Personally for me, the most surprising myth of the four articles was the one about keeping students engaged. Even to this day in my education classes, there seems to be a focus, either explicitly or implicitly, on student engagement. What David Price argues, though, does make a lot of sense and connects with me on a personally level. As a grade school student, I was rarely engaged in my classes; however, I often got good grades and did well overall. At times, it may have seemed like I was engaged in the classroom where in reality I was probably not. As a teacher, I feel I always know what my students are up to, when they're paying attention and why they're not, but after reading his article, I will second guess myself the next time I set foot in the classroom.
Of the other three, I was already familiar with them as "myths" or even "half truths". In education, there is no one easy answer. It's not as simple as assigning a student an intellectual identity or saying that if they read, hear, see and do this one activity, they're more likely to learn it. I admit, I'm guilty of trying multiple different strategies on one lesson so that my students might better be able to grasp what I'm trying to teach them, and this strategy may be founded on these false premises. In fact, I really do see my students "checking out" when I try to reteach the same material but through another mean. Where I'm familiar with these myths, I really need to rethink my teaching strategies when planning a lesson.
What I would say is that while I was a good student, I would fall under Phillip Schlecty's "strategic compliance" category of engagement. Jumped through the hoops but not really beholden to the material.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to remember is that multiple strategies is a GOOD thing. Where we get into trouble is when we classify or categorize a students into one BEST way each time for that student.