After more thought this is my new model. I'm not fully convinced about it yet but it's what fits best my former description of the a successful inclusion of technology in the classroom. In this model I'm trying to represent the following main points:
- The teacher designs content of a class, activities, according to the goals of the curriculum. I represented the teacher as a gardener in charge of planting a forest.
- Class' activities are experiences that support the children's construction of their own knowledge. In this case the activities are represented as trunks of the trees in a forest. They are in charge of supporting the trees. The leafs of the trees comprehend children's construction of knowledge.
- Activities should all be complementing each other , addressing different sides of a specific concept. The reason why I used a forest is to establish the importance of having a wide range of activities to support children's construction of knowledge.
- A teacher should have flexibility when dealing with the activity. The teacher is able to choose and prepare the activity to use, just as a gardener has the flexibility to choose what tree to plant and take care of it as it grows.
- Group work, collaborative work, discussions, peer critique, self evaluation, co evaluation are ways to encourage the students' reflection on the activities they've performed. Reflection nourishes knowledge, just as rain nourishes the forest.
- Activities should encourage students to iterate on their perceptions and possible solutions/explanations to real life problems. On the model I decided to add a cycle of problems solving, to show its importance and effects on the construction of knowledge.
I'm pretty satisfied with my model, but I still feel that I'm leaving important interactions behind such as: - Students becoming teachers, -The real interaction amongst students and technology and -The representation of the real world and how technology allows to create a safe version of it so children can play in and with it.
Well, now I'm eager to hear your comments about my new model :D
4 comments:
Wow Marisol, your model makes me jealous! And I want it!
It is very interesting that you used the metaphor of an ecosystem to refer to education. I think it is a great way to tame the complexity of capturing some truth about the dynamics of education in a model.
The only thing I might be concerned about is having knowledge in its static form as the ultimate product of education. Here, knowledge is represented by leaves that are growing but static in nature. After the recent literature I'm tending to think that knowledge would be more about and within action, especially in a highly mediated world (thanks to technology).. What do you think?
Thanks Ammar, it takes me forever to do this assignments, so any comment (and better yet good comment) is very well received.
About knowledge being portrayed as static, I can only say that I share the same concern. Even though I'm saying that knowledge is growing and it's even nourished by reflection after a whole interactive and iterative process, I do feel that the model doesn't quite portray. I guess I'll try to see how to show that in a next iteration, cause this last one took all the ideas I had hehe.
Hey Marisol,
I thought I had left a comment on this posting last week, but I don't see it. Your model is awesome! The nurturing aspect of the teacher is a really important one, and I like the image of the cloud. It brings out the ecological aspects of how a classroom could work. I've been thinking about a cloud in my model, too, but in a slightly different role. I want to figure out how to use a cloud to represent all the other learners and experts outside of the classroom who could become part of the learning that goes on inside the classroom. Bringing all those people together would require technology and could be a way of contributing to the learning of everyone involved.
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