First, it struck me in one of those light bulb moments that by virtue of being in a class, the student should be participating in the authentic discourse of that discipline. That means no more sterile, disembodied questions, for example, but tasks, questions and problems that cause the student to live the subject. I reflect upon some of the activities in my class, such as “spark writing”, a ten-minute creative writing session that starts most of my classes, followed by feedback that models the sorts of responses a writer would give another writer.
Second, it reminded me of why I have been so impressed by my son’s experience at my school because I see total immersion in the discourse of each individual discipline. In history class, for example, he’s debating with the historians; in English he’s interpreting texts; in phys ed he’s doing a variety of sports. I also see rigour and variety within that academic program, and I see teachers who are subject specialists, all keen to advocate for their position within the life of the student and the school. I had been struggling a bit with the notion of authentic practice, but I now I feel that I have … wait for it … a knowledge of authentic practice.
What struck me most is your comment about the "sterile, disembodies questions" and activities, and assignments, and so on. Personally I have been confounded by these elements of classes and course design but since this tends to be the norm wondered if the problem was me. Everyone else seemed to think there was nothing wrong with the approach. "Scaling up" resonated with me also.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Yes - that was one of those moments in learning when I suddenly understood more deeply what I had been talking about before. I guess the challenge is to link the questions to the tasks, so that instruction is no longer removed from actually doing something meaningful.
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