Week 3 – A Whole New Learning World

I began my teaching career right out of college 19 years ago. My mother spent 40 years as a public school librarian. Pretty much all my life I had envisioned working as a teacher (except for those few years in the mid-80s when I thought I was going to be a Solid Gold dancer) and I had a good idea in my mind what my tenure as an educator would look like. I knew what school looked like. I was good at playing school. I watched my mom and paid attention to what she did. I got this. I can see the future and I know what mine looks like. Mystery solved! Yeah, not so much it seems.

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The reason I decided to embark upon this course of study is because it is becoming quite clear to me that the future I envisioned is changing and if I don’t hop on board with it and learn to figure some things out both my students and I will be left behind. I take the responsibility of the education of my students way to seriously to let that happen.  Interestingly enough, reading the excerpts from Thomas and Brown’s A New Culture of Learning helped put into words some of what I have been feeling about the changes in my classroom.

When envisioning a new framework of learning, Thomas and Brown stated that two basic requirements need to be present. The first they mentioned was unlimited access to a large network of information with resources to learn about anything one desires. The second was a structured environment that allows the learner to build and experiment within the boundaries of that environment. They furthermore go on to explain how it is the bridge between the information and the ability to experiment with that information is what will create the new learning culture.

What struck me the most with all of the examples provided was that all of the learning was happening in the context of natural curiosity. Each of the learners described had access to information that they really wanted to learn. They used the information and the social interaction within the context of Web 2.0 to foster learning that was of deep personal interest to them. The information and resources were available but also present was an intrinsic motivation to learn. I was unaware of it at the time, but it now occurs to me that I have used Web 2.0 technologies to foster my own learning in topics that are of high interest to me in the last several years.

Every year I come up with something small that I want to change about myself and make it my own personal project. It’s not a New Year’s resolution, per se, but just something little that I can tackle to make me a little better, well, in my mind anyway. One year it was learning to like coffee (I have NEVER regretted that one) and one year it was learning to hold my pencil correctly (my poor elementary school teachers tried so hard). In my mid-thirties I decided I wanted to learn how to like running. Inspired by women who were also moms and not your typical athletic types I decided if they could do it, so could I. I read articles and blogs on social media, found a couch to 5k running group through Facebook, and on Sunday nights I like to participate in RunChat on Twitter where I have met and learned from an amazing community of runners with various experiences. That summer I completed my first 5k. One week from today I will be participating in a 200ish mile relay race with 12 other runners from my area. Some I know personally and some I have only interacted with through our private group on Facebook which has allowed us to communicate, share training plans, packing lists, and share thoughts and information about the race. Without access to the internet and the social connections I have made through it I truly wonder if I would have found that continual love of running and learned about fueling, compression socks, and how to prevent chaffing.

The concept I find the most challenging is the perspective in which I take. Am I a teacher or am I a learner? Of course the answer to that question is simple. I am both. As a learner I am grateful and excited about the new culture of learning and the role that technology plays in it. How can I not be when I have already gained so much? It is as your average classroom educator that I am faced with more questions than answers, at least for the moment. In the context of the k-12 classroom I am curious as to how to best implement changes and how to make them for the betterment of student learning while simultaneously being held accountable to curriculum, standards, and my state’s model of teacher evaluation.

First, as the readings suggest, this new culture of learning makes the resources available and encourages the learner to, as Thomas and Brown describe, cultivate their learning by taking the information gained and putting it into the desired structured context. When a learner has both the resources as well as the desire and motivation to learn something new amazing things can happen. However, in the traditional k-12 model as it currently stands there can be many obstacles to that learning. Students are not always free to learn about whatever interests them within the classroom. The teachers are not always free to allow their students to make those choices. What interests me is to see where, in time, schools will take this new framework. What will it look like? There have been times when I have been inspired to try something different, something new just to see where it could go. Where I find the challenge is in taking that risk. What if it fails? I need to answer to my students, to their parents and guardians, to the administration, and to the government for the education of the young men and women in my charge. It is scary to take that risk when the evaluation for your job performance is tied to completion of predetermined curriculum and standardized test scores. If your educational experiment fails both you and your students suffer the consequences. Perhaps this is part of the reason why change in educational circles is so slow. That kind of risk can be truly intimidating.

It may be that while, as Thomas and Brown described, not only is the bridge between access to information and the capacity to experiment with that information within an environmental structure and its boundaries necessary as basic requirements for this new framework of learning, but more importantly it may be something more. Beyond the information and the experimentation Thomas and Brown mention a shift in thinking must also be present and with this concept I could not agree more. This is the predominant reason for me beginning graduate school again after so many years. I know it is a long process and I know that it will not always come easy but I believe that I am ready to shift my thinking in what education within the context of a traditional classroom could and should look like. By using our learning community to learn about technologies and instructional techniques for implementing them I will find myself better in the long run for my students. I never envisioned all of these educational changes. For a long time I felt like I would never catch on to them. In his article George Siemens mentions shifting from a “know-what” or “know-how” philosophy to a “know-where” view of information. He continues to point out that there is more information out there than we can ever know but our ability to form connections, between ideas as well as between people, is the key to constructing learning. I plan on continuing to build those connections. Now I have a much better idea of where to look.

6 thoughts on “Week 3 – A Whole New Learning World

  1. Joseph McHugh

    Hello Anne,
    Starting a teaching career at 19 years old is impressive. At the age, I was still trying to find the exact profession to thrive towards. I do not have a teaching background, although I have helped trained new hires at the help desk I work on. I always thought a teaching career can be rewarding and enjoyable. I think that being able to shape a person’s mind in fun and exciting ways could be something I would be happy doing.
    The framework of learning, and the two basic requirements were good points to express. The network of information has expanded tremendously in the past years, and the learning environment has surely grown to include more possibilities. Learning techniques have advanced in so many ways over the course of history. I found this video to be a good timeline of how much learning environments have changed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFwWWsz_X9s).
    You made a great point that you are a teacher and a learner. The world is so connected today, and I think this is the case for more people than ever, even if people do not realize it. In the role of a teacher, I think trying new techniques and experimenting with results can be risky but can also be rewarding. Trying new techniques can continue to revolutionize the way we learn.
    Pleasure reading your post.
    Regards,
    Joseph McHugh

    Reply
    1. Anne Masorti Post author

      Well, I’d love to say that I was a prodigy or that I am younger than I really am but I graduated from college 19 years ago but definitely at an age older than 19. 🙂 I can definitely appreciate the importance of taking educational risks as a teacher and the reward that can follow. The interesting thing is that the failures can be as rewarding as the successes if they are viewed through a critical lens. As the saying goes, we learn more from our failures than our successes. What can be detrimental to that risk taking process is the political hold on education and the government’s ways of deciding how we as public educators show evidence of what kinds of learning are taking place in our classrooms. I do not pretend to have the correct answers but clearly what is happening now, at least in the state of Pennsylvania, can cause many teachers to pause and rethink risks because our job and school ratings have such strong ties to mandated standardized tests.

      I really enjoyed the video you sent. Thanks so much for including it. I would definitely suggest posting it on our class’s Slack channel for everyone to view. I think everyone could benefit from seeing the ways in which technology has changed in school and so rapidly over the last 20-25 years. Thanks so much for your comments!

      Reply
  2. Shakir Hussain

    Anne — thank you for sharing such a personal post. Your idea of learning something new every year is inspiring, while I have tried and failed multiple times to get into that cycle, I have some ideas on picking more sensible topics for myself based in your examples.

    I am very interested in the teacher vs learner dilemma. While I certainly did not start a teaching career right out of college (which is still pretty impressive — I was certainly with Joseph in trying to figure out what I wanted to do with life), I did have the opportunity to serve as a Teaching Assistant (TA) in 17 classes over 3.5 years. What I felt during those years was that the best way to learn was really to teach. Most of those classes were theoretical Computer Science or pure Mathematics, and as I help office hours for students I was teaching, I was asked questions that I had to get back to them, a lot of times. Every such instance was a learning experience and I wanted to make sure that I build a future with some sort of teaching involved as that would be one way to make sure I was a lifelong learner. Working in higher-ed with instructional support gives me the best of both worlds in that I “teach teachers how to teach” (extremely oversimplified, of course) and I get to experience new topics and classes regularly.

    Reply
    1. Anne Masorti Post author

      Shakir, that is such a great perspective and could not be more true. I have also felt that by teaching I continue learning. It amazes me some days on the questions my middle students can ask. I don’t always have the answers. It was definitely a humbling experience for me early on to be able to say, you know, I don’t know but I can find out and I will get back to you on that.

      Reply
  3. Priya Sharma

    Anne, I thought your example of learning to run and engaging in other learning tasks using the resources of Web 2.0 was a really nice match to what we read this week. You also mentioned the notion of motivation and interest and their importance in the learning process. Are there ways that you think you could connect the interests of learners toward non-interesting subjects such that there is rollover interest. E.g., you commented in Joseph’s blog about the BMX enthusiast student — could you think of ways you could have connected with his interests to have him be interested in Spanish? Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Anne Masorti Post author

      Thank you so much for your question. Absolutely I believe I could have and goodness knows I tried. It was very frustrating to me to have that boy leave my class and I still could not figure out how to make that connection with him and his love of BMX. Part of it was my lack of knowledge in his interest area and part of it is there are so many others like him that as a teacher I often feel I am failing at serving the students properly because I struggle with tying theory to practice at times and also because the business of day to day takes over and I need to find balance between work and family, something I believe many people find a challenge. If there were just more hours in the day. Obviously that is not possible so I must make a concerted effort to make the most of those hours which I do have. The goal is always to find that connection for the students. Sometimes there is success and sometimes there is failure. I need to keep a positive view and do what I can to make those theoretical changes I believe are best for my students a practical reality.

      Reply

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