Educators’ technology needs tend to be different from those encountered in other businesses and industries. Educators generally value flexible systems that allow them to assess the usefulness of software, sites, and services; and to respond to new discoveries and changing expectations quickly. Students who are just learning to read and write often find complicated systems difficult to use. Technicians experienced in designing secure systems that provide predictable and stable access can find these needs of educational populations to be contrary to their expertise.
It we could engineer schools that “work,” we already would have done it. The reality is that learning and being “smart” are multifaceted, complex, context-dependent, and changing. When we engineer for one part, everyone complains we’ve missed the others. #education #edutoot
@garyackerman It is also very important that there is a good relationship with the teacher. And that in general one understands the meaning of school practice.
Teachers complain. They complain a lot. No, really. You can’t imagine the things teachers say about students, colleagues, administrators, parents, and everyone else. When I hear their complaints now, I may nod, but it is like white noise to me; with one exception. When I hear, “I taught it, but they didn’t learn it” I pay attention. I want to know who said it; I want to remember that person and I accept the challenge they unknowingly made to me to help them better understand what it means to teach.
#edutoot
Blumenfield, Kempler, and Krajcik (2006) suggest engagement in grounded in four factors:
Value- Learners tend to be engaged with material and lessons they believe are important to them. Value is also closely related to motivation, interest, and goals, all of which are addressed in the next section.
Competence- Learners tend to engage in activities they believe are within their abilities. Competence is grounded in one’s knowledge, their metacognitive abilities and their self-efficacy.
Relatedness- Learners tend to be engaged when they feel positive social connection to their peers.
Autonomy- Learners tend to be engaged when they can exercise choice about what they will study and their plan of study.
Blumenfield, P., Kempler, T., & Krajcik, J. (2006). Motivation and cognitive engagement in learning environments. In R. Keith Sawyer (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Learning Science, (pp. 475-488). Cambridge University Press.
I'm in the middle of writing a new essay, and there was one awkward paragraph that I just couldn't seem to fix. Eventually I realized it was because the underlying idea was wrong, and that the real solution was to delete it.
This often happens. Trying to make the sentences perfect is not as shallow an undertaking as it sounds. It also exposes the bad ideas.
Inert knowledge can be understood as knowledge that is meaningful only within the classroom. Whatever is learned is relevant only to problems and situations framed and solved in the context of the class and within the boundaries of the class. Many teachers defend this approach to education from the position that they must teach information first. “How can students use the information,” they reason, “until they know it?” Whitehead would respond, “The mind is never passive…. You cannot postpone its life until you have sharpened it." When learning is assumed to be the transfer of information, we approach students minds as passive, and passive minds do not learn.
We have all experienced the change in our brains we call learning. We become capable of remembering information, performing actions, recognizing patterns, appreciating observations, asking questions, and otherwise interacting with ideas, tools, and people in a way we could not previously. Becoming aware of and evaluating our capabilities is learning as well. The many processes mentioned in this paragraph can be labeled cognition, and learning is about improving our cognitive abilities.
Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation at a community college in New England
Retired k-12 science/ math/ technology teacher/ technology integration specialist/ coordinator