One of the key ideas that Jacobs talks about is that teachers should determine what it is that they want students to know and be able to do before creating an activity. By knowing what our end result should be, it is easier to plan. Teachers will know what the objectives are and what they expect their students to know and accomplish. If teachers don't have an end point, how will they know when to stop teaching? How will they know when students have learned what was suppose to be taught? How will they know when the standard has been met? If teachers design their lesson backwards, then they will know what they want the results to be, making it easier to create a curriculum.
Another key idea that Jacobs talks about is to modernize our education. She says that we can't modernize it by using computers instead of typewriters. We need to start with the basics; we need to start evaluating our assessments. If we revise our assessments, we will know what standard we want our students to meet. Once we have revised the assessments, then we move on to the content and the skills that are being taught. If we only revise the assessment, we won't be teaching the right skills for students to learn to pass the assessments. Again, if we start at the end and work backwards, it will be easier. How can you create a curriculum if you don't know what you want your students to gain from it? If we change our assessments to standards-based, it will be a step in the right direction. Then we will know what we have to teach to our students so they can meet the standard.
A question that Jacobs asks is "Are the students in the United States being prepared for the present and the future...? When I was in school, which wasn't that long ago, I was taught the same way school is taught now, and there are a lot of people that I know that are successful, so why can't we keep teaching this way? We can't because the world is constantly changing. When I think of changing technology, I think of cell phones. You buy a cell phone and within six months, they have a new version of your phone and yours is considered ancient. If the world is changing this quickly, we need to try to stay up to speed, so our students can be ready to face college, or the employment world, once they leave high school. I feel that our students are "ready" for the future, but there is so much more that we can show them so they are truly ready. We can introduce them to different careers, different ways of learning, different ways to showcase their learning, etc. Students need to be introduced to multiple things to make them a well-rounded learner. They need to be challenged more. If they can show that they know how to add 4 digit whole numbers, have them explain their steps and why they are doing those steps. The more we get our students to think, the more they exercise their brains, the more successful they will be.
Jacobs says that one way we can upgrade our curriculum is by doing the following: change the schedule, change the grouping pattern of learners, change the grouping pattern of professionals, and change the space. If we change the way a school day looks, our students might be more successful.
If we put students on learning pathways, they get introduced to careers that they are interested in. This way they can determine if this is something that they want to do when they are older or if they wouldn't like it at all. By being introduced to a career early, they won't have to go through college, work a few years in the career they chose, and then realize that they don't like it. Then they go back to college to try to find something else they would like. We need to have our students experience the different career choices. We need to put them in a hospital, if they want to go into the medical field, or put them in a potato field if they want to be an agricultural farmer. We need to change the way we prepare our students, so they can be successful once they leave high school. The school days could be extended, giving more learning opportunities; the teachers wouldn't be limited on time. If we have longer days, we could have short weeks. Students could go to school from Monday to Thursday. On Fridays, they could take online classes, college classes or go out in the community and gain some work experience. The high school in Fort Kent offers a program that allows their high school students to take a certain amount of college classes a semester. This gives the students an advantage for when they go to college because (1) they will have almost a whole year done when they graduate and (2) they will have experienced college classes, so they will know what to expect. We can change the grouping of the professionals by try to get more male teachers to teach at the elementary level and more women to teach at the high school level. Also, instead of always having teachers teaching, have professionals come into the school to teach the kids something. Having a different face and a different way of teaching can help students be more successful. They may create a connection to a different teacher and want to learn more from them because they find them interesting. The more exposure that students have to different people teaching them things, the more experiences they will gain. To change the space of learning may be a little more difficult. One change could be that students are at home listening to the lesson being taught instead of being in the classroom. The students could be out working in the fields they are interested in, instead of sitting in a classroom. Changing the grouping of pattern learners worries me a little. I am worried about the second grade student who is reading at a middle school level being grouped with middle level students. Socially and emotionally, this isn't a good idea. If students are to be grouped according to their learning abilities, I feel that they should be grouped at an elementary level, a middle/high school level. Elementary students should be no where near middle and high school students. How would that second grader feel? How would the middle level student feel? I understand that if they are ready to be learning at that level then they should be, but this is why we have differentiated instruction. Within a classroom, or small learning groups, teachers should be able to challenge all levels of learning in their classrooms.
By challenging our students and giving them many learning opportunities outside of the classrooms, I hope we are getting them ready for the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment