More on Learning Platforms
By Paul McMahon on Jul 6, 2009 in Learning for a Flat World and tagged authentic, inquiry learning, learning platform, portals
I have spent some time therefore reflecting on what a platform in a school that really gets 21st century learning and embeds challenge/inquiry based learning into all that they do might look like, especially in the middle years. I mention the middle school years as, in my experience, it is there where more often than not the struggle between motivating students and appeasing parent expectations of homework, rigour and a modality that they perceived as being best for the teachers they had, comes into conflict.
Indeed, the disconnect between what a teacher is looking to do with 21st century learning and parental expectations of more traditional “read pages 1 to 10, do exercise 1 to 4″ style of teaching is often cited as the reason that teachers do put so many worksheets on a platform accessible by the parents.
So, if a school is committed to such noble things as Individual Learning Programmes, Assessment for Learning, portfolio assessment, “just in time”, as opposed to “just in case” learning, etc., how would this be evident to someone who had access to the school portal?
I am interested in your thoughts.
You bring up some interesting points. I’m not sure what the solution to the worksheets problem would be but I do believe that there has to be some other way to get information across to students without giving them an abundance of worksheets!