In his book 'Outliers', Malcolm Gladwell
(2008) stated that pioneers such as the Beatles and Bill Gates were phenomenal
in their craft because they had mastered it over 10,000 hours. Our students attend school for over 10,000 hours
in their K-12 careers. What educational "crafts" will they master
when they graduate?
"Will that be on the test?",
is a cry for help for many of our students.
They have endured many hours in classrooms where they have not been
required to think. Their goal becomes to 'get it done', get the grade and
survive the day. The classroom learning environment needs to encourage students
to take advantage of the opportunity to become self-directed and motivated
learners. The following is a 'shift of
mind' that occurred in my district.
Learning
Trust
This concept works both ways, the
students will learn from you and you will learn more about your practice from
them. Here is an example. In a
traditional classroom, the teacher will read out all of the instructions to the
students on a paper. The message that is sent to the students is that the most
important thing is compliance with directions and they cannot be trusted to
"get it right" on their own.
For the highly capable students, they must wait until the teacher reviews the
entire assignment before they can start.
They are also told that they must follow these boundaries if they want
to be successful which limits creativity.
In a classroom where there is learning
trust, the teacher hands over the main concepts of the assignment for
review. The students assess what they
understand and difficulties. The teacher
also asks the students for feedback on how to make the assignment more rewarding. This creates a learning
partnership where students feel validated and are given an opportunity to
explore further options in their learning. After the initial review, students
can share their concerns and questions with their peers in groups as well as
share their expertise and support others in their learning.
High
Cognitive Demand
When a student knows that the end
goal is to remember a bunch of facts on
the final test to get their grade, then that is often the bar that they will
set. The assessment is often low cognitive demand so that basic information is
remembered. This tells students that listing, describing and retrieving
information is what is important. This is outdated industrial-age thinking.
Today's students need to analyze, create, debate, and critique
(Bloom,1956) They need to expect to
struggle as part of the learning process and to reflect on their struggles in a
journal or peer conversations and then assess what the need to work on. Assessment is too often an 'autopsy' rather
than a tool for students, parents and teachers to document growth. Imagine a Student Led Conference with a
student proudly showing a parent some early reflections where they struggled
and then showing evidence of how they have improved. This creates a motivated
student who can see the results and is in charge of their learning.
Use
of Resources: Flow of Information
My superintendent once told me,
"Frustration occurs when you run out of options." This is often the problem that students have
with cognitively demanding work. The goal for a teacher should be to encourage
the students to utilize the resources in the room. The best resource to tap
into are the thirty other students in the classroom. In a typical middle school
classroom, that would amount to over 2,000 hours of learning experience. The
role of the teacher is to have the students turn to their peers and other
resources and not to them. Some suggestions for teachers are:
- Find alternative methods to the teacher delivering the content
- When a student asks a question, throw it back to the class
- Tell students to use their resources instead of solving the problem for them
- Stop playing the role of the validator. Allow the students to figure it out
- Provide thought provoking questions that challenges student thinking and sparks debate
Think about all the life-long skills
they are learning as a result of peer networking in the classroom. The actual subject becomes the tool for
students working together to problem solve which is real world application.
Take advantage of the fact that kids like to communicate with each other and
move around the room working with others.
"What do you want your students to
be able to do after their 10,000 hours in school?" If the goal is to complete the content and
get a grade, then don't be surprised if the engagement level is low and compliance
is more evident than learning. If your
students learn to trust their peers and adults and have developed a tool kit to
take on the most difficult challenges then we have created learners ready to be
successful in the real world. That makes for a rewarding experience for both
the student and teacher.
References:
Bloom, B. and Krathwol, R. (1956),
Taxonomy of educational objectives. The classification of educational goals, by
a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain,
New York, Longmans
Gladwell, M. (2008), Outliers. New York,
Hatchette Book Group
Written by:
David Cooke, Principal
La Center Middle School
