HQ Education

A high quality education should be a right to each individual, no matter the race, location or background. https://t.co/igserCzxP0

— Proximity Learning (@ProxLearning) September 18, 2015

The challenge is defining HIGH QUALITY and based on whose terms, criteria and interests.

Imagine that!

School does not just have to be a requisite for the world outside. It should also be the world of doing, of trying, of retrying. Though we know the learning process is never FINITE, it is compartmentalized into periods, terms or years. When the time expires, so does the learning.


Thanks to @paullawleyjones for this insight. 

The age of the teacherpreneur

 Are you...?

Congrats! You're a teacher!

I decided to start this post after reading one of a series of articles that aim to brief us on a new professional that is supposedly taking the classrooms by storm:

The one I read (link above) comes with the title "How teacherpreneurs spread good ideas" and as much as I loved the ideas presented (yes, we need teachers who are never daunted by the difficulties or limitations they face and make learning meaningful for their students by going beyond the physical boundaries of the classroom), the topic got me thinking:

 

Focus on the micro but don't forget the macro

Every teacher has one major challenge that accompanies their practice every day; be a specialist in the area of knowledge they teach. This poses a double challenge: focusing on the micro without forgetting the macro. 

When we teach a subject we have to understand the big picture, we have to recognize that our nanobyte of knowledge is intertwined with many other areas of knowledge that are usually presented separately for the sake of organization. An interdisciplinary approach to knowledge is not a grand invention of formal education, it is the essence of life as we know it and experience it.

Focusing on specific areas of knowledge is an advance and a setback at the same time: anything that is apparently not directly connected to what we teach is summarily ignored or discarded. 

There is not much you can do with just a piece of the puzzle.

Fostering a cognitive-friendly environment

This post is based on some ideas that were covered in the #profchat on Twitter that took place on April 7th, (for more, read the archive here). 

Initially, any learning environment is cognitive. But in schools, colleges and universities, teachers don't push students to memorize, associate, analyze, assess, apply, synthesize, create and reflect. When this happens, learning becomes cognitive-UNfriendly. 
      
My takeaway from the discussion has to do with how we can foster cognitive learning. By:  

• chunking information
• scaffolding activities
• using cognitive dissonance  
• making connections between multiple concepts
• adopting an interdisciplinary approach
• applying new knowledge to old
• de-constructing and re-constructing knowledge
• using Socratic questioning
• providing directed feedback
• maximizing emotional readiness to learn
• using music and TPR activities to stimulate mental exercise

 One practical tip I loved was the idea of using Twitter to get students to write about how they are learning. The 140-character limit forces them to be concise and to think carefully about their learning. 

In the end, the range of procedures and tips above can be summed up into a basic tenet that must be around, no matter what path education takes in the future: 

Learning must take students to a tangible and meaningful goal

If it's not a right then there's no future

Michelle Obama's take on education drives home the still very sad truth: we have a long way to go to ensure that EVERYONE has the civil right to an education that shapes responsible, ethical, cooperative and respectful citizens who don't have to do mind-boggling things but just commit to being part of a bigger picture known as the human race. We the educators are still the FUTURE OF EDUCATION. Talk is cheap, so education shouldn't just talk - it should listen and act on it what hears.

Ethical and safe - that should be School