In “A new culture of learning” John Seely uses the examples of surfing, World of Warcraft and speed chess in order to demonstrate the need for modern education to provide students with tacit opportunities for learning which build their creative nature and help them grow by providing a framework highlighting the need for learning to take place. This video made me think of all the ways that my students seem to be fearless in the face of failure when it comes to things they are motivated to be good at. Things like Fortnight, skateboarding or even vlogging are seen as activities where failure is a learning experience but when it comes to content, the idea that failure is part of the process is unthinkable.
In “Five minds of the future” Howard Gardner speaks about his ideas of the existence of 5 minds: disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical. Gardner says near the end of the video that the time required to become a master at something has been dramatically reduced since the proliferation of technology. This reinforced in me the idea that there has to be a way to integrate technology into my pedagogical practices in a way that is both meaningful for teaching my content but also for the practicality of leveraging something that is so pervasive in my students life. They are using youtube to learn innovative ways to hack the world around them; why not show them how to use that same tool to master mathematics. In “Do schools kill creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson speaks about how creativity is just as important a skill as literacy but as a result of stigmatizing mistakes students are not able to fully realize their creative selves. His discussion of the roots of our education system being the need to satisfy the demands created by industrialism and how that also created a hierarchy of subjects; placing math, science and English above the creative classes such as art, drama and dance was fascinating. Gillian Lynne’s story also reminded me of our obligation to help our students make sense of their talents in order to honor all of their intelligences. In “The surprising science of motivation” Daniel Pink discusses motivation and how, contrary to what we do in practice, intrinsic motivation is a more reliable than extrinsic motivation when it comes to encouraging students to think outside the box. Pink highlights the need for opportunities that value our student’s autonomy, mastery and purpose if we want to build their creative nature instead of stifle it. This talk reminded me of the drive that our students have to do things that matter and if we can get students to care about our content there is nothing they will not do to be successful at it. Reading Mobley’s ideas in “Can creativity be taught?” I couldn’t help but think about all the ways that we cut creativity in our curriculum by asking students to focus on finding answers to questions that we feel are valuable instead of asking them to question content and engage in meaningful ways that lead them to deeper understandings through a process of inquiry. If we teach our students to effectively ask questions and explore their interests then we build intrinsic motivation to understand content. The ideas in the article such as creativity being a natural state that students lose through progressing in our education system reinforce what each speaker was talking about in their videos. At the end of the article Mobley alludes to the fact that students must have the tenacity and the never-ending belief in oneself in order to not give up on the learning process right in the middle of discovery. Thinking about my student’s feelings or anxieties toward mathematics, I was left with the question: How can we build up our students to a place where they believe in themselves more than they fear failure?
3 Comments
julie
10/21/2018 01:03:38 pm
Brandon I love that idea how can we build on our students confidence. I was also struck in the videos that idea that children are by nature curious and have a desire to learn and that the system of education can squash that tendency. I think something needs to change drastically in math too many students are failing math 1 or even 2 years in a row. That has a huge impact on the confidence they feel so defeated so then the next time they take math 1 yes the have anxiety , lack of confidence, and sometimes just really bad attitudes. It takes a lot of time and patience to undo this and I think it takes much less time to make them feel bad about their abilities. I sure don't have all the answers but I agree we need to figure this out for our students sake.
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Jona Sandau
10/21/2018 03:19:34 pm
Brandon, awesome post! It was really cool to read your highlights, and remember the learning from your point of view. I love your comment about using the modes that students are enthralled with now, like Youtube, to teach content. I saw your Voicethread and absolutely loved it! I really like how each slide has a different recording, which would make it easier to edit if you make a mistake. Do you use the voicethreads in your class? It was really, really cool!
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10/21/2018 08:09:55 pm
Brandon - I couldn't agree with you more. At the end when I too read that article it made me think that we have to make our students reach for the stars. They have to believe in themselves and have the confidence to question and not accept everything they hear and read. We need to teach them to think outside the box, but how?
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