up to here in Manor Texas. You might want to google Manor New Technology High School and see what Harvard, the University of Texas, and others who have done studies of our students and our school, say about the education that is happening here.
But, I can’t think of one person, including me, who would like to ever see you “round these parts,” as we hicks from small town Texas say.
Ben,
I have to wonder where you are getting your information about a project-based curriculum. It is certainly not a vehicle for practicing skills and creating shallow products, unless it is implemented poorly by those who lack an understanding of the pedagogical underpinnings of this type of learning. Rather than solely relying on the analysis of critics who (no matter how venerable they may be otherwise) do not do any research in this area, perhaps you should delve into the educational literature to understand that which you abhor. I suggest looking into the studies done by Bridget Barron, Ann Rivet, Joe Krajcik, Anthony Petrosino, James Pellegrino and Sean Brophy to name a few. Cindy Hmelo-Silver has an excellent response to a critique of non-traditional instruction that may help as well. If you are looking for a more practical guide to designing curriculum, I suggest Wiggins and McTighe’s “Understanding by Design” or the Buck Institute’s binder about Project-Based Learning. Both of these texts emphasize starting with the state content standards first, determining acceptable evidence for learning, and then working back to design a project scenario and activities that will allow students to demonstrate mastery. Which is, again, what true project-based learning does- it places content at the core of every classroom activity.
Your post also demonstrates that you have had little to no contact with the New Tech Network, an organization that unflaggingly encourages questioning, critical thinking, innovation, and challenging of ideas. During the time I was employed there (I currently study and work at the University of Texas, NOT NTN), I did not feel that my academic freedom was limited in any way.
I think if you will take the time to truly investigate that which you criticize, you’ll find that many of your complaints are unfounded.
Emma,
I’m terribly sorry you’re struggling incorporating content in a 21st Century school model. It’s incredibly difficult for a teacher new to fully utilizing Project Based Learning and consistent use of technology. I’m sure fellow teachers, school coaches, curriculum coaches, and administrators would be willing to assist the full integration of content into rich, exciting projects. I assure you, there are resources available to you to integrate the entirety of a course’s content into a PBL curriculum.
I hope your future posts deal with your struggles, both the highs and lows, with dealing with a 21st century curriculum, rather than simply railing against a skills based curriculum. Best of luck. –geoff
Sara,
Thanks for your civil response.
Have you read E.D. Hirsch’s The Knowledge Deficit or The Making of Americans? Both make a strong case that core knowledge must be systematically transmitted to kids to create the high-functioning intellects that we want. I know that doesn’t seem intuitive. But the Copernican model of the universe didn’t seem intuitive either; nevertheless, it’s true. And if it’s true that core knowledge must be transmitted, then the project method cannot be our dominant mode of pedagogy because it’s inefficient and tends to produce a fragmented, scattershot understanding of a discipline. Direct instruction, driven by a very knowledgeable teacher, will have to take center stage, with projects on the margins. I have fifteen years’ experience teaching high school and middle school English and history. I have administered many projects, including many developed by the widely-respected Teachers Curriculum Institute here in California. Some of these have seemed worthwhile, have engaged kids and have actually taught them something. However I have found that there is no more powerful tool for coherently and vividly conveying a body of knowledge than great teacher-driven, teacher-centered lessons. Sure there are such things as horrible lectures, and these provide a caricature that progressive ed partisans use as a cudgel against traditional methods. But there are also great lectures that electrify kids’ minds, something few ed school professors would likely admit. Think about your own education: were the best classes those that entailed group work with your classmates, or those with an erudite teacher who –gasp –talked a lot? For me it’s definitely the latter.
A lot of teachers have weighed in here, and I respect the value of the teacher’s viewpoint. I think, however, that every learning system goes both ways, so here it is from a student at a New Tech High in the Dallas, TX area.
I have mastered content well enough to earn college credit for it, and all under the PBL model. If I was not learning content in my projects, I would not have earned scores of five on my AP tests last year, and if history and English were taking a back seat in my education, then the two tests I made fives on would not have been U.S. History and English Composition. If I had “convoluted ideas about history” or a “cursory understanding of and appreciation for literature”, I would have failed those tests.
To address the concern over “shallow” (read as “crappy”) products: I have no idea what New Tech Ms. Emma is teaching at, but the products I’ve created are awesome! Last fall, I set up a camp for middle schoolers to come and learn how to make model rockets. The spring before that, I designed and built a rocket less than four feet tall that went three-fourths the speed of sound! I’ve designed robots, soldered circuits, graphed trends, comprehended calculus, analyzed rhetoric, implemented lab processes, and even theorized over the possible causes for the Roman Empire’s decline. All of this, again, under the PBL model. If I had a “shaky foundation in math and science”, the rockets I’ve designed would never have left the ground, because my calculus would have been wrong.
I’d like to address one quote specifically: “Dialogue, questions, critical thinking, and debate surrounding content are low on the list of things you will see in a 21st century classroom. ” This is quite simply false, because vigorous dialogue and collaborative critical thinking concerning content is what I do every single day in most of my classes. My English teacher has us read something, annotate it, and then come in and discuss it. That’s how our class operates. Last fall, we studied and discussed various themes, from racial tensions, to identification within one’s culture, to existentialism, nihilism, and why religion exists. Yes, the big questions get asked. The ones that don’t have clear answers. The “tough stuff”. Just a few weeks ago, in order to better understand Shakespeare’s 12th Night, we had a discussion about medical beliefs in Elizabethan England, and how they relate to the burlesque comedic effects employed in that selfsame play, and thusly how the society we live in impacts the conventions of our comedic writing. How’s that for a conversation?
In short: yes, we can create really great products, and still learn all the material. No, I have NOT received a subpar education, thank you very much! (Maybe, everyone should teach at my New Tech school where we have fun making rockets and discussing Nihilism, we have hot cocoa in the meeting room, join ussss).
Signed,
the nerd in the room
HOLLA FOR MY L33T NEW TECH SKILLZZZ
This is fantastic, and PBL in a nutshell:
“If I had a ‘shaky foundation in math and science’, the rockets I’ve designed would never have left the ground, because my calculus would have been wrong.”
@BenF “I know that doesn’t seem intuitive. But the Copernican model of the universe didn’t seem intuitive either; nevertheless, it’s true.”
Actually, Ben, I think it’s quite intuitive. As teacher’s we’re so used to thinking in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy — knowledge at the bottom, creating at the top — that it’s easy to think the mere act of creating a product is superior to “mere” knowledge and understanding. But not all acts of creation are created equal. If you stop to think about something you’ve created, say, a paper or article, my hunch is if you think of your best work, it will be on a subject you have genuine expertise in.
I’m a reasonably facile writer. My best writing is about the subjects I know best, and I’m at my absolute best when I can involve secondary subjects about which I have substantial knowledge to draw parallels and make analogies. Within the last year, I’ve also helped out on writing projects about which I do not have substantial background — issues concerning international refugees, for example, and the business climate in Korea (don’t ask). I turned in decent work, technically proficient, but on these subjects I simply don’t know what I don’t know. My “voice” lacked confidence. I learned only what I needed to know to produce the “product” and nothing more. If I were to be graded on this, I’d get decent marks. But I still lack the depth of knowledge about refugees and Korea to produce anything of true substance or value. In short, I can parrot back things and use my writing “‘skill” to create something of interest, but I’m not in a position, like I might be when writing about education, to add value, shed light or create something original.
That’s a profound difference. As a technically skilled writer, I can produce a cogent summary–a press release–on a wide variety of topics given some amount of time to read up. But anything I’ve ever written that was worth reading, which added to a reader’s understanding, was a product of my personal knowledge and expertise.
Robert Pondiscio
http://blog.coreknowledge.org/
“Worker drones for corporations”? We’d be lucky if that were so. The new marketplace is going to be packed with freelancers, independent contractors, and perma-temps. The nimble and aggressive will be winners.
The ability to innovate, collaborate, and think critically is what sets American workers apart from many of their counterparts internationally. Schools that value creativity and the ability leverage our collective intellect with effective collaboration are teaching important skills that will benefit students in their lives, not just their jobs. It could be argued that those abilities are crucially important to individuals taking part in the American economy today. In a world where manufacturing is consistently done more cheaply outside the U.S., isn’t it vital that we continue to lead in ideas and innovation?
I’m struggling with the concept of content vs. skill. Aren’t kids supposed to be picking up the skills necessary to comprehend increasingly complex content as they go through their years in school? Isn’t that what becoming “educated” has always meant?
I feel bad for Emma in regard to her New Tech experience. What she is experiencing is what can potentially happen at any school, and for any first-year teacher. Most schools have a certain amount of latitude in which to make decisions about assessment, instruction, discipline, and so on. If Emma’s New Tech is real (it doesn’t sound like any of the New Tech schools I’ve visited), it seems as if they have made some questionable choices.
I’m a first-year New Tech teacher as well. I taught for 15 years in a traditional high school before this year. I believe that school reform is something that needs to happen in this country. I think that the New Tech approach is a strong model, that when used well, can create exciting options for students and the communities in which the schools are placed.
At our New Tech, every project has a standards-based content knowledge rubric that is worth at least 60% of the student’s overall grade. We believe in working on 21st Century skills, but refuse to sacrifice teaching the content that students should be learning at each grade level. Technology is used as a tool for learning; it is not the curriculum. Our state adopted the Common Core standards for language arts last summer, so every project in an English class is based on standards that are rapidly becoming the national norm. Project construction in the other content areas is similarly based on state and national standards.
Our New Tech also balances project-based assessments with individual assessments. We want to be certain that all students possess the grade level competencies that they should. As the teachers at our school become better at building great projects, we may shift away from some of the individual assessment, but there probably will always be a blend of the two types of assessment in our building.
By the way, there is plenty of room for direct instruction in the New Tech approach. It’s just not the dominant mode of instruction (at our school). Students constructing their knowledge by doing things is probably at least an equal time share with direct instruction at most New Tech schools.
Teaching at a New Tech isn’t easy. It is difficult to create compelling projects that students find motivating. It is made more difficult (but in the end more satisfying) when those projects are based on the core competencies that are laid out in state and national standards. And this is what a school reform effort like New Tech is all about: finding ways to educate students better, getting them to be more involved and motivated to learn content, and encouraging students to become good learners. Good learners will have the opportunity to be successful in any endeavor they choose after high school.
I hope Emma’s New Tech experience improves, and that her school evolves in a positive way over the summer.
I think this blog and continuing replies are quite fascinating. It points to the often contentious and dichotomous debates that characterize education. I am an educator but also a parent. My daughter attends a high school that makes learning content critically important and highly engaging and consequential, but at the same time promotes deep processing of the content through meaningful projects and collaborations. The school would certainly not consider itself a PBL model; however, the etachers would also not consider themselves as using a traditional lecture model only, although they do lecture also in highly engaging, interactive and creative ways. They seem to have brought the best aspects together into a coherent and meaningful integrated academic education. Neither Willingham nor Hirsch nor Ravitch is suggesting that schools simply lecture.
To the extent that the author of the blog is not able to deeply teach content is truly inexcusable and this may be a time for the school to look at the number of projects and the amount of time spent focusing on significant ideas. At the same time, I too have seen schools that purport to follow a PBL model and indeed in some of those schools, it appears students are doing projects for the sake of the skills and the ends and not getting rich and meaningful content. In those schools history has devolved to each student’s personal understanding and content has been deconstructed to the point of irrelevance. Everything is relative. On the other hand, I have seen schools that do identify as PBL schools or like my daughter’s that infuse the learning of content with strong collaborative expositions and projects and that do an excellent job of presenting facts and knowledge but cause students to reflect deeply on the information and use the knowledge to critically form their own understandings in the context of highly sophisticated projects. Here are some examples of the meaningful projects that evolved from deep content learning. After reading and discussing Camus, Sartre, Martin Buber and Kerkegaard, students, using a combination of google docs and face-to-face collaboration conducted a trial of existentialism. For other classes, after deep reading of classical and modern texts, students held a U.N. debate on genocide. At other points, students learned and then led Socratic seminars on an AP US history topic questioning whether Rockefeller, Carnegie and others of that time were robber barons or titans of industry and connecting this to the recent Wall Street scandals. These students have learned to speak, craft interactive presentations, use google documents, hold interviews via skype with international figures, and host webinars. They learned this at the service of their content.
I do not think that the either or debate is particularly useful to our profession and I believe it arises, at least in part, from implementation issues more so than simply from model problems.
Our profession has always swung the pendulum, whether whole language versus phonics, or math concepts versus skills, or content versus 21st century skills. The best teachers have always understand that one must have both–reading foundation skills and rich reading content, math concepts and thinking and math skills, deep knowledge of important content (dare I say even classical liberal arts foundations), and ability to demonstrate the knowledge through meaningful applications. Achieving this complex learning is both the skill and the artistry of teaching.
Linda Diamond
Linked at Chicago Boyz: thinking and memorizing, continued
Eh! I think that’s the teacher’s personal opinion. After all it’s up to the teacher to provide the student’s with the skills/concepts in the format that she best wishes. Every teacher is responsible for teaching their curriculum their way, but the PBL environment is supposed to allow the student to grow from an individual to a team collaborator. If the teacher feels that she is not able to adjust the curriculum to the environment then that’s a different story. It’s true that it’s difficult to fit every last detail of every unit into every project/rubric, but at the same time maybe there needs to be some adjustments to the organization of each unit.
For instance, in Math, my junior year teacher has formatted her class in a way where the math concepts were taught and then the students were in charge of using the concepts to prove that their solutions to a list of driving questions were correct/feasible. This also allowed some debate among the classroom when it came time to presentation days, because everyone has different methods.
That’s Math, now as for English and Social Studies, well I don’t see how it’s much more beneficial for a student to learn and retain the information in a spiral that they will end up throwing away or losing, or having a discussion which many of the students might not be focused/participating in. In a PBL environment, within each project there is essentially a reference created. Every time the student thinks of that particular subject or topic they will be able to think back through how they completed the project. There have been plenty of situations where I have started a sentence with, “I remember a project where I had to …..”, because I was in the middle of a conversation that allowed me to share my knowledge. Also, as for the “Just Google it”, well yeah there is a risk as for the students researching the incorrect information, but even in METSA I’ve been graded on whether or not I researched credible sites, that’s part of the rubric. Google is a source and it’s part of our generation, so there needs to be a sense of practice. In my opinion, it’s all up to the way the teacher decides to manage the classroom, if he or she feels that they are not able to cover the information then there needs to be adjustments or prioritizing. These are teenage students and you can’t expect them to retain 100 percent of the information. Content is important, and usually in the grading system that I’ve been graded by it’s held the majority of my points, so I don’t see why she states that “Content usually makes up between 15 and 30 percent of a student’s grade”. The teachers aren’t creating robots, they are developing the minds of many students who at some point will need to learn how to apply their knowledge to a team project, whether they become engineers or not. The earlier the development the better, like teaching a baby to talk or read.
Well I don’t know if what I said makes sense or not to everyone. I was a little annoyed with the fact that it seems to bash the New-Tech system without proper basis.
narrative writing examples…
[...]Need Content? Just Google It! « Common Core[...]…