C4T Summary #3

I will be summarizing two posts from Mr. Tyler Rice’s blogspot. He has a “tell it like it is” way of writing his blogs, and they are loaded with thinking points. For instance, in his first post, in this series, a teacher had played a rap video in his classroom, which got him suspended for his efforts (Free speech! What free speech?) Apparently the teacher played the video to engage his students about what they felt about the way we are teaching them, and it seems like that would be a good thing. Yes, it had cursing in it, but its profound message of being forced to go through 16 or more years of education to come away a robot that was programmed, is what I took from listening to it. It is hard for institutionalized minds to seek freedom from their bondage, but some of us do, and we try to change the status quo, because we know it doesn’t work. This was Mr. Rice’s point for defending the teacher that was suspended. I did ask if he would show the video to his own class, but knowing the intimidation tactic used on the suspended teacher, he likely won’t because he knows how broken our education institution is. For me, it was valiant enough of him to make a stand in his own way,

which is doing something instead of nothing.

Since Mr. Rice didn’t have a blog post that was recent, I simply went back to one of his earlier posts, which was related to something I and my classmates in another class are experiencing: Tests that don’t assess what was taught or learned clearly. His students had been given a quiz on natural selection and their mean score ended being a D, which is what relates to my own particular scenario. We all made D’s, which showed some of us had C’s after reviewing the test, but given that we were given a study guide that covered the majority of the chapters, it should have been an easy A or B for everyone. So, the case and point is the way we were taught and assessed, which is something that should be reviewed and our reassessment after that will show what we learned. In the college world, in that type of class, it is likely that won’t happen, but shouldn’t the point always be that you taught something and that the students actually learned something, too? For me, it shows why the lecture classroom needs to die a quick death and go the way of the dinosaur. Mr. Rice saw his students’ failures as his own failures after reflecting on why so many students had low grades, and took a different, PBL approach that gave his students a chance to show they are capable of learning. I think we need more teachers like him and not trying to hire less of teachers like him.

I have really enjoyed commenting on Mr. Rices’ blog posts, because they deal with what is going on in the real world and what we need to be doing to better educate the students of the United States. If you have the opportunity, visit his page and see what you think. I will be going back to his blogspot long after EDM310 is over because his PBL approach to education is impressive.

Source: Edutopia