This past week, I
have read other student Blogs and also watched many educational videos from TED
and YouTube, including the podcast by Cathy Davidson at Berkman Center (suggested by Dr. Bigenho). The
dilemma at hand is still how/what to teach students in my University Art
Appreciation class which is designed to fulfill particular items shared by a
liberal arts education. August is quickly approaching and so is a SACS visit
for our separate accreditation. I am the responsible person for measurement and
reporting of student learning in art appreciation. Echoing in my brain are also the words spoken
by someone in administration, “what good is art appreciation anyway?”
Advice from many
sources is that students need to be active learners and teachers need to be
mentors. Other givens are that students don’t like to listen for more than 15
minutes and that lectures can take place outside of the classroom through video
or sound files, while students are to be doing active learning in class. We
also need to incorporate technology in our classrooms.
After reading
evaluations by students I find that students either like art or they don’t.
They find my tests and projects fair. Some want to do more hands-on projects
while others do not. But here’s what’s interesting: the items I am to measure and
judge the progress of students are not the same items that students are asked
to measure and besides, how do students know what good teaching entails?
Students are asked to measure my teaching effectiveness but the questions are
the same for math, science, sociology, criminal justice, education, etc. I have
even run across one student comment that refers to a "Mr so and so" that is
nothing close to my name.
So if we’re going
to try to dictate, organize and measure what students are learning and how
effective teachers are at teaching (of course we want to be accountable), then someone needs to decide and coordinate
this effort or better yet, trash it altogether in favor of something that works
better for students and teachers. Sir Ken Robinson at the ISTE2012 Keynote
address put it perfectly after talking about No Child Left Behind. He stated
the aim was good but the problem is “a suffocating culture of standardization.
What we need is the exact opposite.” Robinson pointed out that if you have two
children, even in the same family, they are not the same. “Humanity is
essentially based on diversity but our education system is based on compliance
and conformity, not on creativity and diversity.” He made this great analogy
that if 1/3 of the planes dropped out of the air, or 1/3 of your doctor’s
patients were dying we might ask what’s going on and then do something to stop
this. But when 1/3 of our students are dropping out of school every year, what
do we do? His answer was to personalize
education using technology.
From reading Michele’s
Blog last week about Knewton’s Adaptive Technology, the technology is coming
for this personalization of learning but I don’t have it yet nor do many
teachers I know. After reading Matilda’s Blog about “rote memory” the question
pops up in my head, was it useful for me and others before me to know a
timeline of famous artists and their technological innovations before being
able to have an intelligent conversation about art appreciation? Or is it all
right just to explore the principles of art and allow students to learn the
material on their own, teaching and learning from each other? Marc Prensky (author
of Brain Game), in the panel
discussion with Sir Ken Robinson at ISTE2012 Keynote address responded with this: “what do we keep in our heads and
what do we delegate and outsource to our machines?” Marc thinks that in the
long run, passion is going to lead students to achievement. So if a teacher
provides enough material for students to find something they are passionate
about then they’ll learn in the end.
