Education professors have damaged
generations of K-12 teachers and administrators at the Minneapolis Public
Schools and in locally centralized school districts throughout the United
States with notions rooted in the need for the education professor to survive at
universities at which other professors know so much more.
Consider these terms from the education professor’s
lexicon, followed by my comments:
Individual Differences
As “progressive educators” sent forth by
education professors, most K-12 teachers and administrators emphasize the individuality of each student, understood
to have significant differences in familial circumstances, ethnicity, learning
styles, interests, and other characteristics that necessitate differentiated instruction
and curriculum variance from student to student.
Individual Learning Styles
These follow from the conceptualization of multiple
intelligences by the psychologist Howard Gardner, who maintains that there is
no one kind of intelligence as in an intelligence quotient (I. Q.), but rather a
least eight categories of intelligence:
musical, visual, verbal, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, and naturalistic;
education professors and the students whom they send forth as K-12 teachers
and administrators believe that instruction should vary according to the modality
in which each student learns best, depending on her or his dominant form of
intelligence.
Learn to Learn
Education professors assert that mastery of
a set body of knowledge is not important;
rather, the student should learn how to learn by developing skills in accessing
information from multiple sources.
Metacognitive Skills
These skills involve student contemplation
of what she or he is doing in any learning activity; rather than just mastering a discrete skill,
the student should ask questions as to why the skill is being learned and what
process is being utilized in learning the current task.
Multi-Aged Classrooms
Preference for classrooms in which students
vary in age is grounded in the education professor’s contention that each student should learn at
her or his own pace; in this scheme, traditional
grouping of students of like age at specific grade levels gives way to
classrooms filled with students of different ages studying at their own pace
and assisting each other in learning activities.
Open Classrooms
These were much in vogue from the 1970s
into the early 1980s, during which many school buildings were constructed so as
to feature classrooms without permanent walls, allowing students to move easily
from class to multi-media room, auditorium, cafeteria and other rooms throughout
the building, eliminating the physical and psychological obstruction of enclosed
spaces.
Passive Listening
Education professors and their proteges
deride the transmission method of learning via teacher lecture or direct
instruction as encouraging passivity; they favor active projects, personal
investigations, and hands-on learning activities.
Performance-Based Assessment
This involves evaluation of student
demonstration of learning by the classroom facilitator, who assesses the quality
of a portfolio or presentation rather than giving conventional objective
tests; this is what education professors
and their vocational progeny call “authentic assessment.”
Portfolio Assessment
This is one form of performance-based
assessment, whereby in this specific case the classroom facilitator evaluates
the academic and creative production selected by students for inclusion in
portfolios, again as an alternative to conventional objective tests.
Problem-Solving Skills
This is another emphasis of the education
professor, who maintains that mastering specific subject area knowledge is not
important; rather, the student should learn
to exercise critical thinking to solve problems, thereby accessing the information
and utilizing the skills actually necessary to a given task.
My Comments >>>>>
Individual Differences
The master teacher should always be aware
of a student’s particular life circumstances and special talents; but students at given ages have much in
common and all have a need to learn the same body of knowledge and the array of
skills necessary to academic success.
Individual Learning Styles
These are magnified for emphasis way out of
proportion to their validity and applicability;
the master teacher should always be aware of talents possessed by her or
his students, but all students respond to well-crafted lectures, direct
instruction, and classroom discussions.
Learn to Learn
Learning how to learn should occur in the process
of mastering well-defined, logically sequenced knowledge and skill sets,
delivered in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.
Metacognitive Skills
Education professors as a rule lack the
intellectual ability to engage in this sort of deep think at the upper grade
levels, so they pretend that they are grand philosophers working their wonders
with children at grades K-5; students at
grades K-5 would be much better off learning to read well, master basic mathematical
operations, and practicing good principles of English usage and composition.
Multi-Aged Classrooms
Children and adolescents are much better
off being matched with their peers, who have very similar intellectual and
social propensities.
Open Classrooms
These proved to present irritating
distractions; classrooms enveloped by
walls are quieter, more comforting places, conducive to learning challenging
knowledge and skill sets.
Passive Listening
The master teacher provides scope for active learning but also encourages her or his students to become good listeners, adept at deriving information from lectures and classroom discussions.
Performance-Based Assessment
This form of assessment should be
supplementary to objective and standardized tests, which are fairer and more
dependable forms of assessment.
Portfolio Assessment
As with performance-based assessments, this
form of assessment should be supplementary to objective and standardized tests,
which are fairer and more dependable forms of assessment.
Problem-Solving Skills
Students should learn to analyze material
and solve problems while mastering challenging curricula comprised of well-defined
knowledge and skill sets; these latter make
possible more efficient and well-informed investigation into current events and
matters of immediate interest.
No comments:
Post a Comment