It's very clear which of the two school reformation options Will Richardson wants us to side with. Generally my attitudes towards education tend to fall within Progressive and Reconstructionist philosophies. I would, however, be reticent to accept a complete revolution to the education system as it currently stands overnight. Fortunately, that is NOT what Richardson calls for here. Instead, he is urging educators of today to adopt a blended approach to teaching our kids: to continue to be mindful of required content curriculum and to continue giving required tests, but not to rely on these traditional methods alone. He urges us to teach beyond what is easy or convenient to assess in order to help students develop real-life skills that will be essential for them in the real world. These skills, unsurprisingly, are rooted in technology. Alternative modes of assessment might look like co-created rubrics that set content and quality standards, seeking targeted feedback from outside audiences, as well as student's own metacognitive self-assessment.
Richardson provides educators with different strategies that they can use to help implement these changes in their own curriculum. I think all of these ideas have a great deal of merit in the right context, and are certainly ideals to strive for. I also recognize that some of them will run up against certain challenges that may render them (at least temporarily) unattainable. For example, Richardson recommends that teachers should “discover” rather than “deliver” the content taught in their classrooms. In other words, curriculum should not only be student-centered, but also student-generated. This is exactly how Project-Based Learning is supposed to function. The only problem is that it may or may not align with school department/district directives. For example, Escondido Union High School District has a mandated curriculum for its English department which specifies which major texts are taught, which standards will be focused on, which forms of assessment should be used, and even which essential questions must be posed. This does not make it necessarily impossible for teachers to find creative approaches and to make adjustments to better fit the interests and curiosity of their students, but it does not leave teachers much autonomy either. And in other schools that have fewer restrictions or administration that is open to alternative ideas, I can see this working very well. I do agree strongly with Richardson that teachers should be master learners themselves, and that they should model this learning process for students as frequently as possible. I believe it is okay for teachers to admit that they are not the end-all authority on all (any) subjects, particularly when they are willing to guide students into discovering the answer to those unknown questions. I also really like the idea of having students do real work for real audiences. This may be easier to do in some content areas than others, but it should not be impossible in any of them. For example, students could create collaborative or anthological collections of creative writing, poetry, and essays on topics that matter to people and are culturally relevant. There are endless ways to publish and share this content, and even to work collaboratively with “strangers” on the other side of the world. Finally, I have one idea in particular for a semester-long project that would, as Richardson suggests “transfer the power” from the teacher to the students. I call it a Self-Efficacy project, and it was inspired by a combination of personal experiences in my earlier college years that had a profound effect on my own sense of self-efficacy. In essence, the project would call for students to select one thing that they do not currently know how to do, and to spend the semester developing that skill on their own time. At the end of the semester, they would share or demonstrate it for the class. Even though my content area is English, students would not be restricted to any particular subject matter or type of skill. They could learn to solve the Rubik’s cube, learn to do a back flip, learn to jump a horse, learn to write a novel, learn to speak Klingon, learn to code in Perl, learn to shoot and edit a movie, etc. etc. (English standards would come into play as students engage in the planning process: they would need to be able to express their reasoning and explanations verbally and in writing, to describe their progress, and finally to self-reflect on the project as a whole.) Richardson, Will. Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. TED Conferences, 2012. EPUB file
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