Situated Cognition

I was so excited after last week's class because everything came together for me. I had been taught to create the assessment first, then work backwards to plan the lesson. The assessment being what I wanted my students to learn (SOLs). I thought by planning my lessons this way, I was making certain that my students were learning exactly what they needed to learn so that they would do well on the summative assessment. During our Doodles class last Wednesday, we discussed how students learn best when the activity, concept, and culture are interdependent. Lesson must be designed with what we want our students to know, what concept/knowledge they need to know, and whom in the real-world uses it. As a math teacher, I find that my students struggle with rote practice work. We think that giving lots of opportunities to practice will make our students better and stronger in math. However, what I realized was that if my students can't make a connection with why they need to learn a certain math concept or even when they will use it in real life, it's just rote memorization for them. Embedding activities is learning is an integral part of what is learned. Our students need the opportunities to have the culture and activities they participate in to have meaning and purpose so that they can use the acquired skill outside of the classroom. I need to have my students become problem solvers rather than problem do-ers. One of my favorite quotes from Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning (Brown, Collins, Duguid) states, "Don't teach students math; teach them to be mathematicians."

We were introduced to the third design principle, The Knowledge Principle, and didn't even realize it. At the start of class, when we were given a real-world problem (Don and his trip to Central Africa), we needed to become problem solvers. I had never used a medical database, but learning how to use it during the activity rather than being directly taught how to use it made the task of learning fun. I had to construct my own understanding because I was engaged in an authentic activity. I think about how I like to learn new concepts and idea; by doing. Why wouldn't I want to give my students the same opportunities?

What Does a Saber-Tooth Tiger and a PICKLE Have in Common?

What interested me most about The Saber-Tooth Curriculum is that even though it was written in 1939, the views about education and where it is heading are still VERY relevant today (70 years later!). I also found the fact that the story was written using the Paleolithic era and a lot of satire made the story appear to be way ahead of its time! At no time that I was reading it did I feel like it was a story from 1939. 

After reading and reviewing the book, I learned that education is important because children need to learn to find ways to enrich their lives, not only for themselves, but also for the benefit of the society in which they live. Education's purpose is to teach students to prepare for their future in the work force and security. They learn to become better and more informed citizens. Education also unifies people into cohesive communities. Students need real, relevant experiences to understand what they are being taught. However, changing the way students are taught or how teachers teach is not always received well by others. Especially if they feel that sticking to the fundamentals is better than changing education to fit with how society is ever changing. The Elders (conservative tribesmen) in the book view changes in education merely "training" and not education due to their tribe traditions (fish-grabbing, woolly horse clubbing, and saber-tooth tiger scaring) and their "magical" beliefs. Despite the changes in the needs of all tribe members, the Elders felt that the basis of education should not change. Those concepts worked, so why should they be changed. One stated, “The essence of true education is timelessness. It is something that endures through changing conditions like a solid rock standing squarely and firmly in the middle of a raging torrent. You must know that there are some eternal verities, and the saber-tooth curriculum is one of them!” (p. 44). The Radicals thought the Elders were crazy, and the education system needed to be updated, however, their hands were tied because all the decisions came from the Elders in regards to educating the tribe. When a tribe teacher questioned the other tribe teachers about how education should have a clear goal in mind that will modify the students’ behavior so they learn another system for hunting and fishing so they don't starve to death, the other tribe teachers stated that, “’We can teach them how to think, not what to think.” (p.109).  This is still an ongoing problem today, and I believe it will be for as long as we educate our children in public schools.

The second design goal, PICKLE (P=problem solving, I=information using, C=community participation, K=knowledge, L=literate, and E=ethical decision making), is the basis for 21^st century learning. Like New-Fist wanted to prepare his tribe’s children to have security and be prepared for the work force of fish grabbing, woolly-horse clubbing, and saber-tooth-tiger scaring, the same principles for PICKLE are what we need to prepare our students for their security and workforce readiness.

Each principle that makes up PICKLE is essential for 21^st century learners. Though students may be stronger in one principle that the others, they still need to be able to draw on each principle in order to succeed. These principles are not inherent. Students need to learn them just like any skill they learned. Our job as 21^st century teachers is to design lessons in which students not only learn the PICKLE principles, but can take what they learn and apply it in their every-day lives.

Design Not Plan. How the Heck Do I Do That?!

Even after our first class, I wasn’t quite certain what our first principle, Design, meant in terms of planning lessons. I had to come home and look at the PowerPoint and re-read the articles we were given in class again. How could planning a lesson not be the same as designing one?! What I learned was that planning a lesson which incorporates technology (such as reviewing for an assessment using Kahoot! or using a math game on the computer to practice a concept) is completing different than designing a lesson that incorporates technology. In the planned lesson, students are not using the technology to help facilitate or strengthen their learning. They are basically using it as an output device to regurgitate a previously taught concept. Lessons which are designed using technology allow students the ability to have control over their personal learning. They can work at their own pace, at any location (classroom, library, home, etc…) and be able to determine which information they will need to get a deeper, more thorough understanding of the concept they are learning.

As a math teacher, I had always been under the assumption that math is not a subject which lends itself with lessons in which students can learn a concept on their own. However, now I believe math is the perfect subject! Since math is everywhere, students can use real-world problems and technology to determine answers on their own or working in collaborative groups. For example, if students are proposed the problem: Plan a party for the entire 6^th grade class, including food, drinks, supplies, and games with a budget of $500. Students will need to work on budgeting, adding, subtracting, multiplying (and many more math concepts) in order to plan their party. They would also have to make decisions on how much money they are willing to spend for each part of the party. Some students would think food is more important than games, while others will think the opposite. I look forward to designing more math lessons rather than planning them. I think that these types of lessons are ones that students will remember and be able to implement in the real-world.