Collaboration and Reform

Last week, we expanded our shared understanding of Information literacy in the different fields we all hope to explore.  Despite the fact that so much has been written about the topic, it is hard to find concrete, broad ways that this is being carried out.

Our conversation only made me think more about the great need for collaboration to carry this out.  Andrew made a comment on my last post that really made me think.  He asked how recipients of advanced degrees teaching at highly distinguished universities could be convinced to collaborate with someone outside their field and outside their expertise.  It's sad, but it also seems true, that a big block to collaboration is personal ego.  How can this intellectual hierarchy be broken down to serve students?

In a school setting, I think it would greatly benefit teachers to be in school with librarians and to require them to collaborate through the training.  I don't know how this would work for professors.  I know that every time I see a distinguished research professor speak, or write a book, they always go on and on about how amazing librarians and archivists were in their research.  So how can we get them to collaborate for students?


This week in Bransford's How People Learn, we read about creating an effective learning environment.  I found many intriguing passages in this chapter that made me reflect on my past experience in the classroom and think about how I will apply these lessons moving forward.

The first note Bransford made was that the sense that "schools are getting worse" was actually inaccurate.  The truth is that schools are doing more or less the same, which is the problem.  The world has changed dramatically in the last century, but schools have not changed along with them.  Schools need to reevaluate what their goals are for where students will be and adjust their practices to the world as it exists today.  The movie Waiting For Superman echoed this sentiment- it illustrated the fact that public schools were largely developed in the world of the assembly line.  In this model, students are the product, and Bransford argued that teachers are the managers.  I would say that teachers are actually treated in society like factory workers- no one is winning in this equation.  Students are not prepared for the world they enter into, and teachers are often the scapegoats of these failures. 

Bransford advocated a system built on four centers; learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered.  Taking the best of these four models would provide students with experience and feedback to function in a world that demands critical thinking and ingenuity.  It will also motivate students by building on what they already know (learner centered), give them information to engage in specific fields (knowledge centered), provide them with feedback and ways to improve (assessment centered), and give them opportunities to learn from each other (community centered).

Sadler builds on Bransford's ideas with his discussion of formative assessment (including self-monitoring) in his article, "Formative Assessment and the Design of Instructional Systems."  He discusses how having only external feedback creates "achievement ceilings."  I thought that this was a very interesting concept, and have definitely seen it played out in my own life.  Because I always received A's in school, I had little incentive to push myself farther than I needed to.  It wasn't until I started teaching and reflecting on my own practice, knowing that I could always do better, that I realized how little I had been pushing myself.  Teaching students how to self monitor to build expertise is an incredibly difficult task.  Many teachers have tried to do it by offering opportunities for students to "grade themselves" without guiding them on how to do it.  I remember reading in one class that this practice lead to students scoring themselves lower than the teacher would have.

One way I built in self-assessment in my classroom was leaving the A+ column blank on the rubric.  I clearly defined my base line expectations, but after I explained the assignment to them, they would had time to plan and decide what an exceptional job to them would be.  This could be anything from creating a presentation, or doing extra research, or getting feedback from their peers or family.  On the assignments where I gave students this option, I always got the most amazing results.  I only really did this in social studies though, a class that wasn't held accountable by standardized tests.

This seems like such a perfect pitch- and it mirrors everything I read in my teaching program; so why isn't it being done?  Class size is the big reason that came to me.  It's not only schools that need to change their priorities, it is our larger society.  Amazing teachers can do a lot in the current circumstances, and there are some teachers out there kicking but with 32+ students in a classroom (and I've had the privilege of working with some of them!).  But if we really want to change the school system to provide more authentic learning and opportunities to grow, we simply need to focus on creating time for intimate communities of learners to work together with excellent teachers.  And librarians.