One of the things most teachers complain about is faculty meetings. They are usually held monthly and in my fifteen years there have been two of them that might have had any positive impact on me. Recently a colleague sent me a link to a high school, which is giving there teachers that hour free to work on something that interests them in education. It might be working with another teacher on lessons, discussing character or anything else that you are interested in but do not have the time to do. What it allows is the teacher the time to be in charge of their own professional development.
I thought that was a great idea, and then wondered if I am trying to make students valued partners in the educational process would this work in the classroom. What I am visioning next year with 85 minute periods is taking one day a month to allow students to discuss anything about economics that interests them. My vision would be that there might be a table of kids working on in class concepts that they do not understand, others might be discussing a book (freakonomics for example) that they decided to read, others might have watched a couple of interesting clips on youtube and now gather to discuss it.
If the conversation are great, we would spend the entire period on it and then have one member from each group blog about what they discussed so that the whole class can enjoy and take part in the learning. Maybe it sparks an interest so other kids discuss that topic next time. Or at the 70 minute mark we can stop and have one student in each group debrief the class.
I know at first this would probably not work since kids are not used to the format but I think it might be really good as the year goes on. What do you think?
I think in AP Econ this will work out great. It'll give students a chance to explore that rabbit-hole they found in the sidebar of the textbook taking notes. Or the time to actually sit down and focus on understanding what they do not. Additionally, being able to browse what you want to learn will encourage independent learning, even if only one day a month. Personally I'd enjoy one certifiably low stress day a month for any class.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely fully encourage this idea. I feel that sometimes it is best to break from routine if it is only for a sort bit of time. The ability to talk about philosophy beyond the borders of a unit or what the AP exam presents is a great way to encourage talk and bring up points that will make understanding of an economics topic or opinion that much more understood. Students need sometimes the vioce of a peer rather than a teacher, just a break from their usual patterns of learning. I would fully enjoy this and find it unfortunate that I can't be apart of this in economics now and in other classes.
ReplyDeleteI don't support this idea during the school year before the AP. You know I love our in class discussions, and I think these already accomplish what you are trying to do. Every class period in an AP student's world is an opportunity, and to be quite honest I'd end up asking to do work for another class. We live in a world where no time is to be wasted on what we want to do when work is to be done. I find your teaching and the ability to complete work for another class if need be far more valuable than what this appears to offer.
ReplyDeleteI think this would be a fantastic idea! It reminds me of a hugely successful policy Google used to have with their employees. They would give their engineers one day a week when they could work on their own side-projects instead of their normal work. As a result, these employees came up with incredibly creative ideas, were more productive on their regular work, and had higher morale. If you want to look it up, it's called "20 percent time".
ReplyDeleteI think this kind of policy would translate really well into the classroom. Students learn best when they're studying something that really interests them and they have an intrinsic motivation to learn. There would definitely be a lot of learning going on here. Plus, it sounds like a ton of fun!
I think that this is a great idea, and one more step away from the problem faced by AP courses, which are standardized in content and engineered to “The Test.”
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective, people will enjoy learning if they're an integral part of the learning process. In other words, unless you're invested in the system, unless you buy in, you're not going to truly enjoy learning. The problem in many classes is that we feel like we're “force-fed” a diet of boring and uninteresting materials. In most classes, the fun, intriguing parts of a subject that keep us interested in that subject get glossed over or tossed to the side – the AP exam takes precedence over our natural curiosity and our exploratory nature. So many times, we just sit there, uninterested and unmotivated. There's no reason for us to stay engaged – it's easy to feel like class will be the same, whether or not we get involved. The class isn't ours – it's dominated by the AP exam and AP curriculum, and we don't stand a chance.
If we want to enjoy something, we have to make it our own. This is especially true with education. One reason why we love your classes is because you don't just surrender to the AP exam. Instead, you work with us to make class exciting and unique. Most importantly, by treating us as partners, through your classroom discussions and accessibility, you give us a say in the classroom – and that doesn't happen elsewhere. As a result, more of us are invested in the system that you've created, and we enjoy it more (ex. Graphing Weds.).
That's why I think that this idea, if executed well, would work. By giving us, the students, a chance to find what interests us in a subject, you engage us and give us a reason to want to learn more about the subject. We can find the interesting spark that ignites our flames of excitement. That spark might come from an intriguing book, a heated debate topic, or even just fun discussions with others. And unlike the one-size-fits-all AP, this kind of learning is personal. We get to own it and create it ourselves – and that motivates us to pursue the related subject even more. So, I would definitely enjoy this idea in practice.
My main concern though, stems from the same point I made above. Unless you get engaged, unless you take the effort to dive in and explore the waters of psychology or economics, you don't benefit. This is a great opportunity – but you have to put some effort into it to get something back. And it's easy for anybody's mind to wander and lose focus during a long span of 85 minutes.
Personally, I encountered this very problem of engagement at my Model United Nations (MUN) conference last year. As a part of the officers who run the conference, I helped create an informal thirty-minute discussion session called Country Caucus. The problem was that when we first tried it, not everyone was involved. For some debate groups (of up to ten people each), Country Caucus soon turned into side conversations about the bad hotel food or the upcoming dance on Saturday night. And although the few groups that really got into it enjoyed it, the groups that didn't ended up feeling like they had wasted their time. The good news is that this year, we were able to fix the problems, and more people benefited by getting engaged. Still, we had a rocky start – and many returning people came into the new Country Caucus with the same negative prejudices from last year.
And for those who still weren't engaged, it still wasn't worth it.
My main point is this: This idea is a great one. It gives us the chance to explore a subject and get inspired and motivated by their newfound and self-generated interest in that subject. My only fear is that we might not take full advantage of this opportunity. Hopefully, the opportunity itself will prove to be incentive enough for each and every one of us to take it into our own hands.
Sorry that this is so long-winded, and hope this helps!
HDog I have many of the same concerns that you have for this type of activity. Will the students stay engaged? Are they willing to invest the time into something that might not be part of the curriculum? What I do think is that if I really want people to be valued partners in this experience I need to take bold steps. This for me would be bold and if it works out after a year then I moved the class in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteIt concerns me that people might view it as a waste of time (see Mike above) which would defeat the point. I also understand where Mike is coming from since he needs to use his time efficiently to get all his work both outside and inside the classroom done.
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I just wanted to respond to Handong's concerns and Michael's opinion. I totally think that it's a valid problem, and I honestly think that with really lenient rules about how to spend the class time, some people are bound to get side-tracked. Not because they're not interested, but just because they don't really know what to do with their unstructured time, since they're so used to having class time already planned out for them.
ReplyDeleteStill, I agree with everybody else that it would get more people interested in class if they had more input in how class time is spent. Some of my favorite things that we've done in class at school were when teachers deviated a little from their lesson plans to do activities that students suggested, like Bio Survivor! And we still learn in the process without wasting time.
I think maybe a way to modify your idea, Mr. Bressler, might be to let students choose ahead of time as a class what to do in the free period, and the entire class does the same activity. I think if you avoid having groups of people focusing on different activities, the people who don't have ideas about what to do with the free time could still have some structure and motivation.
Just my 2 cents :)