In this episode of Tech Chicks, they discuss themes and ideas from the Tech Forum Southwest (from which they are returning home during this podcast). A big topic was the 21st century learning environment and skills. They noted that it is somewhat arrogant of us to define these 21st century skills when they aren't even solidified yet. They are still developing and changing. This was the main idea of a presentation done by Dave Warlick. You can't really teach with the end in mind because we don't know what the end is yet. We are still holding on to our old mental models of teaching, and that's okay, except we need to suite them to these 21st century skills that we are supposed to be teaching. Project-based learning was a huge topic at this conference. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach presented on project-based learning. This is an excellent way to actually teach kids something in a way that is conducive to being meaningful, as opposed to the drilling that goes along with standardized assessments. Everything now is so assessment driven that we don't make the information connect to a meaningful idea because we are too busy trying to get through all the material that is being assessed. This situation is extremely frustrating for teachers because we know that all kids are different: they have different personalities, different learning styles, different aptitudes and weaknesses, but they are all given the same standardized tests and all on the same time line. We are acknowledging their differences, but the government requires us to treat them all the same when it comes to standardized tests. Because our hands are basically tied, we have to find our own ways to actually teach in a meaningful way. The Tech Chicks mentioned that if teachers could create a brand new assessment system from scratch, there would be no timelines, and kids would be able to construct their own learning.
However, that's just not the way it is, and we would never be able to convince any higher powers to let us do that, so we just have to keep fighting the fight. It is maddening that teachers have to drop all these great activities and lessons because they're afraid they won't have enough time to get through the material being assessed. These exams are pretty much eliminating all authentic learning from schools, so kids don't really find legitimate reasons why they need to know what they're being taught. The whole idea here is authenticity: we need to make information relevant to kids in their own world, and project-based learning is one way to do this.
Our situation as teachers is similar to the story "Horton Hears a Who." If we keep shouting, eventually someone will hear us.
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