Week Five: Straw Men or 'If I Only Had an ID Model'
First off this time, I've really been enjoying the newest Polar Husky project; what a fun, interesting way to engage kids (and adults!) in learning. The whole ANWAR topic is so politically charged and so full of misinformation, it would be helpful if more people really understood the isse; this should go a long way; more knowledge is good.
The case study: It was pretty clear to all of us that Denny needs to do some real digging into those who've taken the workshop and finding out how it changed their teaching. The videos that were available would be a great resource since the creator of the material wasn't going to be much help in guiding the process. Some of the case studies are valuable because they remind us that personalities and peoples' working style can have an impact on getting a project done. People being as flexible as possible and good leadership would seem to be key here.
I was thinking of the back/forth we had in class about behaviorist teaching vs constructivist teaching. One thing that, while being more cut/dried to discuss, isn't always said is that teaching is almost never all one or the other. By portraying the terms in "lecture/simple testing/scantron hell" vs. "coop/group/self-guided," it's easy for the arguments to be straw men. Sure, it's fun to debate it, but this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum and I would say that few if any teachers do one rigid method all the time. I would think that some combo would happen and the teacher knowing when to use one or the other...or both.
The talk about technology in education is always interesting...takes me back to the "great debate" thing in a previous class. The jury still may be out on technology for teaching, but the best thing to do first is ask the question, so what?