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Volume 9 |
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Designing Units & Courses |
The Case. Lois Wilson, a second year high school biology teacher in a community that has only one high school, took a graduate course in the summer at the local university. In the course, she became extremely interested in a theory of learning, called "self-directed learning" proposed by Carl Rogers. Self-directed learning provides more freedom for the students in terms of choosing what and how to learn information. Ms. Wilson feels strongly that this "open" methods fits with her teaching philosophy better than the more structured approach she was using during her first year of teaching. Prior to the opening of school, Ms. Wilson changes her curriculum plans to reflect the self-directed theory. She spends the first two weeks of school helping the students become skilled and familiar with self-directed learning. For all of her students, this is a new venture. She planned activities where students had to make choices of objectives, or activities, or content. Knowing that students like to work together, she decided place students in small teams. At the end of the two weeks, she instructed the teams that they should decide and select the activities and content in the first part of the text that would interest them. They should formulate a self-directed plan, and carry it out for the remainder of the grading period. A few weeks later, a rather irate parent calls Mr. Brady, the principal, complaining that her son is wasting his time in Ms. Wilson's class. The parent complains that her son is not learning anything, and she demands a conference with Ms. Wison.
The Problem. How would you deal with this situation? What would you say to the parent? How do explain your teaching theory to your principal?
The Case. Chin Wong, a physics teacher in a large comprehensive high school, is known for his innovative approaches to teaching. After attending an indepth conference and study group on "Implementing Cognitive Theory in to the Science Classroom," He decides that he is going to implement one of the ideas into his teaching approach. At the conference he discovered that determining and helping the students detect their current ideas on the concepts to be taught is an important place to begin instruction. At the conference it was suggested that a simple activity or a demonstration presented to the students would enable the students to demonstrate their ideas verbally and publicly. Mr. Wong planned a demonstration on falling objects. The idea was to let students identify the forces (by making a diagram and labeling it) on the falling object. After doing the activity and having the students make their diagrams, Mr. Wong carried on a discussion with the class. During the discussion he noticed one of the students was quite upset. The student was embarassed that he didn't not label the diagram "correctly," and felt inferior to the students sitting near him. Mr. Wong notices that a couple of other students feel the same way.
The Problem. What should Mr. Wong do? What should he say to these students? To the whole class? Should be abandon this new approach?