Eclectic Technology

"More than 150 years ago, Massachusetts became the first state to provide all of its citizens access to a free public education. Over the next 66 years, every other state made the same guarantee. The result was a publicly-funded system where, in every American classroom, groups of about 28 students of roughly the same age are taught by one teacher, usually in an 800 square-foot room. This model has been the dominant archetype ever since."

So what needs to be done to change this model, to move from the 19th century to the 21st century? This article explores what may be "the future of the classroom?"

An interesting question is raised in this post...are we teaching students or learners? David Warlick writes an introduction and then provides a table distinguishing "between these notions of students and learners."
Two examples: When looking at relationships with other "students": Students are competitors and learners are collaborators; when looking at assessment: Students - "measuring what the student has learned" and learners "measuring what the learner can do with what has been learned."

Although this post was published in October 2010 it makes one think about how the words we use impact the expected outcomes.

Grant Wiggins asks us to question what we know about curriculum in this piece...what would happen if we made a significan shift in how we look at curriculum?

"What if the earth moves and the sun is at rest? What if gravity is just a special case of space-time? Following both counter-intuitive premises revolutionized science and ushered in the modern world. Could a similar counter-intuitive thought experiment advance education from where I believe we are currently stuck? I believe so."

"The failing school system is a result of the lack of competitiveness of the U.S. compared with that of other nations. A slipping-away of the supremacy of our country."

But we have to ask ourselves, is that really the problem? Especially when we consider that countries like Finland rose to the top with a spirit of collaboration rather than competition.

At the DML Conference in San Francisco back in March, Doug Belshaw (co-kickstarter) of Purpos/ed contributed an Ignite talk on 'Why we need a debate about the purpose(s) of education.' A short talk (~5 minutes) with images that will raise questions in your mind. 

You can add your voice to this dialogue at the website Purpos/ed: http://purposed.org.uk/

This is a continuation of the 'Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really' that I scooped yesterday. (Both by Grant Wiggins)  In this post he continues to look at "an explosion of educational innovation" (which began in the 1930s). Along with Ralph Tyler (whom he brought up in his first post) he also presents work from Harold Fawcett, Hollis Caswell, and John Dewey. This post looks at the concepts of curriculum scope and sequence, with a focus on sequence, and if it is 'logical' or 'psychological'. 

X-Prize founder and unabashed optimist Peter Diamandis sets out in his new book, Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think (2012) (co-authored with Steven Kotler) to convince us that the future is so bright we all outta …...