Opportunity involves a
sense of danger. The fear associated with danger in risk taking alerts us to the fact that we may be headed in the right direction.
Come to the edge,
It's too high!
Come to the edge,
We might fall!
Come to the edge,
and they came,
and he pushed them,
and they flew
-Apollinaire
I believe you will fly. My wish for you is that you take risks through adventure and the difficult - not the easy life.
-Elliott Galloway (1920-2008) |
|
Conceptualization of Education
According to John Dewey, “Education is Life.” Therefore, the goals of education are the same as those for life. From a pragmatic perspective, the purpose of American education is to help students develop their interest and a sense of purpose so they may thrive in a democratic society. I describe thriving as being happy and living a good life, as defined individually, without negatively impacting others. In terms of educational goals, happiness entails meeting the cognitive needs and interests of students to better understand the natural world through exploration and discovery. Achieving education in a democratic society requires a curriculum focused on a learning context centered on problems, questions, or projects of interest and relevance to the learner with opportunities for social interactions.
Conceptualization of Teaching and Learning
The educative experience that is student-interest centered respects the learner’s personality and cultivates democratic characteristics such as self-direction, thinking, and persistence. In his project method, William Heard Kilpatrick, a former student of John Dewey and professor at Columbia Teachers College, stresses the idea that learning involves purposeful activities directed by the student. I concur with his contention that by choosing the direction and purpose of their learning, students make conscious decisions, which help to build a defensible life that is meaningful, rich, and satisfying. A strong factor that motivates student learning is intrinsic curiosity which leads to the desire for knowledge, and the purposeful activity has the added benefit of providing such motivation.
To paraphrase Piaget, when we tell a student something, we prevent its reinvention. However, when a student discovers something, it remains with the student forever. I believe teaching is about student experiences. The teacher’s role as facilitator is to provide educative experiences, give guidance and encouragement to students as needed, identify student preconceptions, provide counter examples for student misconceptions, and assist with the development of content knowledge and understanding of scientific processes. Teaching also involves providing productive social interactions that lead to the development of individual human thought. Humans are social beings requiring the need to develop and maintain positive social relationships important for leading a happy life. Through social interaction, students learn to construct meaning from experiences and to consider opposing viewpoints, which eventually lead to developing friendships and an opportunity for transformative learning.
Implementation of Philosophy
In my courses I use multiple techniques (such as discrepant events, interactive class discussions, small group tasks, video clips, etc.) to engage students in an active and collaborative learning environment. My lessons typically begin with an engaging activity that enables identification of student prior knowledge. Then, students are provided with an opportunity to explore the topic or subject, often in small collaborative groups, with minimal guidance. The exploration activity provides a focused experience for students to further develop their ideas and refine their understanding. Students then communicate their conceptual understanding and through constructive discourse refine their explanations. Finally, students take action by applying their knowledge and skills, ask new questions, or make decisions. With each class, my goal is to create a learning community between both the students in the course and myself. I accomplish this by identifying student interests, providing opportunities for informal conversations, and encouraging participants to reveal personal histories. Building positive rapport between and with students involves developing an ethos of caring. Being a good facilitator and listener helps me to create, with students, a learning environment where students can develop their sense of purpose and meet their cognitive needs to understand the natural world. |
