Menu
It is not enough that we have to teach the 3R's, now we need to teach the 4C's? As a student I remember being taught the 3R's, having gym, art, music and recess. The teacher stood at the front and delivered the lessons. Drill-based work was used to reinforce the lesson. The "sage on the stage", so I came to learn in teacher's college, was the someone who teaches by imparting information via lecture. I was able to figure out how this system worked, adapt and thrive. While this worked for me, it did not target the learning styles, strengths and needs of many others. The 4C's In order for students to stay relevant today, however, we must give them a strong foundation in the 4C's (Common Sense Education, 2014). Today people must also be creative, proficient communicators, collaborators, and critical thinkers. Exposure and practice with these skills will enable students to compete in the modern world and create change within the 21st-century learning and work environments. Those teachers with a transformational leadership style have embraced this change and are working with students to create an dynamic and engaging learning environment. Transformational Leaders Transformational leaders develop a vision and then encourage, motivate and support team members to achieve the goals. They help facilitate the process but allow it to be adaptive and fluid. The elementary teaching environment is adopting this framework more and more. With full-day, play-based kindergarten the learning environment is transformed to match student interests. The teachers use the students' various passions to work toward achievement of provincial curriculum expectations. My son, for example, is in junior kindergarten and loves trains. This isn't a love like most 4 year olds have - this is a passion (or obsession?). The vision to teachers have is authentic learning experiences through interactive play and exploration. The classroom play centre was transformed into a train station. This isn't just play as it includes:
Maker Movement Seymour Papert, dubbed the father of the Maker Movement, has spent his life "creating tools, theories, and coercion-free learning environments that inspire children to construct powerful ideas through firsthand experiences (Martinez and Stager, 2013). Building authentic experiences and practical activities has been the strategy that I have tried to use in my classroom. As a teacher in a self-contained class, I have 8 students with a primary diagnosis of learning disability. These students are of average intellectual ability, but have significant difficulty in one or more area of organization, acquisition, retention or processing of verbal/nonverbal information. Students have been placed in this class to help them bridge the gap between their expected level of achievement and actual level of achievement. As my teaching, learning and leadership styles have evolved I realize I am not going to bridge the gap by forcing content based lessons at them filled with information they can't process. Those students who have been able to cope with stress and solve the problems they are faced are those that have learned to use technology to overcome their limitations (e.g. using text to speech to overcome a lower than grade level reading ability). Those students who were the most capable at dealing with stress, adapting and persevering are those that have come back to visit with the stories of their success. It is the partnership of skills with technology that has made the greatest difference for students like mine. Moving Ahead In most elementary classrooms we have gone far beyond the sage on the stage. No longer do teachers stand in front of the class for the entire period and impart knowledge. Through a transformational leadership style, teachers and students, work together towards a common vision. Good teachers now provide guidance and try to empower students to be leaders in their own education. We allow students choice and transfer ownership of the learning path to them whenever possible. Sheridan College, for example, has developed an undergraduate certificate program in Creativity and Creative Problem Solving. They have come to realize that in order to train students for a future in this ever-changing world that we will have to give them skills to cope, adapt and problem-solve. It is an exciting time to be an educator and a lifelong learner. I am currently active in both of these roles and look forward to applying more transformational leadership with the students in the class. Some students will spend 3 years in this class and sharing a common vision in the learning environment will be essential. References Common Sense Education. (2014, 11 03). Introduction to the 4 C's [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNVQNz2Hto8 Common Sense Education (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2016 from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/videos/introduction-to-the-4-cs Martinez and Stager (2013) Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom [Kindle version 1]. Retrieved from Amazon.com Sage on the stage. (n.d.). Retrieved May 27, 2016,from http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sage_on_the_stage) Sheridan Board Undergraduate Certificate in Creativity and Creative Problem Solving. (n.d.). Retrieved May 27, 2016, from http://www.sheridancollege.ca/academics/faculties/humanitiesand-social-sciences/degree-breadth/board-undergraduate-certificate-in-creativity.aspx
0 Comments
|
AuthorI am a teacher in Halton and have spent 12 years dedicated to learning about and working with students who have special learning needs. I have been teaching since 2005. I have 4 kids (2 + 2 step), I play bagpipes, ride a motorcycle and love being outdoors. Archives
August 2017
Categories |