Reflection: Active Learning

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.