Hey, so I realized last night that I never talked about how Apprentice Learning has to do with education before the college level. I think that we need to switch our teaching styles now to reflect a kind of learning that students can live with later. What I mean by this is that we need to give students real-life problems to solve, as compared to handing out a worksheet to them and ask them to find the subject and verb. Instead of doing that, I think that we should have them write something themselves and ask them to review what the subject and verb are of what they just wrote.
Instead of doing math worksheets of 25+j=30, we need to give them the strategies needed to solve word problems. The world will never give any of us (though I wish it could) a math problem like this. It will be more likely that it will give us a problem like: I know that the movie was $25, but I wanted popcorn as well, and it ended up being $30 for everything, so how much was the popcorn?
Apprentice learning, I hope, is what we are getting closer to with each generation of teachers that are going into the field. I know that I have been continually taught to get rid of the worksheets, that it would be best if you burned them in a bonfire.
By teaching in apprentice learning style, we are helping students understand the real-life applications of how learning this affects their life. By teaching, we don't have to try and answer the honest and logical question, "Why do I need to learn this?" That is what I think is the case, anyway, it may be that, in fact they still ask that question. However, it would not be a logical question anymore because you are showing them while you are teaching them why they need to know this.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Apprentice Teaching- College
Over the summer, I met a woman who worked with me from New Zealand and she commented on how college hungry we are in the United States. I was a little bit confused by what she meant by college hungry. She replied that in New Zealand, she never went to college, but now she owns two group homes. I am quite certain that this would not even be an option for a person who did not go to college here.
So, I want to talk about something that a few posts ago I said I would talk about very soon. Apprentice learning. During our conversation, we discussed possible ways of doing post-secondary education that doesn't involve college. She said, and I completely agree with her, that "not all students who go to college, which is supposed to be everyone in the United States, are ready or have what it takes to go to college. They also just might not want to go to college."
We discussed that in New Zealand, they still have apprenticeships. Long ago (I don't know how long ago) and maybe still a little bit today, this was college. The only thing is that this was actually going to get you ready for what you wanted to do. For instance, if you wanted to be a shoemaker, you would apprentice yourself to a shoemaker.
But now, if you want to be a shoemaker, you have to go to college. In the process of going to college, you have to take out a bunch of student loans (which put you in debt) and you have to take a class on philosophy. I don't know about you, but I am not entirely sure that there is a philosophy of shoemakers class at college. What I am trying to say here while being facetious is that apprenticeships actually prepare the student or person for what they are going to do for possibly the rest of their life.
I know someone who graduated with a Geography Information Systems (GIS) major (they create the maps that go into GPS systems for your car), and he never had an experience in creating a map for an actual setting besides classes. He never had, as we sometimes call them, an internship. He also had to take a philosophy, English, psychology and a math class to name but a few. What do these have to do with GIS? Nothing.
What I am proposing is that our college classes get us better prepared by actually creating experience-based learning. For instance, going back to the GIS major, have an internship. What I propose is that we move away from book-based learning because a lot of our upcoming college students seriously struggle with reading. However, here is the ticker, there are some in that new generation of college students who comprehend and learn best with reading the textbooks (I am guilty of being one of these ridiculously odd people).
So, how can we find a balance between apprenticeship learning and book learning? At least half-and-half, where half of the class time focuses on book learning and the other half of the time focus on apprenticeship learning. Or, we can create a better democratic classroom and allow the students to choose whether they want to do the book learning or the apprentice learning.
In the end, our society is changing, and our colleges are beginning to be dumping grounds for all students , even those who are not ready for the current college (I know that sounds harsh, but that seems to me to be what is happening). Some students, I would postulate, graduate high school reading at maybe a 6th grade level and they are presented with college texts. Are they ready to read them? Most likely not. Our society is changing, our learning is changing, our students are changing, college must change for them.
One last thought, what I am proposing here is not a dumbing or watering down of the curriculum. It is a change in the way of teaching the curriculum, by getting rid of textbooks and not requiring them and just offering on-the-job or on-the-apprenticeship learning.
So, I want to talk about something that a few posts ago I said I would talk about very soon. Apprentice learning. During our conversation, we discussed possible ways of doing post-secondary education that doesn't involve college. She said, and I completely agree with her, that "not all students who go to college, which is supposed to be everyone in the United States, are ready or have what it takes to go to college. They also just might not want to go to college."
We discussed that in New Zealand, they still have apprenticeships. Long ago (I don't know how long ago) and maybe still a little bit today, this was college. The only thing is that this was actually going to get you ready for what you wanted to do. For instance, if you wanted to be a shoemaker, you would apprentice yourself to a shoemaker.
But now, if you want to be a shoemaker, you have to go to college. In the process of going to college, you have to take out a bunch of student loans (which put you in debt) and you have to take a class on philosophy. I don't know about you, but I am not entirely sure that there is a philosophy of shoemakers class at college. What I am trying to say here while being facetious is that apprenticeships actually prepare the student or person for what they are going to do for possibly the rest of their life.
I know someone who graduated with a Geography Information Systems (GIS) major (they create the maps that go into GPS systems for your car), and he never had an experience in creating a map for an actual setting besides classes. He never had, as we sometimes call them, an internship. He also had to take a philosophy, English, psychology and a math class to name but a few. What do these have to do with GIS? Nothing.
What I am proposing is that our college classes get us better prepared by actually creating experience-based learning. For instance, going back to the GIS major, have an internship. What I propose is that we move away from book-based learning because a lot of our upcoming college students seriously struggle with reading. However, here is the ticker, there are some in that new generation of college students who comprehend and learn best with reading the textbooks (I am guilty of being one of these ridiculously odd people).
So, how can we find a balance between apprenticeship learning and book learning? At least half-and-half, where half of the class time focuses on book learning and the other half of the time focus on apprenticeship learning. Or, we can create a better democratic classroom and allow the students to choose whether they want to do the book learning or the apprentice learning.
In the end, our society is changing, and our colleges are beginning to be dumping grounds for all students , even those who are not ready for the current college (I know that sounds harsh, but that seems to me to be what is happening). Some students, I would postulate, graduate high school reading at maybe a 6th grade level and they are presented with college texts. Are they ready to read them? Most likely not. Our society is changing, our learning is changing, our students are changing, college must change for them.
One last thought, what I am proposing here is not a dumbing or watering down of the curriculum. It is a change in the way of teaching the curriculum, by getting rid of textbooks and not requiring them and just offering on-the-job or on-the-apprenticeship learning.
Whisper Phones/Think-Alouds
Whisper Phones are a great way to help students recognize that thinking is just talking out loud. A whisper phone is a tube of PBC pipe that forms a phone-type shape that connects the mouth to the ear. If you talk at over a whisper, it really hurts your ears, so you have to only whisper.
This is a great way for students to do think-alouds to themselves while reading. Think-alouds are an amazing and powerful tool that aid comprehension. What the student does is they think aloud (I know, wow, right?) while reading a text or doing a math problem (with whisper phones, it is best to use them with reading because some kids need both hands to figure out the answers to math problems.). They think aloud in different strategies, such as "What do I think is going to happen next?" and "What did I just read?"
The idea behind think-alouds is that the student is doing comprehension strategies DURING reading as compared to the typical comprehension strategy that a lot of teachers use which is AFTER reading. By doing a comprehension strategy after the reading, it is not maintaining and better insuring that the students were paying attention to the text while they were reading.
Many students I would venture, read in this style: They move their eyes around a page at a "reasonable rate" and then after an appropriate amount of time has passed, they turn the page. A strategy like a Think-Aloud and whisper phones combined together can be a powerful tool to help them get better comprehension.
A logical question is: Do I have enough time to teach this think-aloud? My answer is this: Have you ever read a story to your students? If you have, then you have enough time to teach think-alouds. While reading a text to your class, you could stop at certain points in your reading and think-aloud. You can show how to think aloud for predictions. For instance, if you are reading a mystery book, you can make a prediction based on some information about who committed the crime.
Another possible statement is: "Well, I can't have students talking out loud when they are supposed to be silently reading." Here is the thing, by saying something out loud, our brain remembers it much better. Sure, they will be talking out loud when they first start this strategy. But you and I don't have to talk out loud in order to utilize this strategy. We can think it, but students who are first learning how to use it will be talking out loud. This is where the whisper phones can come in really handy, lots of whispering in your classroom is better than all out talking, right?
In the end, it all comes down to us. We can decide that we don't have time to teach a really good comprehension strategy, or we can take the time and teach it. And I would predict (I just used the word, so I guess I am thinking-aloud right now) that our students will do better on high-stakes tests if we give them the strategy of think-alouds.
This is a great way for students to do think-alouds to themselves while reading. Think-alouds are an amazing and powerful tool that aid comprehension. What the student does is they think aloud (I know, wow, right?) while reading a text or doing a math problem (with whisper phones, it is best to use them with reading because some kids need both hands to figure out the answers to math problems.). They think aloud in different strategies, such as "What do I think is going to happen next?" and "What did I just read?"
The idea behind think-alouds is that the student is doing comprehension strategies DURING reading as compared to the typical comprehension strategy that a lot of teachers use which is AFTER reading. By doing a comprehension strategy after the reading, it is not maintaining and better insuring that the students were paying attention to the text while they were reading.
Many students I would venture, read in this style: They move their eyes around a page at a "reasonable rate" and then after an appropriate amount of time has passed, they turn the page. A strategy like a Think-Aloud and whisper phones combined together can be a powerful tool to help them get better comprehension.
A logical question is: Do I have enough time to teach this think-aloud? My answer is this: Have you ever read a story to your students? If you have, then you have enough time to teach think-alouds. While reading a text to your class, you could stop at certain points in your reading and think-aloud. You can show how to think aloud for predictions. For instance, if you are reading a mystery book, you can make a prediction based on some information about who committed the crime.
Another possible statement is: "Well, I can't have students talking out loud when they are supposed to be silently reading." Here is the thing, by saying something out loud, our brain remembers it much better. Sure, they will be talking out loud when they first start this strategy. But you and I don't have to talk out loud in order to utilize this strategy. We can think it, but students who are first learning how to use it will be talking out loud. This is where the whisper phones can come in really handy, lots of whispering in your classroom is better than all out talking, right?
In the end, it all comes down to us. We can decide that we don't have time to teach a really good comprehension strategy, or we can take the time and teach it. And I would predict (I just used the word, so I guess I am thinking-aloud right now) that our students will do better on high-stakes tests if we give them the strategy of think-alouds.
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