Undergraduate Educators

A general blog to be taken as blog is short for (weblog). So this is more of a log of what I think I learned from this paper, written as I read it...

If beginning teachers are to be successful, they must wrestle simultaneously with issues of pedagogical content (or knowledge) as well as general pedagogy (or generic teaching principles)

There is a list of features of what we want to teach. I'm not sure how this is related to comprehension. In those features are contained,

• To teach students to believe and respect others, to contribute to the well-being of their community
• To give students the opportunity to learn how to inquire and discover new information

I think that these are great ideals, but I would love to hear some ways that we could implement this kind of program in a public school. This is not me being cynical or even skeptical, just feeling like I haven't seen these points spoken of often. These both feel like implicit lessons in our american university setting.

Following the list of interesting points to consider for a teacher (comprehension, transformation, instruction, and evaluation is a statement of logical teaching that falls under reflection:

All teachers must learn to observe outcomes and determine the reasons for success or failure

And this is where we claim no gap between "squishy-hard" sciences. This is teaching, and it is based in reality. If we see something has failed, we try to figure out why it did and we only reenact it in our head. We don't repeat a failed method without good reason.

Moving to our second reading we now consider the shift of paradigms. We wish to observe a shift in our educational system from providing instruction to producing learning. Concerning the differences in how we may rate and quantify our progress we see:

We are so wedded to a definition of quality based on resources that we find it extremely difficult to deal with the results of our work, namely student learning.

I do have a worry about the learning production paradigm that is contained within the next statement:

It supports any learning method and structure that works, where "works" is defined in terms of learning outcomes, not as the degree of conformity to an ideal classroom archetype.

In fact, the Learning Paradigm requires a constant search for new structures and methods that work better for student learning and success, and expects even these to be redesigned continually and to evolve over time.

My worry is that in our attempt to redefine education we will lose some of the qualities that allow for teachers who are less capable to maintain classes. We have introduced a lot of ambiguity into our system by producing learning.. If we talk about it too much we will stray into arbitrary theoretical nonsense. In a sense, we need to be ready to adapt and change our methods, but we must also be willing to choose a method, fail at it, and choose again. We will not be able to provide a structure for some who need it if the class appears to be too floppy or without any structure.

However, I find it hard to argue with the logic in the motivation of our need for change:

"Fractionated instruction maximizes forgetting, inattention, and passivity. Both children and adults acquire knowledge from active participation in holistic, complex, meaningful environments organized around long-term goals. Today's school programs could hardly have been better designed to prevent a child's natural learning system from operating."

I finally come to the point, nearing the end of the article when I find that I need a direction of what needs to happen as opposed to what is wrong with everything. I am pleased to find a clear direction:

We need to work to have state legislatures change the funding formulas of public colleges and universities to give institutions the latitude and incentives to develop new structures for learning.

In reading this article I find that same push of governmental change. But there is still a fine balance between change from the top and the bottom. We need to begin by speaking the language to each other. Wondering what our university can look like, but also speaking the current language of failure to our legislative branch. This feels like a complete and refined thought, I like it.