|
Selling lesson plans
Posted by Steve Crowley on 11/15/2009
In Reply To:Selling lesson plans Posted by leusa on 11/15/2009
As a teacher in a school that certainly meets these descriptions, I also tend to agree. (we're a well over 75% "free and reduced lunch" population, which is the standard economic measure, as well as 40% refugee immigrant) However, the selling of lesson plans or curriculum packages is really nothing new. Nor is the preferred access experienced by more well to do districts. Actually, free access is what's new, at least in terms of decades. Internet and all that.
I think there are bigger hurdles for low income schools than the direct cost of lessons. First, there's exposure. Who ever heard of this material, anyway? As others pointed out, how can anyone squeeze this one more layer into the professional development and plain old hours and minutes in the day? Whatever contributes most directly to improving currently tested areas will get the best reception -- math, reading, writing, and now science, all as defined by the state's standards upon which they base their standardized testing. It will be tough for people who are already stressed out and under the gun to see SD as their salvation.
That being said, I can testify that I use SD in my teaching fairly regularly. We are a math-challenged school, for reasons i won't get into here. (our math teachers are very talented, very patient, and work very hard) But that doesn't mean our kids are incapable of complex thinking. SD and modeling help them see past their hurdles in a way. They get to grasp the power of the math without having had to grasp all the stepping stones. Where they might have drawn a complete blank when we're talking about the dynamics of population interactions, or epidemics, biogeochemical cycles, natural selection, and so on, manipulating a simple model can turn the topic into a kind of game that, ironically, makes the subject more real. I see the benefits of learning directly. For example, we do fair amount of causal loop chalk talk, or they might build, with much guidance, a very simple model, and maybe add pieces to a slightly more complex model, like public health interventions on an epidemic model. Still, I'm afraid I'm not so sure this translates into test-taking skills.
One of the common themes bouncing around the educational community is what people are calling Depth of Knowledge. As often happens, commonly used terminology takes on a new life as a term of art, and there's a whole language and literature (along with a lot of highly paid consultants) in this DoK discussion. In brief, people lump the multitude of Bloom's taxonomy terms into four or so levels, work out testing protocols for the first three, and regard level four as something that's beyond the reach of standardized testing. I suggest that much of the direct benefit of SD thinking is in this 'beyond the test' category.
The educational effectiveness of this would be very difficult to research, I fear... so many intervening factors, not the least of which is the enormous variation in how SD might be utilized, and the skill of the teacher, both in terms of pedagogy and sd thinking itself. There is also a very active and well funded lobby in the name of "educational research," which I suspect is a smokescreen for something... textbook companies, test makers, and curriculum salespeople. I read, for example, that in ongoing discussions over the educational ARRA funding, there's a big battle over how much "proof by research" stands behind something that should be eligible for funding. It may well be that only the most highly funded materials, backed by tons of research, will be eligible for use under ARRA.. a windfall for the most well endowed peddlers.
Still, I wouldn't discourage anyone form trying to package and market some SD-based lessons, especially those that are tailored to inject into an existing curriculum. I look forward to hearing how you do. I'm afraid i won't be buying any time soon.
Steve Crowley
|
