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As an adult learner the options of Power and Control should become optional depending on the learners preferences, and abilities. However as a Teacher, I do not want the power in my classroom, however I have to have it because of the obvious age differences and responsibilities I have for my students' safety. This is a major stumbling book of employing the Connectivism Theory of Learning within a K-12 classroom. Suggestions? |
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Agree, that Power & Control is a stumbling block in employing Connectivism within a K-12 classroom. As Teachers we not only have responsibility & duty of care for our students but we also have accountability issues. Accountability to our students, parents, community, teaching staff and government requirements. Australia is going to a National rather than State Curriculum (http://www.ncb.org.au/our_work/preparing_for_2009.html). One of the key issues is the 'back to basics' style of curriculum. Another issue is teacher wages linked to student learning outcomes (watch out lower socio-economic areas). Students being accountable for their own learning and being responsible to demonstrate what they have learnt is obviously very beneficial for the student. However, teachers are accountable for ensuring their students are learning and can be sued if they don’t ensure this is happening. How do we achieve both?
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Hi Ruth, I don't think it can really work both ways -- there is always a need to negotiate the middle ground. Somewhat humanistic mixed with accountability. Very interesting post which is about power and lack of power, depending on how you look at it. From Edmonton, Canada -- Jo Ann |
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| And, Ruth, what about the third group, the parent connection? If you network with the parents sharing how Connectivist learning works for you (if it does) and how you believe it has worked/will work for their K-12 child you have built a connection that may influence you all for the rest of your lives. It's not a matter of one connection or another but of taking off as much insulation from the wire as possible and making as many connections as possible. |
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If you lose all your power, your learnes will give them back all to you at the end. Will they? And if you are vested with all power, would you like to share them? In other words, if you try to influence them (K-12 students) by letting them go and try new ways of learning, they will reward you ten times what you have given them, because you have respected their freedom to learn and share. And they (and you) will enjoy learning. And you don't have to worry about all those theories, because you have got the real "theory" that works. I am not sure if this is the spirit of empowerment. Only you could tell. I have tried it with myself and my learners and co-learners, in that I and my learners become the teachers and the fisherman/fisherwoman if everyone is sharing the "power". We have become fisherman or fisherwoman, and know where, when and how to fish, and who to learn the fishing from and why we are fishing. So, this saves you the time to give or feed them with the fishes they want, on a daily basis. The greatest leader (teacher) is the one who could inspire others and that all these people would say at the end: "We have done it!" I don't think I have any power to start with Do you want to lose yours? |
. So, I have nothing to lose. | Re: I've Got The Power |
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Agree, about inspiring learners and this can be done in many ways (purposeful, meaningful, connected, collaborative (etc) learning experiences). With Years Prep-3 there is some autonomy and sharing of power but there is also some structure and usually a definate learning purpose. Although the students try new ways of learning, there is the accountability issue of ensuring they are learning. The 'laissez faire' teaching style was not successful in terms of reaching expected societal educational outcomes. Is connectivism going up the same path? |
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Just to clarify, I don't mean that the teacher has all the power and is spoon feeding the students, far from it. What I do mean is that the teacher is a facilitator or guide whose responsibility is to ensure there is some purpose to the learning experience rather than an 'unconnected' event. For instance, in Prep, children learn through play (fun for the teacher and the students). Be it fine motor or gross motor skills from crawling through tyres, walking over beams or climbing. Yes, students are experimenting autonomously in a range of ways but the overarching purpose of the learning experience is to develop fine and gross motor skills. Isn't that the same as how this course has been set up for us to explore, investigate & evaluate and to then draw our own conclusions? |
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| As with most aspects of life, teaching requires a delicate balance of freedom and control. Perhaps structure is a better word than control. (While I know teachers who are extremely controlling, I don't personally think you have to be that way to be a good teacher.) At the same time, our students have not been given the freedom to control their educational destiny. You can't impose all that structure and just take it away. But, what if children were taught as early as preschool that they would be responsible for the learning process. How might our schools look different? How might power shift to the learner? Who might be left behind? Who would float to the top? |
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| As with most aspects of life, teaching requires a delicate balance of freedom and control. Perhaps structure is a better word than control. (While I know teachers who are extremely controlling, I don't personally think you have to be that way to be a good teacher.) At the same time, our students have not been given the freedom to control their educational destiny. You can't impose all that structure and just take it away. But, what if children were taught as early as preschool that they would be responsible for the learning process. How might our schools look different? How might power shift to the learner? Who might be left behind? Who would float to the top? |
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Tom - As a teacher do you have the power, or do your admins have the power over you? I think that connectivism as a learning theory is certainly a strategy that could be used with K-12, but at the higher end of that range. After all a Kindergarden class can exhibit a few connectivist tendencies (especially when playtime and art are factored in), which are less and less through grades 1-8 and then things like indepenedent study and other strategies - which are essentially connectivist IMO - come back into play in high school. At least that's my experience with it from my daughter schooling who's now 10. |
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Connectivism Theory of Learning has for me a lot of the idea of empower your students and decentralices the class... The teacher is not more the King, he is only an equal, but with "more reponsabilities" and "autorithy in the topic", if he is a master in this topic. But I wonder if it is real possible to give all the power and control to the students when they are not adults, I want to believe yes, but I thing that then we need to be carefull with the methods and goals for a "connectivist course" with not adult people. Regards! |
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Many good thoughts here. I work in a middle/high school every day and struggle with the issues of power and control on a few different levels. This is a new school for me. It seems to me that there are a number of attempts at control and power-mongering at the middle admin levels with both the adult staff (teachers) and students. A culture of control is thus fostered and carried over into the classroom. While I am not entirely new to this kind of culture of control, it is an interesting ride for me as I explore the channels within the system that will support me while learning to avoid those that are the roadblocks. My students are mostly young teenagers who are at a developmental level where one cannot simply offer a great deal of control, but it must be provided at a gradual degree. However, in my experience as an educator of teenagers and mother of 3 teens, relinquishment of power and control in a humane and supportive environment (where learners are permitted to make mistakes and forgiveness offered) is a critical component to healthy, responsible maturity. Knowing how and when to give over control are what I struggle with the most in this age of anytime anywhere access to the public spaces of the Internet. In my opinion, creating and maintaining healthy relationships with my learners and my own children are the foundations to an environment where I am responsible as caretaker and educator of those who are at a younger, more fragile developmental stage in life. Once we have established that relationship of trust and accountability, control and power can slowly be given over to the learners. Let's not forget the element of humanity and what it is to be human as we explore the issues of power, control, validity and authority. |
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I remember when Seymour Papert preached pure Constructivism and discovery learning years ago. It didn't work for most teachers and didn't fit back-to-basics agendas. Schools dropped Logo soon thereafter. Pure Connectivism just may not be on for K-12 education at the moment. Still, that doesn't mean that Connectivist projects can't be deployed within certain contexts. I've been most impressed by work in the UK on Personalization of Learning using digital devices from FutureLab and in the work of Stephen Heppell. Increasing personalization does bend the institutions slightly as long as they can document learning. |
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I'm glad to hear some balance and sanity coming from your pragmatic approach, instead of the rigid ideology related to Connectivism most of the time here. I find it downright scary that an adult in charge of young children would sit and thumb-suck about whether he dares to eat a peach, and give up his power, and isn't that a horrible stumbling block, as the darling little learners might feel "oppressed". With great responsibility, comes great power, as Spiderman could tell you. And that's more than fine; that's ok. Parents would expect it of you. You can be normal about it. This constant rush to divest oneself of sense, knowledge, power, rationality in the name of some greater network that is going to shine on all the knowledge is hugely troubling. It will not come out of the sky. |
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My reflection of the views from Ruth, Jon, Jo, Carlos, Sharon, David, Ariel, Ken, Wendy and Catherine could be summarised as follows: power of a teacher in class is necessary in K-12, especially when teaching those learners who are still at a developmental stage (K-8). And that gradual sharing of power through negotiation is desirable when the learners become more mature. Have I missed out or misinterpreted your views? Please see Power on fire and Power in Class and Networks on http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com for details and comment. Cheers |
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Hi John, Enjoyed reading your thoughts on your blog.
Re: Your reflections of our views on teacher power in P-12 classrooms. Even in Prep year there is shared power and negotiation of learning (example: student notices some words sound alike in the story that is being read which leads into rhyming pattern brainstorming and different activities - a precursor for reading) but there is also some structure and a definite learning purpose involved. The part of connectivism I have difficulty with is the initial introduction into the learning to generate autonomous learning and the 'show me' what you have learnt. I fully understand about ensuring the learning is meaningful, purposeful, engaging and connected to the students & their lives at that time and ensuring students explore & investigate at their own pace and levels. However if I asked a student from P-3 to 'show me' what you have learnt (and I have), their initial response is ‘what does that mean?' or 'what do you want to see.' I remember in one prac, while still at Uni, going into a Year 3 class discussing a topic, negotiating a task then expecting them to 'go to it'. Needless to say they were baffled, confused, unsure, etc. They needed just a little more support, encouragement and scaffolding to help them feel 'safe' to risk take in the task. I guess what I am saying is that some students are not confident in themself to learn autonomously or of an age where they know how to go about it. Therefore some structure and scaffolding is necessary to guide them into developing life-long autonomous learning skills. Rather than the teacher having the 'power' it is about empowering students to learn. |
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Fully agreed. Empowering students to learn is important. I have included 2 anecdotes for sharing in response to your post on my blog. You may have a laugh at them. Cheers. |
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I'm trying to define the difference between the younger and older set of students in terms of creating spaces where they can learn. Both need a "safe environment", which is what we need to create for learning, connectivist or otherwise. I teach community college, and while I can be pretty sure the students won't pick up a pair of sharp scissors and cut themselves, they still need me to create a safe environment for them to share ideas and explore. So maybe that's not so different. Both need a desire to learn. Perhaps there is a difference in motivation? In the younger ages, don't they come in with a desire to learn already? By the time they get to me, they've had it beaten out of them or given up, and are only motivated to obtain external rewards. That seems to make it harder for me to create a good learning environment, even though I have more independence to do so. This may balance out the two groups. Both need support "at home". Little kids are supposed to have that by virtue of them being children. Some get it and some don't -- those that do have better opportunities for getting their learning supported. Most college students see themselves as "on their own", but again, the ones who have support at home tend to do better with learning. Both need to be given some resources. For younger kids, they get workbooks, skills sheets, places to look up facts and most importantly, a teacher who cares. For college, they struggle if I let them go without resources plus some guidance. The difference is in what I give them, that's all. I can provide choices and different types of resources, but I think that can be provided to little ones too. In fact, it should be, to encourage varied learning styles. I'd hate for the difference to come down to which set has a more open mind.... |
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Hi Lisa, I suspect that the main difference is the way people seem to be trained by life experience not to want to, or not to bother to learn. It seems to be the exceptional few who make it through to higher education still wanting to experience the thrill of learning new things - especially of exploring to learn them. I do wonder though, whether it is really true that we need safe environments for learning. My experience suggests that people learn much faster, and much more deeply if the environment is somewhat unsafe; coupled with a safe place for reflection. However, I fully appreciate that in today's litigious world, institutions would be unwise to provide unsafe environments. So now, we seem to have a situation where you are meant to gain the experience in a safe environment, and then, increasingly, practice reflection in a slightly less safe one (at some levels of education, at least). |
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Hi Lisa, Agree that an environment where students feel safe to risk-take in tasks is essential for all students, regardless of age. However for younger students, although they do have 'a teacher who cares' (as I am sure most teachers do), I would dispute the fact that they 'get workbooks, skill sheets and places to look up facts'. That is a little to spoon-fed and can create learner helplessness. True, they do need some structure & support but not the rigid, inflexibleness of text books. I prefer to promote a classroom where students use and develop their thinking skills and thereby start to develop autonomous life long learning skills. The conversations, group & individual ideas, explanations and investigations, interactive websites & educational computer games that generate enthusiasm, motivation and fun are a real highlight in our everyday classroom. It really is a joy to have a part of their learning. |