"Education has one vital task: to prepare learners for the vital combat for lucidity."
-Edgar Morin
Our readings, Saturday’s presentation and discussion during week 4 has me thinking about standards. I’ve always understood standards as being given: unarguable, factual, foundational. When I look up the concept in the dictionary I find: “something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example” (Merriam-Webster). I ask myself: “If we are talking about standards in education, who is the authority? Whose customs? And who consented to these as models?”
Clearly a lot of thought and expertise goes into the development of standards for any provincial educational system. What role do teachers play in where, when and how these standards are met? Instead of making the standard the goal, could teachers make the standard the starting point? Or could it be situated somewhere on the learning continuum that would provide space for open and personalized learning?
Another definition of standard (Merriam-Webster) is “a structure built for or serving as a base or support”. This definition supports my idea that standards could be the starting point, or base, and the learning branches off from this point.
However, as per the work of George Siemens on connectivism in education and Manuel Lima’s presentation, The Power of Networks, we are moving away from the tree metaphor of teaching and learning toward the idea of networks. What roles do standards (as we know them) play in a connected/connectivist learning network?
In his slideshare presentation The Challenge of Coherence, Siemens refers to Harvard’s goals of general education:
1-to prepare learners for civic engagement
2- to teach learners to understand themselves as products of and participants in traditions of art, ideas and values
3-to prepare learners to respond critically and constructively to change
4-to develop the learners’ understanding of the ethical dimensions of what they say and do
To support these goals I also appreciate Edgar Morin’s suggestion: “Education has one vital task: to prepare individuals for the vital combat for lucidity.” Siemens adds: “To prepare individuals to be part of society. To create, to share, to interact.”
I find these goals succinctly encapsulate my own goals of education and learning – whether it is for my own learning or for my students’…(after all, we all learn together).
To return to my thoughts on standards with these goals in mind: how can the standards help to achieve these goals for education? What role do they play as part of a learning network? What do we do if (when) the standards become redundant?
Manuel Lima’s The Power of Networks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmGrNdJ5Gw
George Siemens The Challenge of Coherence
http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/the-challenge-of-coherence#btnNext
George Siemens TedxNYED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BH-uLO6ovI
Clearly a lot of thought and expertise goes into the development of standards for any provincial educational system. What role do teachers play in where, when and how these standards are met? Instead of making the standard the goal, could teachers make the standard the starting point? Or could it be situated somewhere on the learning continuum that would provide space for open and personalized learning?
Another definition of standard (Merriam-Webster) is “a structure built for or serving as a base or support”. This definition supports my idea that standards could be the starting point, or base, and the learning branches off from this point.
However, as per the work of George Siemens on connectivism in education and Manuel Lima’s presentation, The Power of Networks, we are moving away from the tree metaphor of teaching and learning toward the idea of networks. What roles do standards (as we know them) play in a connected/connectivist learning network?
In his slideshare presentation The Challenge of Coherence, Siemens refers to Harvard’s goals of general education:
1-to prepare learners for civic engagement
2- to teach learners to understand themselves as products of and participants in traditions of art, ideas and values
3-to prepare learners to respond critically and constructively to change
4-to develop the learners’ understanding of the ethical dimensions of what they say and do
To support these goals I also appreciate Edgar Morin’s suggestion: “Education has one vital task: to prepare individuals for the vital combat for lucidity.” Siemens adds: “To prepare individuals to be part of society. To create, to share, to interact.”
I find these goals succinctly encapsulate my own goals of education and learning – whether it is for my own learning or for my students’…(after all, we all learn together).
To return to my thoughts on standards with these goals in mind: how can the standards help to achieve these goals for education? What role do they play as part of a learning network? What do we do if (when) the standards become redundant?
Manuel Lima’s The Power of Networks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmGrNdJ5Gw
George Siemens The Challenge of Coherence
http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/the-challenge-of-coherence#btnNext
George Siemens TedxNYED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BH-uLO6ovI