Insights on the article, "How People Learn".

There are three key findings that the research on how people learn that the article synthesizes:

1. Learners have pre-existing understandings of how the world works.
2. Competence as built on depth of understanding.
3. Metacognition ensures learning.

The illustration above summarizes my understanding of the big idea of the article.  As persons, we learn by way of the three interrelated circles of mental operation or thinking.  There is learning through teaching when it is effectively targeting the ways by which our brains or minds work.  When the school environment supports, connects or interrelates and “interlocks” effective teaching then you have a system that builds and nurtures learners for academic and holistic success.

“Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.

Teachers then have to draw out and work with the preexisting understandings that their students bring with them.” 

I totally agree.

Teaching is for learning.  I am reminded of the anecdote, I think it was from Snoopy, when Charlie Brown said “I taught this dog some tricks.  I taught it how to go fetch”. So Nancy dares and Charlie Brown throws the stick and told the dog, “Go, fetch!”.  Time passed and the dog did not return so Nancy says to Charlie Brown, “I thought you taught that dog the trick?!”.  Then Charlie Brown replies, “I said I taught it how to fetch, I didn’t say he learned it.”

To teach is one thing, to ensure learning is another.  Indeed, studies in Cognitive Psychology and the evolving science of Neuroscience tell us about how we humans learn.  I can connect this reading material readily to another book I have read, Brain Rules by Dr. Medina.  In the brain, information or learning is stored through a network of neurons or brain cells.  Different learnings have different neural networks and related learnings have interlocking neural networks.  It is through this networks that synapses or electric currents in the brain travel, and this is how the brain “knows” or processes information.  Learning is easier and lasting therefore if information taught is processed by connecting or recruiting similar neural networks for connected or related information rather than making the brain create new unrelated neural network for the information taught.  When we make it easy for the brain to function, we make it easier for us to learn therefore.

This research lays the bases for the evident practice of using diagnostic assessments, KWL-W charts and other forms of pre-assessments used in instruction.  Furthermore, the same research validates the time-tested IPP framework for planning lessons with its Context as part of preleccio.  There is indeed science behind the centuries old paradigm in Jesuit education and polishes indeed the wisdom of St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises which is the anchor of the IPP.

Context in the IPP should include unscrambling of misconceptions or conceptions in order to promote authentic learning.

Metacognition is a very important habit of mind that learners have to practice and develop.  Metacognition does not come to the learner naturally.  Effective learning must raise a level of awareness of this thinking process and repetitively engage the learner into this for him to have authentic learning and not just rote. 

Research defines metacognition as the students knowledge of where s/he is in achieving the learning objectives of the lesson; it is an “internal dialogue” that the learner makes regarding his/her thinking progress in the teacher-learner process.

In a series videos in  Youtube, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH95h36NChI,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xeHh5DnCIw) Prof. Stephen Chew of Samford University provides further clarification on what metacognition is all about and proposes to students several habits of mind that could help foster metathinking or what he calls deep processing, another name we can give to metacognition.   

The following are Prof. Chew’s strategies for metacognition:

When studying or learning content, it is helpful to guide one’s thinking process with the following questions:

1. Elaboration.  How is the concept connected to what you have previously learned?
2. Distinctiveness. What makes the concept distinct? How is the concept distinct from the other concepts being learned or studied?
3. Personal experience.  How does the concept relate to personal experience?
4. Application.  How will the concept be applied, as solution or answer to a simulated problem or to real-life conditions?

Metacognition reminds me of IPP Reflection.  When one considers Reflection as three-pronged being reflection-on-action, reflection-in-action and reflection-for-action, the scientific bases or research base of IPP is further supported.  No wonder Jesuit education only continues to reveal its beauty for the last four hundred years beginning with the Ratio Studiorum, 1599 (Plan of Studies, the first Jesuit education handbook/guide on systematic education).

Knowing the value of metacognition to authentic learning, it is challenging for me to persist on creating the spaces, time and structure for fostering reflection in all aspects of instruction on all content or subject and all activities on formation.

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travel places game, teaching geography interactively

Some thoughts on Education_as I take further studies.

What are the "most powerful" examples of each of the 3 types of curricula in your school?

How much of the null curriculum should you be paying attention to?

Examples of Tri-Curricula at Sacred Heart School - Ateneo de Cebu

(SHS-AdC)

Declared and Explicit

The Explicit Curriculum is the apparent and fairly graspable evidence of a curriculum one can readily observe at SHS-AdC.   This advertised curriculum is self-evident in the Vision-Mission as a Jesuit school along the tradition of excellence, leadership and service, further expounded in our school’s Core Values that guide all plans and efforts.  Cascading this written curricular framework to specifics resulted to the proposed 2013 Long Term Action Goals and Graduate Outcomes which is further cascaded to the different goals and objectives of the the subject areas of the each department (the HS, GS & EED) and the unit programs such as those of the formation units like the Guidance Office, the Campus Ministry and the Discipline Office. This explicit and declared curriculum leans on Chinese-Filipino heritage of the school as well at its supported emphasis on the Science and Math Curricular programs.

 

 

Implied

We intend and hope that results of learning from our schooling here at SHS-AdC would be manifested along this explicit curriculum.

Nonetheless, the assertion of John Dewey of a pervasive yet subtle influence of the implicit curriculum is something I can strongly agree to.  Although not declared and not intended, these implicit results of our type of schooling creates important expectations for students.

For one, SHS-AdC forms part of the Philippine Educational system that “seeks to modify the child’s behavior to comply with goals that the child had no hand in formulating and that might not have any intrinsic meaning”.  Compliance is an important undeclared purpose that our system of authority over the students’ behavior and thought implies. 

Our organizational set-up, from the classroom to the administrative spheres, are traditional and hierarchical “with students at the bottom rung of the ladder” and formal communication within and around the school organization is top down.  When laid out along the prevalent rules and routines of “students must not speak unless called on” or that “virtually all activities within a course (subject) … determined by the teacher”, this tendency for compliance is concrete.

It is of course practical and realistic that schools, SHS-AdC being a typical basic educational institution, are molds for compliant behavior as they serve a Philippine society which is also set up in the same way – businesses running top down, hierarchically, and with rank and file or citizens following routines for order and predictability.  Indeed our school, as a social device for perpetuating a status quo, takes part in excellently preparing students for this kind of social set-up.

There is however a specific implied emphasis that one can gleam in the allocation of time for our subjects.  To me, it is apparent that curricular offerings and activities are considered equally important.  Academics is not given more than the necessary attention it requires over the other activities such as athletics or culture and the arts.  The fact that our school has Directors in-charge in these fields says something very important. 

Take for example the schedule and time allotment for subjects.  Our schedules don't relegate some subjects only in prime hours to the prejudice of other subjects.  One will find Science, Math, PE, Service Practicum (Outreach Activity) and Club Activity in both primetime and unholy times.  PE can be in morning or afternoon as Science and Math.   Club meetings and Service Practicum are part of the eight (8) period-schedule in a day, enjoying the same time allotment as one academic subject.

Furthermore, although we appear rigid with requirements for academics and student activities but spiritual activities run parallel through these by way of class prayers during periods while recollections and masses are given focused or allotted days.

A strive for balance communicates the importance of balance to students. All student engagements - spiritual, extra curricular and academics – considered being equal and important. In fact, the treatment of grades being averaged each quarter, and all subjects taken into as addends reinforces this implied purpose, not explicitly declared or written anywhere in our documents but intuitively understood by stakeholders of SHS-AdC education.

However, there is a price for this implied pursuit for balance, an implicit of the implicit curriculum it seems.   Since all subjects and activities are given importance, students bring all things everyday so as not to miss out on any requirement should a student forget a schedule class or mess up remembering whether today is a scheduled class especially for subjects that do not meet Monday to Friday.  As a result, students are overburdened with school materials, not all of which will be needed for the day.

Does this imply then that we value the strong student who can carry all his stuff or those who are assisted (those with drivers and yayas) who can load those materials day in and day out?

Does this also imply that we value the idea that those who can succeed are those always equipped with the logistical armory of books, notes & requirements, and that these are primordial to learning rather than flexibility or the limited-to-essential-materials-only disposition?  Does this imply that preparation is having all the materials even those not needed because one can manage to, versus, proper organizing of needed logistics?

There is also I believe an implied curriculum in the cleanliness, order, convenience prevalent in our school environment, not that these are not important but the point being, that these conditions carry an implied message, that is, our ease with abundance and efficiency.  Comparing our school condition with those of the public schools that lack resources, our campus looks much beautiful and well maintained which, to me, implies our ease with abundance and efficient operations similar to business factories and establishments (cubicle rooms with arranged chairs, the clean environment, new cars & gadgets noticeable among parents and students, prettified fashion get ups of our parents).  One senses that natural manifest of social status of families and students enrolled at SHS-AdC and the kind of lifestyle they adhere, an implied preference for abundance and precision efficiency typifying positions of privileged status.

 

 

Options that students are not afforded (null)

Even as we strive for balance, what is it that we have missed in our education and formation of our students?  What is it that they don't or won’t know with and through us?  What is it that they have but will be unable to use after their schooling with us?

SHS-AdC has missed out opportunities too when it comes to schooling that fosters wisdom, reduce prejudice or explore modes of thinking.  The cultivation of imagination – the brewing and distillation of creativity among students as a habit of mind– is our null curriculum.

True, Arts education and culture and arts programs are activities we offer which does provide exposure of our students to the metaphorical, poetic and beyond literal but offering a explicit content, design and implemented efforts to develop the mind of teachers and students toward developing perception for new patterns, understanding multiple meanings, intimation, nuances and analogy are sporadic, if not completely null.  According to Albert Einstein, “The true test of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.  Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  Our rigorous academic program and ironclad timetable does reinforce this veering away from what Einstein finds as true education – developing imagination, brewing creativity – and somehow prevents our students to nurture the joy of discovery.

To learn a song “from one bird” rather “than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance” may be something almost all of our students will not reach to.  I feel that they will sing songs about stars but still they will teach these stars to dance after their schooling with us.  It would be rare to find a graduate who would learn a song from a bird.  Many then will be missing the joy of learning over the abundant knowledge that they will certainly have.

I would definitely agree that understanding the arts of the vernacular is a life-long and life-improving learning that students must have.  Unfortunately, we don’t have this.  The arts of the vernacular is very important and pervasive in our lives especially as every generation becomes subtly and extensively exposed to broadcast and digital media.

Being able to read the vernacular arts, how these persuade and motivate for example through the varied advertisements, understanding their hidden but mind-imposing meanings and how it allude us – these are necessary skills that 21^st century learners must have.  The iniquitousness of media requires an indispensable critical consciousness only possible through education or schooling in the arts of the vernacular.

Although secondary education in SHS-AdC has a MAPEH curriculum, which prescribes arts content, it is mainly a watered-down input of sports teachers on superficial concepts of arts and does not afford our students a meaningful learning of the arts even in general.

Does SHS-AdC need to pay attention to the full range of the null curriculum – from Anthropology, Law, Economics, Arts and arts of the vernacular, to Communication among others? I suppose it would depend on the context of the learners we are teaching and the nature of our school.  As a Jesuit school, a leaning towards the Humanities as well as to Spiritual Formation should be in order.  Surely it is far too ideal for a school to offer all content making sure that nothing is null in its curriculum.  But I think, what is important is that we strive to holistic offering and implementing elements in the null curriculum most relevant to our learners’ context.  It is, in a way, prioritizing which are viable, as all the range of content in the null curriculum cannot be offered.

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Classroom Mgt Tricks (add on to Sapphier's Attention Moves) - tricks work but one has to have a compre understanding of the skills of Attention to be better at Classroom Mgt

Here's a couple of Classroom Mgt ideas (from Edutopia):
1. entry req & handshake
2. count down (avoid raising voice)
3. setting norms/work agreements (a vid on SEL & teaching math, too)
4. non-negs of cockrane (eq, min lecture, activating strat and GOs)

nothing compares to the compre list of Attention Moves of Skillful Teaching by Jon Sapphier though (I still couldn't get pass that difficulty of downloading vids from their site on RBT- research for better teaching).

Blast from the Past

Some pictures from old, just trying to get a hang of stupeflix

"All things come to those who learn how to wait"...

"All things come to those who learn how to wait"...

Naaah, usually challenging, but it seems this is the way all reality is.  My desires would push for change, necessary, immediate. Reality though, and the laws of science, both natural and social, require that we all work through its pace.

Here's a good prayer from an admired social scientist from one of my Philosophy classes in college, whom I discovered in working with the companions, is a Jesuit.  Although the church kept him quiet for the things he wrote, and he obediently submitted.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
     to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
     unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
     that it is made by passing through
     some stages of instability—
     and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
     your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
     let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
     as though you could be today what time
     (that is to say, grace and circumstances
     acting on your own good will)
     will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
     gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
     that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
     in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Music from our roots...