You bring up some fantastic points Mary. I think that is the next step in the educational revolution, to educate policy makers on what it effective rather than what is not working anymore. I do believe that there is a possibility of striking balance and I think for us as educators, we need to find what that balance looks like for our respective professions.
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Thank you for your thoughtful post. I think you bring up a good point that we in GEDI have come across many times – the importance of holistic versus the importance of specific fields. I do want to say that it is also tough to not pit them against each other, however I also realize that don’t need to. I think it really depends on how bird’s eye view you want to get and how specific too. For my profession, it really matters that we take the global context into consideration and then intentionally figure out the specifics. Maybe you can try that and daydream about how that would look like in Math Education. Unfortunately, what happens is that we limit ourselves because we know we have existing structures in place and we’d rather add on instead of reinvent. In some cases both can be applicable, in others we just limit the possibilities. Hopefully as the semester goes on you’ll get some more ideas. And YES we will talk about Gamification too!
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Interesting post Armin. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The ESBC sounds like a great idea. I hope they are gathering all the data that they can to support this system. I’m wondering if you’ve heard of the P.E.A.S curriculum? Find details through this link. I hope that more schools rather than just a handful like Pat-Med adopt more thoughtful curriculums for grade school. https://www.longislandadvance.net/4744/Back-to-school-with-PEAS
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Wow! That was a great post – and what’s that thing about it not being good again?! Thank you for deciding to come outside of your comfort zone. As I believe I have said on some of your colleagues blogs is that I am a believer in the fact that growth happens outside the comfort zone. When lean into discomfort, when we open ourselves to opinions that are different than ours we take up a challenge to understand a different perspective – it can be liberating at times and also VERY uncomfortable. So maybe after you’ve gained some comfort in incorporating this semester’s discussions you will help get the word out in your department and develop a cutting edge method of teaching Math too.
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Nice! I’m glad we introduced you to something that you can connect with. Looking forward to what other realizations we can facilitate this semester!
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It is definitely worthy of exploring. Thank you for your thoughts, I particularly appreciate how you point out the learning within a community feel to all of it. And the community is not just the classroom anymore, it can be anyone across the planet who has a decent internet connection.
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The beginning of your blog reminds me of the Pink Floyd song – you know which one! Dewey was considered to be pretty radical in his thoughts on education, I think his ideas may have been a little too intimidating for that generation of educators. Maybe his ideas will finally make sense to people who make the rules regarding education and therein lies the issue too – who makes those rules and do they actually understand learning…?! I know I am not providing any answers right now, maybe just more questions. Hopefully as we undertake this GEDI journey things will become clearer…
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Some valid points Britton. I think every new innovative idea comes with its own set of pushback, right?! Sometimes the pushback is momentary and sometimes it takes a while to figure out the glitches. This semester I hope to provide some perspective and ways in which these strategies can be worked on, suited for a variety of fields. Fingers crossed
This might sound like a counselor type thing – but I think that with an understanding of the fact that we make decisions based on the information we have in the moment is helpful. For example, I know today what is prevalent in trauma research and write a post related to that. But several years from now we may know more and at that time I would consider that available information too. I think concern comes from the fact that there is a blaming and shaming culture in social media. The anonymity gives people protection and that same thing makes others hesitant. I think that it can definitely be beneficial, it only depends on how it is used and the culture created around the utilization.
Right?! We don’t even think about them as being able to teach us anything especially when we think about games today. I always go back to the research Claude Steele did with stereotype threat…the presentation of the math problems as games led to better performances in the experimental group…and how amazing is that!!! It has a lot of potential for sure and how applicable it is to each profession just needs to be explored. Thank you for your comment.
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