Edustange

Saskatchewan geography

“What you are really asking is the difference between two different types of curriculum approaches, the traditional and constructivism. While many curriculum approaches have moved towards constructivism, we do have traditional ideas about what it means to “teach”.

In constructivism, a teacher’s role IS to guide learning.”

Do teachers — Teach? Or do they guide learning?

Take any thirty or forty minute period in which you are working with students; your activity changes moment by moment. Explanations, demonstrations, practice and assessment insert themselves into the flow as naturally as a child requesting assistance. I think the whole discussion of what we should be doing needs to proceed from the shared assumption that we are fostering autonomous life-long learners. Like any skill or good habit, it needs to be practiced. Learning is inherent in all of us, good learning behaviours or strategies are not. These behaviours need to be taught. They need to be modeled and practiced. We say we are developing independent learners, but to be honest most systems do not mean students “doing their own thing” all day. They mean doing what’s considered right on their own. Students do not set the standards for learning in the vast majority of educational situations, the system does. This reality errodes autonomous learning and necessitates moments of direct instruction. We need to keep the goal in mind, restructure our environments and activities. We do not need to parse the particulars of each teaching moment and let us please not strip the richness and depth from “teaching” by narrowing its definition to a single methodology while introducing a multiplicity of unfamiliar terms suggesting innovation.