Teaching in the Learning Commons, July 7, 2011
What is the Future of Teaching? By Josh Cantone
Online classrooms may be the classrooms of tomorrow according to Josh Cantone. He cites a recent study that shows students who had “courses with an online study component” performed better on tests than those students who had direct, in-person instruction. Online students “tested on average in the 59th percentile, compared to the 50th percentile for those who received only classroom instruction . . .”
I’m not sure how much we can read into the study though. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The curriculum was not the same and the online students spent more time online with their teacher than the students did in the classroom setting. Having been through a lot of online classes in this graduate degree program, I believe that the most important aspect of online classes is the collaboration of students with other students and students with the professors. As Cantone says, “Students spending three hours per day in an online environment under the guidance of a great professor are likely . . . going to be better prepared than those spending one hour per week in a classroom with a mediocre one.”
He goes on to say that online instruction probably wouldn’t work well for K-12 because they haven’t learned yet how to continue learning on their own yet. That is the job of the teacher—to equip them for active learning. I personally think it might work with some high school students who have enough discipline to work on their own.
With the constant advancement in tools, online instruction can now offer more active and interactive lessons that include collaboration between peers and professors. This can be used in place of regular classroom instruction or used to enhance regular classroom instruction. Will online classes replace regular classrooms? I don’t think so, especially in the lower grades. It might mean that more and more universities will offer online classes and that a college education might become more affordable for more people. But I believe that teachers and librarians will always be needed to teach children how to become active learners. I do believe that online classes and activities can enhance the learning experience of any student and should be considered as another great tool for teachers. Cantone believes that the only thing that separates the good teachers of today from the teachers of the future is great technological tools.
Catone, Josh. “What Is the Future of Teaching?” Mashable 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 6 Jul 2011. <http://mashable.com/2009/08/31/online-education-teachers/>
It’s Broken; Let’s Fix It: The Traditional Model of School Librarianship by Buffy Hamilton
In this article, she discusses her worry over the fact that so many school districts are cutting back on library media specialists and appointing aides or volunteers to run their libraries. For some reason, people assume that all you have to do is provide information and students will learn. Information literacy needs to be taught, just like reading and writing need to be taught. Cutting resources hurts more than the library, it hurts the entire school.
Hamilton says that we need to throw out the old model of school librarianship and create a new and bolder version. She asks the question, “How much more seamless and authentic would research, content creation and evaluation of information be if school librarians would be embedded in a team of classroom teachers?” With more, not less librarians, working with teams of teachers, think of the dynamic learning that would result. I believe that her Media 21 experiment proves this.
Hamilton’s model would not only provide dynamic learning opportunities but it would also help develop great relationships between teachers, librarians and students. We must cultivate meaningful relationships first before we can lead by example. And we can’t do this with one lone librarian handling every aspect of the library. If we wish to develop real learning communities, something must change—and that means getting everyone involved—teachers, principals, parents, school districts and even the community. It will take all of us to change the direction of education in this country and I believe that librarians need to be at the head of the line, leading the charge.
One blogger brought up an interesting idea that Buffy Hamilton needs to assess and present her findings in ways that everyday people can understand, and then make a plug for expanding the program. I thought that was a great idea. If there is concrete proof that children are learning more and better, then maybe school districts would listen to her model of librarianship. And if not, then maybe the parents will listen and tell the school districts what they want.
Citation:
“It’s Broken; Let’s Fix It: The Traditional Model of School Librarianship.” The Unquiet Librarian 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 27 May 2011. <http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/its-broken-lets-fix-it-the-traditional-model-of-school-librarianship/>.
(I had already written this review as one of my five blog reviews, but I did change it a little. I really liked what I wrote and so, I didn’t redo the whole thing. I will understand if you take some points off, for not rewriting the whole thing. I just didn’t think I could have done it any better.)
Tell Me What You Teach? By Joyce Valenza
Wow! I had no idea what was happening in the Los Angeles school district to teacher-librarians. It smacks of McCarthyism. I find it ironic that the one thing that librarians have protected for years—the rights of people, including children, to read any and all information—isn’t mentioned in any of the articles. I might have missed it somewhere. And, I know that Joyce was focusing on what librarians teach, but shouldn’t this be what we teach too? Shouldn’t students have to right to learn, to talk about important issues, to say what they believe without being censored? Who will defend these students’ rights if there are no more librarians? I believe that future historians will view these interrogations and all the layoffs of librarians as we do the McCarthy era—a shameful time in our history.
Meanwhile, like you have said before, Professor Pentlin, we better be able to explain why we are needed in the school system and why students can’t learn properly without us and why teachers can’t teach them what we can.
I loved the article about countries without libraries, probably more for sentimental reasons, but there was one issue that the writer brought up that I wonder if it will be proven true or false in a few years—that people who read printed books are able to concentrate more and delve deeper into a book’s meaning than if they read the same book on the Internet. Time will only tell if this is true. The Internet can be a huge distraction but it also has the power to make us question more and search more quickly for answers. I do find myself sometimes skipping around from article to article sometimes and not reading the whole piece, like I do with newspapers. I found reading this article harder because I had to keep clicking into other articles that led me to more articles and before long, I couldn’t remember where I had started out!
I love the poster that Joyce created but I agreed with the one blogger that said she should have said something about cyber bullying and identity theft. I think internet safety should be taught in schools. There is so much more though. With all the technological advances, we need to be teaching our students to be global citizens too, not just digital citizens. We are in the best position to help our students learn about things like prejudice, personal bias, global customs and so much more. What teacher is going to have time to teach all these things if they are having trouble just getting through all the curricular requirements? I think it’s time for librarians to stop whispering and to shout out about what we do and our value to society as a whole.
Valenza, Joyce. “Tell Me, What Do You Teach?” NeverEndingSearch 26 May 2011. Web. 27 May 2011. <http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2011/05/26/if-they-come-for-you-what-will-you-do/>.
Reframing the Library Media Specialist by Allison Zmuda and Violet H. Harada
I found the poll interesting. I wonder if they gave the voters that list of areas or just asked them what they thought were the priorities for the schools. If voters understand the importance of these areas of study, then why do they allow school districts to do away with the one group of people who know how to help their children achieve in these areas? Do you think that the voters don’t understand the role of library media specialist?
What I got from this article is that the library media specialist needs to always be looking at how and what we teach our students and we need to be constantly asking ourselves, “Could I have done this lesson better? Did I help every child achieve success today?” And if the answer is, “No,” then what needs to change? These authors talk about “good business” as being the activities and assessments that help create active student learning. Students tend to do better when the library media specialist knows his or her role, works closely with the teachers and actively works with the students to move them from just reading and memorizing facts or information to delving deeper and helping them understand how this information relates to them personally.
I felt convicted when the authors talked about “bad business” and said, “These activities or assessments require students to collect information or resources in the library media center and then leave. The superficiality of this acquisition is doomed to fail.” This happened some when I was in the library this spring. The kids would come down to the library just as I was headed to the gym to do my locker room duty and they would ask if they could use the computer for research. I knew that some, if not all of them, would Google the information and some would just literally copy the information off the computer, so I hated to leave, but it was also my job to cover the locker room. I was so torn. Most times I didn’t know when they were coming; they would just show up.
I talked with a couple of teachers about letting me know when their students were coming and letting me know what they were researching and that I’d help them find the information, but most of the teachers said that the kids already knew how to research and that it wasn’t necessary. It was discouraging to say the least, but I’m working with the technology teacher this coming year, and we’re committed to teaching the children how to find and cite the information properly and ethically. We’re going to be working on research projects in small groups using different things like wikis and Animoto to create some of our presentations. I am hoping that I will be able to excite them to do more research and to really get creative about presenting their new knowledge to excite other students as well.
I hope to become the excellent learning specialist that these authors are talking about in their article. As to whether or not, the school district will understand that, despite the fact I don’t count heads or give specific children grades, doesn’t mean that I’m not a valuable asset to the school. Improved learning and hopefully improved grades will possibly help them to determine my value.
Zmuda, Allison and Violet H. Harada. “Reframing the Library Media Specialist as a Learning Specialist.” School Library Monthly 8 Apr. 2008. 27 May 2011. Web. 7 Jul 2011.
I can imagine a lot of students who would benefit from learning online. There are students who simply can't control themselves in a class and others who are bogged down by how slow a class has to move in order to keep most of the students together.
ReplyDeleteThe whole Los Angeles attack on librarians is shocking. I haven't heard what the final outcome is on this yet but the brutality by which the profession was attacked has been unparalleled.
We should not only be teaching Internet safety but citizenship, ethics, privacy, and the list goes on.
Only teachers who don't do research themselves would say something like this: "said that the kids already knew how to research and that it wasn’t necessary."