From the Directors’ Chair November 2007
Posted by lsnl in : November 2007 Edition, From the Director's Chair , trackbackToday's curriculum is designed with the child in mind. It is student-centered, cognitive and social.
Principles of Effective Learning
As I think back to my school days, I am always aware that educational practices today focus on the whole child and an exciting body of new research on how children learn. The curriculum of the old days, or should I say old ways, was stagnant and mostly unchangeable. It was a body of knowledge that the child was to learn and regurgitate in the form of tests. The content-driven curriculum often neglected the child as well as the child’s development and experience. Today’s curriculum is designed with the child in mind. It is student-centered, cognitive and social (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 2005).
A student-centered curriculum means that the best starting point for schooling is young people’s real interest; all across the curriculum, investigating students’ own questions should take precedence over studying just content. A student curriculum should be experimental, holistic, authentic and challenging.
A cognitive-focused curriculum means that the most powerful learning comes when children develop true understanding of concepts through higher-order thinking associated with various fields of inquiry and through self-monitoring of their thinking. A cognitive perspective includes a developmental, constructivist, expressive and reflective approach toward learning.
A social curriculum specifies that learning is always socially constructed and often interactive; teachers need to create classroom interactions that are meaningful and connected. This includes a collaborative and democratic model.
These principles of best practice in learning are central to learning at Penn Charter. We have framed this thinking as a direction for our Lower School teachers and provided the resources to foster this constellation of learning. You will discover how these best practices affect your child throughout the school year as you observe the practices in the classroom.
From the Learning Corner
This summer I read a book called How People Learn by John D. Bransford and Ann L. Brown and published by the Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning with additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice and National Research Council (2000). It was especially interesting to me as the Lower School is moving to a much more contemporary view of learning. The book lists the Five Themes in Learning that are very helpful in understanding a contemporary view of learning.
1. Memory and structure of knowledge Memory has come to be understood as more than simple associations; evidence describes the structures that represent knowledge and meaning. Knowing how learners develop coherent structures of information has been particularly useful in understanding the nature of organized knowledge that underlies effective comprehension and thinking.
2. Analysis of problem solving and reasoning One of the most important influences on contemporary learning theory has been the basic research on expert learners. Learning theory can now account for how learners acquire skills to search a problem space and then use these general strategies in many problem-solving situations. There is a clear distinction between learned problem-solving skills in novice learners and the specialized expertise of individuals who have proficiency in particular subjects.
3. Early foundations The development of creative methodologies for assessing infants' responses in controlled research settings has done much to illuminate early learning. Scientific studies of infants and young children have revealed the relationships between children's learning predispositions and their emergent abilities to organize and coordinate information, make inferences, and discover strategies for problem solving. As a result, educators are rethinking the role of the skills and abilities children bring with them to school in order to take advantage of opportunities for learning in school.
4. Metacognitive processes and self-regulatory capabilities Individuals can be taught to regulate their behaviors, and these regulatory activities enable self-monitoring and executive control of one’s performance. The activities include such strategies as predicting outcomes, planning ahead, apportioning one's time, explaining to one’s self in order to improve understanding, noting failures to comprehend, and activating background knowledge.
5. Cultural experience and community participation Participation in social practice is a fundamental form of learning. Learning involves becoming attuned to the constraints and resources, the limits and possibilities that are involved in the practices of the community. Learning is promoted by social norms that value the search for understanding. Early learning is assisted by the supportive context of the family and the social environment through the kinds of activities in which adults engage with children. These activities have the effect of providing to toddlers the structure and interpretation of the culture's norms and rules, and these processes occur long before children enter school.
I hope these new ways of looking at learning are helpful to you as you begin to understand your child as a learner.
Nooha Ahmed-Lee
Lower School Director