Doing Mathematics

#MathEquity - September Readings and Response

9/20/2016

Some of binary trading platform in india our professional organizations have issued A Call for Collective Action to Develop Awareness about Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education. As part of that call, there are monthly readings and questions to guide the conversation and analysis of those readings. I'm going to do my best to read and respond each month and I hope that people will leave their own thoughts in the comments so that we can learn and think about these issues together.

The readings this month are:
NCTM's Position Statement on Access and Equity in Mathematics Education
AMTE's Position Statement on Equity in Mathematics Teacher Education
TODOS and NCSM's Joint Position Statement on Mathematics Education Through the Lens of Social Justice

The guiding question for this month is:
What are some common understandings amongst binary option trading india the three position papers?

There are clearly some common themes across the three documents. In reading, I saw many of the same terms in each. Because each document is a short introduction to such a complex topic, I found it harder to decide for myself to what degree the three papers/organizations share some common understanding about what those terms mean or what the implications are of naming these as areas of interest and concern. While I appreciate the intent to find common ground and overlapping areas of interest, I also worry that glossing over important foundational differences may lead to our professional organizations (and all of us) talking past each other.

Below, I identify what I see as some common themes along with select quotes from the three papers. At the end, I look at what I see as some interesting differences between the documents and raise some questions of my own. In particular, I wonder if "equity" is simply a tool of the educational status quo and consider what orientation has the potential to do more.

Access

"The association of Mathematics Teacher Educators defines equity as access to high quality learning experiences..." - AMTE

"Achieving access and equity requires that all stakeholders ensure that all students have access to a challenging mathematics curriculum..." - NCTM

"Thirty years of research on curricular tracking and course taking patterns continue to show unequal distributions of resources, best binary option trading platform in india course taking opportunities, access to high cognitive demand tasks; and mathematics learning outcomes based on race, class, language, and culture." - TODOS/NCSM

It seems notable that the TODOS/NCSM paper never mentions access without also connecting it to the institutional structures, although both of the other papers also mention structural inequality at some point.

Achievement

More discussion may be needed here to determine the viewpoints of the respective organizations. Consider the potential differences in the following two quotes:

"When access and equity have been successfully addressed, student outcomes - including achievement on a range of mathematics assessments, disposition toward mathematics, and persistence in the mathematics pipeline - transcend, and cannot be predicted by students' racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds." - NCTM

"Create fair and holistic assessment systems for students and teachers of mathematics that provide productive and timely information on learning, and are free from high stakes pressure, static labeling of students and schools, and arbitrary sanctions." - TODOS/NCSM

"...facilitating student mathematical proficiencies that transcend textbooks and promote quantitative literacy, civic engagement, as well as individual and collective agency, is a social justice act of mathematics education." - TODOS/NCSM

Beliefs

"Engage teachers to reflect critically on privilege/deficit views and language about P-12 students, families, and communities..." - AMTE

"A firm commitment to this work requires that all educators operate on the belief that all students can learn." - NCTM

"In mathematics education, deficit thinking happens in at least two ways. First, is the continuous labeling of children's readiness to learn mathematics via standardized tests and other institutional tools that position and sanction specific forms of mathematics knowledge...
...Second, deficit thinking implies that students 'lack' knowledge and experiences expected by the dominant group. Deficit thinking ignores, dismisses, or casts as barriers mathematical knowledge and experiences children engage with outside of school every day." - TODOS/NCSM

Again, while all three focus on beliefs, the substance of their claims seems to reflect differences in the framing and understanding of the problem. For instance, NCTM's position seems to suggest that teachers just need to believe that all students can learn the (privileged) mathematics, while the TODOS/NCSM position seems to suggest that privileging a particular form of mathematics is part of the problem.

Culture

"Be sensitive to the varied mathematical, dispositional, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of P-12 students, preservice teachers, and colleagues to build upon these individuals' experiences and expertise." - AMTE

"Creating, supporting, and sustaining a culture of access and equity require being responsive to students' backgrounds, experiences, cultural perspectives, traditions, and knowledge when designing and implementing a mathematics program for its effectiveness." - NCTM

"A social justice approach to mathematics education assumes students bring knowledge and experiences from their homes and communities that can be leveraged as resources for mathematics teaching and learning. It also means broadening participation and engagement of children in light of the varied cultural, linguistic and mathematical competencies they bring to the classroom. And it means to imbue mathematical experiences with opportunities to learn multiple histories of matheamtics, analyze issues of fairness, and promote civic responsibility in their own communities and beyond."
- TODOS/NCSM

I'd like to know more about what each group means in this section. All statements suggest that culture should be considered, but are too vague to determine what that means.

Diversity, Privilege, and Power

Although not mentioned in NCTM's report, AMTE and TODOS/NCSM mention diversity, privilege, and power in their analyses.

"Mathematics teacher educators should have self-awareness of their own identity, experiences, and bias and proactively advocate for views that value broader perspectives and experiences among students, parents, teachers, and teacher educators as resources for mathematics teaching and learning."

"Support recruitment efforts for diversity among teachers, teacher candidates and mathematics teacher educators." - AMTE

"Census enrollment data show that non-white children are now the majority in elementary and secondary public schools. In contrast, the demographic profile of mathematics teaching, and by extension its leadership, is predominantly white and middle class. This widening difference raises questions about how a system can change if the workforce charged with the transformation does not reflect the communities it serves, or is unaware of the academic and social needs and resources of all students."

"Historically, mathematics and the perceived ability to learn mathematics have been used to educate children into different societal roles such as leadership/ruling class and labor/working class leading to segregation and separation."

"...a commitment to social justice in mathematics education is complex and challenging work. This is due, in part, because some benefit from the current system and the differentiated status associated with it. Giving up privilege is difficult, even if it is the right thing to do." - TODOS/NCSM

Final Thoughts

The final quotes from TODOS and NCSM hit hard. I think these issues require us to examine the role of school, and mathematics education in particular, in the stratification of society along lines of race, class, language, and culture. So, while there are certainly areas of agreement across the three papers, I think there are also considerable differences. Those differences should be places for conversation.

In general, the paper from TODOS and NCSM (and, to a lesser extent, the one from AMTE) acknowledges the ways the entanglement of culture, knowledge, race, and power play out in systems of education. There also seems to be a recognition that the policies, practices, and structures of the system itself are a significant part of the problem. The concern about achievement and participation "in the mathematics pipeline" seems to ignore that this pipeline is fueling an unjust societal status quo.

Rochelle Gutiérrez has written:

"I suggest that the new tension that threatens progress is not by the paradigm of excellence versus equity or traditional versus reform, but by one of dominant versus critical, mathematics education.

What I mean by dominant mathematics is mathematics that reflects the status quo in society, that gets valued in high-stakes testing and credentialing, that privileges a static formalism in mathematics, and that is involved in making sense of a world that favors the views and perspectives of a relatively elite group...

What I mean by critical mathematics is mathematics that squarely acknowledges the positioning of students as members of a society rife with issues of power and domination. Critical mathematics takes students' cultural identities and builds mathematics around them in ways that address social and political issues in a society, especially highlighting the perspectives of marginalized groups.

For me, the distinction between dominant and critical is not one of acquisition or application, but rather one of aligning with society (and its embedded power relations) or exposing and challenging society and its power relations."

I'm left concerned that our definitions of equity are in service of dominant mathematics and the status quo and are, therefore, destined to be limited in their power to transform.

What are your thoughts? I hope you'll think with me about this in the comments.

1 Comment

The Teacher Partnership: Details of the First Two Weeks

9/1/2015

1 Comment

It has been two weeks since school started and the Teacher Partnership is up and running. Because the first two weeks of school are a little different than the normal day-to-day, it's a little challenging to get things going in ways that are aligned with the goals of the project. However, we wanted to make sure we at least did a few things to start building some space for collegial interaction. This post is just a summary of what we've done so far.

The Details

We meet with our Teacher Partners bi-weekly. The goal of those meetings is to bring people together from our various sites and create space for them to share successes and challenges of using this Teacher Partnership structure in ways that promote collaborative reflection and analysis of teaching practice. For the first meeting, however, we set the agenda and some structure to guide their early interactions with colleagues. Our first meeting took place a few days before school started. I'm posting the agenda and action items below. The main goals were to a) give them space to think together about how they might communicate explicitly and implicitly about the goals of the project, b) to build a framework for productive classroom observations, and c) to have them start facilitating collaborative lesson planning sessions on their shared prep.

Links:
We started reading Cognitive Coaching together
We handed out our "Thinking Through a Lesson" template for use

We came back together for our second bi-weekly meeting after they had done all of the above. We built the agenda and action items for that meeting together and I just recorded it after-the-fact for a public record (I'm attaching that below). Basically, the things that people wanted to discuss and/or explore moving forward were:

1. They seemed intrigued by the Cognitive Coaching reading and were making some connections to the way we had framed their early observations in their colleagues' classrooms. They wanted to practice doing a full observation cycle (since we didn't include a debrief in the Action Items of the previous weeks) and to "dig in" a bit more on how to do that well. We have one Teacher Partner who is going to record one of her debriefs and bring it in with a focus question for group analysis next time.

2. They recognized that the goal of the program was not for them to be the coach, but for their whole team to learn with and from one another. So, they wanted to get teachers at their sites out into other classrooms. One concern they had was how to frame these observations so that teachers were observing one another in ways that were both productive and non-threatening. They liked that we had centered their observations on the goal of the observed teacher, so they decided to do something similar and to discuss that with their whole team prior to observing.

3. There was a recognition that facilitating lesson planning was a challenge. We didn't get to talk about that as much as we would have liked, but it is on the table for future meetings. They agreed to think a bit more about their facilitation this time around and bring ideas and challenges.

4. One of our sites is doing some cool things experimenting with using video as a tool for reflection. I imagine that as the collaborative structure takes hold, more sites would be interested in doing something similar.

Links:
They liked the idea of reading "Rethinking Classroom Observation" with their team prior to peer-to-peer observation

So, that is where we are so far. Briefly, a few challenges and/or noticings as I've been around our schools:

1. Their usage (or not) of the "Thinking Through a Lesson" template has been interesting to me. In some places, the group didn't use it at all. In others, they used it but in a very cursory fashion. In another, they used it and it sparked great conversation but it felt very foreign/external to them. None of these are reasons to (re)act yet, I don't think....but I will be curious to see how that develops and what they have to say as they continue to work on facilitating collaborative lesson planning.

2. For the most part, teachers seem excited about the opportunity to collaborate and learn together. However, there has been small pockets of resistance or trepidation.

3. In general, their time together as a group seems to move back and forth between conversations that are focused on teaching practice and conversations that are focused on other concerns (pacing of their curriculum, concerns about grading, etc.)

1 Comment

The Teacher Partnership: Origins and Goals

8/24/2015

4 Comments

This is the beginning of my third year in some form of a "coaching" role. During that time, I've worked for two different school districts. In both places I've enjoyed the work, learned a lot, and experienced some moments of success. Yet, there are things about the position, the logic that creates it in the position in the first place, and the structures (or lack thereof) in schools that have left me feeling like there must be better ways to approach teacher learning. In an era where coaches and "TOSAs" (Teachers on Special Assignment) are becoming ever more popular, we should consider how best to use that available funding and we should think deeply about what teachers actually need in order to develop on the job.

Origins and Goals

This year, my colleague and I are radically rethinking and reinventing the work we are doing in our district to support mathematics teachers' learning. Rather than continue to bring on individuals as coaches/TOSAs, we are using that money to create structures that allow teachers to collaborate in meaningful ways as a regular part of their work day. We are calling this project the "Teacher Partnership."

The Teacher Partnership rests on a few core beliefs. Part of this core belief system resists the logic of schools that tries to put people into some sort of knowledge hierarchy (teacher/student, coach/teacher) and then have the "more knowledgeable" teach the "less knowledgeable." Maybe more importantly, we fundamentally believe that teachers will learn most when they collaborate and engage in cognitively challenging work. Sound familiar? We are trying to operate by the same learning theory that drives our interactions with students. Furthermore, we believe that there needs to be a structure built into the everyday work of teachers that allows this collaboration to take place. I think the general sentiment is captured well by a passage from this paper:

And here is how we have written the goals of the Teacher Partnership for use in our district:

How We Are Doing It

There are a few basics components of this plan that make it all possible. First, we are starting with relatively small teams at each of our five school sites (roughly 5 teachers per team per site). Second, we ensured that all teachers on that team share a common prep period, which we knew would create some time for collaborative planning, debriefing, and other activities. In some cases, we had to split this common prep into smaller sub-teams (ex. of five teachers, two of them share one prep period and three of them share a different prep period). Lastly, and crucially, we used the money that would have been spent on employing another TOSA to release one teacher per team of their teaching duties a little over half time. The released teacher (whom we are calling the "Teacher Partner") is not a coach. Rather, their release time will be used in ways that allow the entire team to learn with and from each other in a variety of ways (in essence, the released person makes the departmental collaborative structure possible). Here is how we have written up the role of the Teacher Partner:

We've both anticipated and experienced some early challenges with helping people understand the philosophy and goals of the project. Cultural ways of operating and thinking can easily reshape this, in practice, to fit old paradigms that are counter to the real aims of the Teacher Partnership. We are working proactively to try to prevent that. Of course, there will be many challenges along the way, but we are optimistic about the possibilities. I hope to dust off my blog in order for this to be a space to record those successes and challenges.

4 Comments

Must Schooling Require "Becoming Like"?

6/19/2014

2 Comments

Daniel Ginsberg (@NemaVeze) and I have been engaging in an interesting back-and-forth via email. This morning Daniel suggested that we make some of our conversation public to see what contributions and various perspectives it might bring. He is posting some of his thoughts on his blog as well.

Brief Background...
The conversation started via Twitter when Daniel and I were exchanging views on our different theoretical perspectives on learning, coupled with the implications that those beliefs might have for practices in education. Daniel brings a situated learning perspective to his work. Talking/tweeting with him about that raised some questions for me about the implications for identity and agency, particularly when we view learning as "becoming like" or "thinking like" the members of a particular "community of practice" (my language here is crude in an effort to be concise). I suggested an article from Rochelle Gutierrez that I felt captured some of my concerns, and our email exchange grew from there. See Daniel's blog for his response to the article. My post here is the email I wrote in response to his, with quotes from his email in bold...

Hi Daniel,

I enjoyed reading your response to the article I shared with you...thanks for taking the time to send that along. Here are some brief reactions to your email:

"Math isn't like literature - it's important to see yourself in the books you're reading in English class, because that sends a message that school is a place for people like you, but times tables / cosines / integrals are the same for everyone..."
This was a very interesting statement. Our societal view of mathematics is one that treats it as objective and static and, therefore, influences a view of mathematical knowledge as homogenous (at least within different communities). On the contrary, my own personal epistemology (being heavily influenced by various constructivisms) creates ways for me to think about "mathematics" and "knowledge" much differently. One distinction I make is between "school math" (or what we take to be "the Discipline") and other forms of activity and knowing that I might still classify as mathematics/mathematical. I also try to recognize that we each have different nuanced ways of knowing; I attribute a unique way of knowing to an other...recognizing that I can never have access to their ways of thinking other than through the mental model that I, myself, create (see Steffe's "children's mathematics" and "mathematics of children"). I guess all of this is to say that I do treat mathematics education in much the same way I would think about literature (as it relates to identity formation). In schools, students measure themselves against what is valued/privileged. So, when they feel they aren't thinking/knowing the way they are supposed to know, they begin to feel that they are not mathematical. One remedy might be to provide conditions where dominant mathematics (school math) can flow from the the intuition and activity of individuals. In my mind, this most closely resembles the current narative around CCSS, Realistic Mathematics Education, NCTM's Principles to Actions, etc. The goal here, though, is still to get students to replicate dominant mathematics (to "think like" or "become like"....the standards, the discipline, the teacher's ways of knowing those things). I like to imagine other possibilities as well, ones where the goal is merely to provide conditions for the expansion of "children's mathematics" and where we feel confident naming that activity/knowledge as mathematics.

Maybe this is tangentially(?) related: http://www.doingmathematics.com/blog1/knowing-alongside

"Although if it isn't, and every cultural group has their own mathematics, then what should be taught in math class? Should standards / curriculum depend on classroom demographics?"
Maybe this is partially hinted at above? We might also step back for a moment to consider the purpose of education? of math education? Must we name things to be learned? What are the benefits? What are the consequences? What ideology does it rest on?

The idea of naming things to be learned seems to still be predicated on the belief that school is about "filling" people with knowledge in "preparation" for their future. What would be different if we seriously considered Dewey's belief that "education is not preparation for life; education is life itself"?

"I'm taking an ASL class this summer, and I'm going to have to develop some sense of who I am as an ASL speaker. As I join the community, that changes me, but it changes the community as well."
I'd be curious to know more about your perspective here...in particular about how the community changes because of your participation in it. As I try to make connections to schools and math education, it is easy for me to see how the community changes the individual. I have a harder time seeing places where the mathematical community and the schooling institution allow themselves to be changed by the participants.

Thanks, as always, for the conversation and for making me think! I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am.

2 Comments

"What if..."

5/30/2014

2 Comments

I did a small, informal workshop with some teachers yesterday. We were looking at a section of a unit from Connected Math, analyzing both the individual tasks and how they were sequenced together in a hypothetical mathematical trajectory. Part of that workshop involved teachers working together on individual tasks and, during that time, it was fun to hear them start talking about "what if..."

One group started with this problem:

After they had worked through some parts that they found interesting, I overheard them asking:

"What if the constructed cube had different colors on each of the six sides? Would that change the number of nets that are possible?"

"What if we had six different colors? How many 'different' cubes could we create by painting the faces with those six colors?

Another group started with this problem:

They began to ask:

"What if our box didn't need a lid? Would that change the shape of the packing that uses the least amount of material?

"What if we only needed to pack half as many cubes (12)? Would we need half as much material to make the box?

There's lots to think about here, but there are a couple things that stand out to me:

1. Culture of Curiosity - We hear a lot about "open-ended problems", but it doesn't seem to me that problems themselves are ever actually open-ended. Rather, it's the person that makes a situation open-ended by changing things about the conditions, investigating variants and invariants, posing new and related questions, and, generally, just being curious. So, I think I'm advocating for an "open-ended culture" rather than thinking about problems as supplying that.

2. The Two Part Extension - I noticed that each of the extension questions that were posed followed a similar format that went something like:

"What if ___________ ? (How) would that change _________ ?

I wonder if that might be a nice way to get students started asking their own questions? In the same we might use sentence starters to help students engage in productive mathematical discussions, this sentence frame might be a useful intro to asking our own questions. In my own experience, I've had some success with getting students to ask "what if..." But, part of the real key is using the "what if..." as a lever to pose a new question. The second part of the sentence frame encourages us to do that.

2 Comments

A Few Great Resources

5/2/2014

3 Comments

I sent these out via "the Twitters," but things can get lost in the constant stream of information there. So, I've decided to link up a few great resources that I've come across recently:

1. Tools for Teaching Collaboration
Drawing on the work of Elizabeth Cohen, Ilana Horn, and others, we know the importance of "complex instruction" in creating an environment that seriously attends to "status" issues, norms/structures for equitable group work, and both recognizing and valuing multiple abilities. Part of that is creating and maintaining norms for interaction. Many people do activities to establish this at the beginning of the year, but it can be very important to revisit these periodically throughout the year as well (maybe every time you form new groups?).

Here are some resources for activities that will help with that:
http://nrich.maths.org/public/leg.php?code=-406
and
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ed284/csb/

In addition to setting up norms for interaction, it is important to have students reflect on their own group's interaction, pointing out strengths and weaknesses and making suggestions for future interactions. Here is a video that shows some students engaging in that type of reflection (see the 2nd video):
http://nrich.maths.org/7014&part=

2. Mathematical Modeling
I've been intrigued by the SIAM M3 Challenge for some time. It is a mathematical modeling challenge for students that tackles important, meaningful questions.

Here is their website:
https://m3challenge.siam.org/

...along with some of the problems they have used for the competition...
https://m3challenge.siam.org/problem/

...and some "entry level" problems that you could use with your class.
https://m3challenge.siam.org/pdf/scenarios.pdf

In addition, they have recently published a handbook on mathematical modeling that is really amazing. And, even better, they offer a FREE PDF download. Go check it out:
http://m3challenge.siam.org/about/mm/pdf/siam-guidebook-final-press.pdf

Enjoy!

3 Comments

"Knowing Alongside"

4/23/2014

7 Comments

I was briefly observing a classroom yesterday where some students were discussing what they thought "congruent" meant. In particular, they were trying to determine if two figures were congruent....which led to some theory building about when figures could be considered congruent or not congruent, more generally.

One student had constructed (what I thought to be) a very interesting theory. His theory was (and I'm paraphrasing with terminology that he didn't use, exactly) that two 2-dimensional figures were congruent if there was a composition of translations and rotations that would lead to an exact mapping. But, the two figures would not be congruent if a reflection was required to achieve that mapping. According to his theory/thinking, a reflection requires you to (in essence) "pick up" the shape and "turn it over," which moves the 2-dimensional figure into three dimensional space. This, he believed, should not be allowed when talking about 2-dimensional figures.

To clarify, these two figures would be congruent....

But these two would not be....

This teacher and I had an interesting conversation after the class. We discussed the importance of recognizing this way of thinking as equally valid...allowing it to exist "alongside" our sanctioned knowledge. I was immediately reminded of some fantastic writing from Rochelle Gutierrez:

"...in mathematics teaching, a focus on conocimiento (Spanish for "knowing with") offers a way to acknowledge students' ways of making meaning in mathematics, regardless of whether those meanings are 'forbidden knowledges' or not socially sanctioned as mathematical."

and...

"when students offer a different view, they are seen as having deficient, underdeveloped, or misconstrued understandings of mathematics. Let me be clear, I am not advocating for an 'anything goes' kind of mathematics teaching. Rather, I am suggesting that when teachers can recognize a student's unique perspective along side of but equally important to a mathematician's or math educator's view, there is greater potential for connection between the teacher, student, and new possible forms of mathematics."

Thoughts?

7 Comments

Structures for Supporting Professional Collaboration

2/28/2014

0 Comments

In my job this year, I have been thinking a lot about the importance of setting up space for professional collaboration and in structuring that space so that it can be used effectively. I have been wanting to develop something that will help our teachers use content meeting time well by:

1. bringing them together around a common inquiry
2. providing a structure to help them identify that inquiry
3. providing a structure for sustainable collaboration around that inquiry
4. grounding their conversations in "data" (student work, classroom video, surveys, observations, student interviews, etc)
5. giving them ownership over molding the process to suit their needs

To that end, I created two documents (both attached) to help them with this.

The first document, "Developing an Inquiry," is meant to be used in the first meeting. It provides the structure to help them reflect on their practice through research-supported "best practices" and identify a common inquiry. Further, it encourages them to establish some early thoughts about that inquiry and identify some initial data to collect.

The second document, "Maintaining and Inquiry," is meant to be used as an "agenda" for every meeting thereafter. It encourages them to always be collecting data around their inquiry and provides a meeting structure for analyzing that data through the lens of their shared inquiry. Further, it allows space for them to continue to revisit both the topic of their inquiry and the data collection process itself, making room for shifting and growing thinking to guide their actions and mold their research.

Please feel free to use both in any way that you might find meaningful! And...
A big thanks to both Brian Lawler (@blaw0013) and Carlee Hollenbeck (@MissHollerback) for their feedback and suggestions!!

developing_an_inquiry.pdf
File Size:	44 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

managing_an_inquiry.pdf
File Size:	45 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

0 Comments

Lesson Planning

11/6/2013

6 Comments

I made this lesson planning template based on the Thinking Through a Lesson article and a longer template from Teacher's Development Group. I battled back and forth with myself about making it detailed enough to be helpful in encouraging teachers to think through lesson implementation while also being short enough so that it isn't overwhelming. I decided to post it here just in case anyone found that it might be useful. :)

ttal_template.pdf
File Size:	33 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

6 Comments

Autonomy and Constructivism

9/25/2013

1 Comment

I wrote a post a while back in which I was trying to make sense of my own constructivist epistemology and what that meant for my classroom. Like a lot of the conversations I hear about constructivism and education, I think at the time I was making an inappropriate association between a constructivist learning theory and pedagogy/classroom practice. You hear a lot of people talk about the "constructivist classroom" and many even implicitly associate that with the idea that lecture is bad and that students need open-ended, exploratory problems in order to "construct knowledge for themselves." All of that is misguided.

The main tenets of constructivism are:
1. knowledge is always actively built by the cognizing subject
2. the function of cognition is adaptive, tending towards fit or viability
This means we are all always constructing...all the time. There is no such thing as a NON-constructivist classroom. In short, constructivism "says" nothing about pedagogy or how to teach. So...lecture, lab, investigation, research, whatever...students are always constructing knowledge for themselves.

Then all of this led me to question, "what are the principles that guide my pedagogy and my work with students?" If constructivism says nothing about how to teach, then why do I teach the way I do? Several things that have happened to me recently led me back to thinking about autonomy as the aim of education. Piaget said that moral and intellectual autonomy should be the goal of education. That means that students/people should be governed by themselves in terms of what is right and wrong (moral) and what is true and untrue (intellectual). My action research over the last two years has made me very convinced that our work with students very much plays a role in their development of autonomy. When not properly nurtured, students lose trust in their ability to think...mostly as a result of our attempt to teach things to students...to get them to think like we think.

I have so much more that I am thinking that I just can't figure out how to put in words right now. So, to be continued...
In the meantime, go read this post...it makes more sense than mine.

1 Comment

<<Previous

#MathEquity - September Readings and Response

Access

Achievement

Beliefs

Culture

Diversity, Privilege, and Power

Final Thoughts

The Teacher Partnership: Details of the First Two Weeks

The Details

The Teacher Partnership: Origins and Goals

Origins and Goals

How We Are Doing It

Must Schooling Require "Becoming Like"?

"What if..."

A Few Great Resources

"Knowing Alongside"

Structures for Supporting Professional Collaboration

Lesson Planning

Autonomy and Constructivism

Bryan Meyer

Twitter

Archives

Categories

Access

Achievement

​Beliefs

Culture

Diversity, Privilege, and Power

​​Final Thoughts

The Details

Origins and Goals

How We Are Doing It

Bryan Meyer

Twitter

Archives

Categories

Beliefs

Final Thoughts