In a recent post on Learners as Contributors, which received some good comments, Bill Fitzgerald said that:
True student-centered teaching takes more preparation than traditional lecture because the teacher needs to be prepared for whatever outcome organically arises. Really, it requires an openness to possibility that many teachers feel uncomfortable with because they labor under the paradigm that they need to be the expert in any subject covered in their classroom. True student-centered teaching also requires teachers to explicitly teach critical thinking skills, media evaluation skills (a must for internet-based research), and a host of other skills that are necessary for life but are not directly measurable on a standardized test.
This got me to wondering about curriculum, such as Brian Alger’s comment that “Curriculum is a solution to a problem we created.” I also started thinking about the barnraising exercise that Dave is hosting on new media curriculum creation. I believe that it’s a good exercise but there is a more fundamental issue that really interests me.
What would a curriculum look like if you eliminated any specific CONTENT and any reference to particular TECHNOLOGIES and instead focused on universal cognitive PROCESSES? Many varieties of this “curriculum” could be created, using various content areas or communication technologies. I imagine a curriculum that is open to teachers’ expertise and learners’ needs, based on processes like:
- Critical thinking
- Problem solving, individually and as part of a group
- Narrative development
- Media analysis & critique
- Self-expression
- etc. (please add more)
What would be different about this more basic curriculum is that learners would be able to choose how they would learn these process skills and how they would show mastery. Self-expression could be shown through writing, blogging, art or mechanics. This approach would also free up a whole bunch of teachers in administrative curriculum development positions ;-)
Given the expanding amount of information and media that is available through the Internet, access to material should not be an issue. Of course, teachers would need to develop new skills, but just imagine what learners could achieve. As John Taylor Gatto wrote in Harper’s a few years ago:
After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.
Harold,
Not to argue with the, um, need for learner’s needs, and recognizing that my mind today has been in the world of work rather than the world of school, it seems to me that process-based curriculum would (could?) emerge more quickly when the learners are in similar fields of application.
It’s a variation on Joe Harless’s question, “Communication skills for what?”
Not to say everyone has to work for the same organization, but I’m musing on some sort of relationship between process and application (e.g., critical thinking and evaluating business plans; problem-solving skills and the faceets where an organization meets its customers).
And, I suppose, a kind of meta-process, where you step back from application of the process, and from the process itself, to see how apparently different applications rely on some of the same basic principles.
I agree, we should be asking questions like, “Communication skills for what?” That’s a problem with a one-size-fits-all curriculum. What are preparing them for?
At least with a u-choose program, the learners could explore different avenues for these processes, because most of the jobs that our children will be doing in 10 years don’t even exist today. They need to have opportunities in school that are not limited by the curriculum developers’ imaginations.
I agree with you that the activities need to be anchored in some kind of context. By allowing learners to choose their context, we can help to keep them motivated. The content, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t really matter, because it will probably be obsolete by the time they graduate (how useful is your high school diploma?).
I don’t think that we can use a training strategy for general education, because we don’t know what we’re training them for. We can just provide lots of opportunities for practise in different contexts (grist for the cognitive mill).
Bingo! When we were in Frederickton, I made the remark, “Discovery is for adults; curriculum is for kids.” This goes double for knowledge workers who find it insulting to be told what to do.
What it would look like is the ultimate triumph of pull over push: we will build platforms, not programs.
I’m bumping into the basic skills questions in my book. My reviewers (all three of them) said I should delete material on storytelling, speaking in public, etc., because they were personal, and therefore not relevant to corporate learning. I consider this insular but I’m the writer, not the reader.
The relationship between content and process can be tricky, particularly when one sets out to teach process. Then, arguably, process becomes content.
For example, I have used this to teach methods of working within a group: I give students a collection of primary and secondary source materials, and tell them they have two tasks. One, prepare a presentation on the content that summarizes and analyzes the content; and two, document the process by which they created their presentation (who did what, how were decisions made, etc). When I give this assignment, however, I give them works by and about Piaget.
Using Piaget as the vehicle (content) to teach methods of working productively within a group provides an extra layer of firmness to an experiential process.
So, while mastering process (learning how to learn) can have more long term value than content, choosing good content should not be overlooked. To fully denigrate content beneath process means missing opportunities to provide a richer learning experience. Good content will support process, and a student-centered learning environment will foster continual questioning and exploration. All of these pieces can work together; as educators and learners, we need to have the presence of mind (and the pedagogical inclination) to frame our endeavors in this light.
Good points Bill. I think that selecting good content is contextual, based on a variety of factors such as location, learner needs, and teacher skills & knowledge. That is why I am against subject/content curriculum that is decided far from the learning process.
Recommendations for subject material (such as Piaget in your excellent example) would be of assistance to the learning process. “Recommendations” for content are different than a curriculum based primarily on content, and from which the teachers must teach and the learners must conform.
I agree, good content should not be overlooked, but who decides on what is good or appropriate content? Does the learner have a say, or just the experts?
One thing is certain, we’re not going to solve all curriculum issues on this blog ;-)
Hello, Harold,
I almost didn’t use the term “good” to describe content — it’s pretty vague. Your breakdown of the contextual nature of useful content gets closer to the point I was trying to make.
RE
This gets right to the quick of it. Ideally, learners are intimately involved in determining what they learn. But, this also touches on the tension between formal and informal learning.
RE
Probably not. But it’s fun to try :)
I will, however, try and make the curriculum barnraising you mention in your original post.
Cheers,
Bill