A child comes home from his first day at school. His mother asks, “Well, what did you learn today’?” The kid replies, “Not enough. They want me to come back tomorrow.”
- Anonymous
Learning 2.0!
Learning 2.0.
Learning 2.0?
Learning 2.0….
Ok, I don’t know what is Learning 2.0. But neither does anyone else it seems. I’m going to venture out and state that Learning 2.0 is different from Learning 1.0.
I suppose a place to start is to compare this 2.0 with other two oh’s. O’Reilly Media holds an annual Web 2.0 Summit to discuss the benefits and potential of this model. Its exact definition is a bit elusive and evolves as new technologies develop. Essentially, if Web 1.0 is about web pages that are static and simply presents information, then Web 2.0 was originally more about web pages being dynamic, interactive, and allows the creation of information.
From Web 2.0 came the concept of eLearning 2.0. Educators who ventured early onto the Web had the same limitations as other pioneers. Their websites could only present information. Then, with the devastation of the dot.com busts and invention of Web 2.0 technologies, new online business models were created. They were more social constructivist in nature than the dot.com busts. Educators were presented with a choice. They could bring the classroom environment online or create something different.
If recreating the classroom lecture online can be called eLearning 1.0, then eLearning 2.0 is about students discovering knowledge online with challenges and projects to solve problems.
What does that make Learning 2.0?
Conventional wisdom dictates that education is about raising state test scores. There is absolutely no better way to raise test scores than by direct instruction. More specifically, teaching to the test direct instruction. That is an axiom – not a value statement.
The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) defines Direct Instruction as a model for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks.
So, if education is about raising state test scores, then learning is about how well students perform on their state test. It’s about state standards, state tests, direct instruction, learning objectives, textbook alignments and district pacing guides. Instruction is about identifying a standard that is included in the test, writing a learning objective to that standard, creating an assessment for that objective, and then directly teaching students to pass that assessment.
This process is called Standards-based education. EdSource, whose mission is to clarify complex education issues, describes standards-based education as the organizing principle and driving force behind most federal, state, and local education policy in the United States today.
If standards-based education and test scores can be called Learning 1.0, then Learning 2.0 is about students collaboratively working to discover knowledge through challenges and projects to solve problems.
References:
EdSource. Standards-based education. Retrieved August 8, 2009, from
http://wwwedsource.org/iss_sta.html.
National Institute for Direct Instruction. What is direct instruction (di)?
Retrieved August 8, 2009, from http://nifdi.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment