Some things students learn at school

I imagine that at some point in everyone´s academic carreer we´ve been asked these types of questions:

What is Biology? or What is economics?

These questions, although they may seem reasonable when introducing new contento to students, I think they have little perceived value in the eyes of students.

It seems to me that students, by habit, already know that the teacher really isn´t looking for answers...

Students know that the question has an answer, an answer that will be given to them by the teacher at some point...

Students know, with almost complete certainty, that any answer they offer up, won´t be exactly what the theacher is going to write on the board, or put on the screen...

Students know, that if they stay quiet long enough, the teacher is going to have to give them the answer to move onto the next point, which is why many don´t even bother to try answering the question... ( a situation totally contradictory of how the real world works, where people won´t hang around to give you answers, before quickly finding someone else to solve their problems)

In that instant, students switch into "sponge mode", ready to consume any type of information without really questioning any of it...

In that instant, they are transformed from individual thinkers into some kind of automaton, which will make getting them to answer future question even that much more difficult after having established that there is a limit to which they can influence the course of their learning...

Without knowing it perhaps, the teacher has hacked away at the student´s desire to learn, which many, or many, had in abundance at the begining of the class or semester...

If first impresions really are important, then students look forward to a long and unmotivating semester, motivated only by the acquisition of the necessary grade to get over the class and forget what the hours, minutes and seconds they suffered through...

Although posing these kinds of questions is 1 way of getting students to participate, asking questions that have little relevance to their daily lives is probably not a recomendable strategy...

Maybe asking questions such as, What do you know about Biology, or Have they ever come into contact with any content relating to this topic? be it a movie, a book, an article or documentary could help in relating the subject to the students, demonstrating how the subject is directly related to their "big picture" of how the world works...

In a world characterized by life styles that are increasingly more active, noone has the time or interest in responding to questions when they know that the person asking the them already has the answer they´re looking for.

Assesing learning in collaborative environments

I recently, about half an hour ago, listened to an hour long pod cast ( http://bwatwood.edublogs.org/2009/02/05/individual-assessment-in-a-collaborative-world/ ) about the challenges of assessing individual student progress in collaborative learning environments, hosted by the Center for Teaching Excellence.

It seems like there is a great deal of speculation regarding what works and how it should be implemented.  Among the most notable (according to me, a student) points were:

• 1. student/teacher colaboration on the definition of evaluation criteria
• 2. maintaining an open dialogue between teacher and students throughout the course
• 3. the importance of self evaluation by giving students time to reflect upon their own work
• 4. demonstrating by some means what top quality work can look like by showing work done by previous students in certain cases
• 5. incorporating peer feedback in the assesment of individual student´s work
• 6. the creation and maintenance of a portfolio which more clearly tracks progress, establishing concrete links to past works throughout a longer period of time
  

As a design student, i´ve been fortunate in having some experience with a few of these evaluation methods... due to the nature of the discipline [of design] itself which provides room for creative thought, self critique, peer critique and feedback to name just a few... although I can´t be sure just how much of each of these are taken into account in the final grade by each teacher...

However, as i was thinking about the challenge of assessing student´s progress, it ocurred to me that there might be other methods which could be considered as well...  

I. Evaluating the questions each student asks...

This may sound rather strange at first, but hopefully I´ll be able to clear that up...

Earlier this evening I skimmed over another post ( http://www.teach42.com/2009/02/12/its-not-an-assignment-its-a-creative-brief/ ) entitled "It´s not an assignment, it´s a creative brief" once again echoing the parrallel between the teaching/learning process and design methodology... 

Which led me to think about the some ideas i had played around with a few months ago... how learning starts with just one question... a question that interests me... one that i would be willing to explore, which would give me the freedom to experiment with new content and discover something which would most likely lead to more questions... 

here´s a simplified diagram of the process in broad strokes:

Question #1 -> Experiment -> Discover -> Question #2, etc... 

basically generating a sustainable loop of personalized learning... 

I imagine having a list of questions, from the first to the last... demonstrating the sequence by which i arrived at the final result... in real world terms this means, that at the begining of the semester, i would start with question #1 and throughout the course of the semester would continue recording my questions in the order they came, till getting to number 100# for example (although its probable that the number could be considerably higher depending on the situation, which could also be part of the evaluation criteria...) 

So... by demonstrating that the last 20 questions are markedly more precise or complex than the first 20 questions, and by comparing this complexity to the results of the individual student´s work or colaborations, the teacher could theoretically make a more clear determination of that student´s progress

the other thought that occurred to me was...

II. Evaluating the relevance of a student´s ideas...

This one sounds less reasonable than the first, although there are some instances in which it could be applied at certain stages during the learning process...

Part of the design process involves finding references and precedents in areas relating to the main topic of the project, which allow the designer to create a solid foundation upon which to construct his/her solution... 

When looking back on the project, it should be clear which elements from the final result were extrapolated from these initial references... and as the investigation phase of the project runs in parrallel to much of its development, these coincidences could be used as benchmarks in determining project progress...

In other words, the later stages of any work should be related in some way to earlier stages by some landmark object, whether it be an image, a sample of text, video, podcast, etc... or even another idea originally created by someone else... the key being that these landmark influences be recorded in such a manner that they may be called upon later as evidence of foundation, proof that the student´s idea is related to some previously relevant content.

Both these methods can be accomplished, i think,  if a carefull log of progress is kept throughout the activity, be it in the form of a diary, video, notebook, audio recording etc... (or a combination of all the aforementioned) although it would requiere a shift from traditional note taking strategies which focus mainly on external information to more personalized analysis and reflection of that content, emphasizing a student´s interaction with the information rather than the focusing on the transference of content itself.