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Adam Torgerson Assignment 13 1. what did you find 1.1. interesting about the article? The general concept of the community of learners model was interesting. My mother works in a co-op preschool, which is similar to this model. All parents enrolling their children in the school must commit to working at the school 2 days per month. The parents help manage the children, and help set up and participate in classroom activities. It is good for the children because they see their parents taking an active role in their education. It is good for the parents because they get direct exposure to their children in a learning environment, and especially with such young children, my mother and other teachers help with general child raising skills and problem solving with regards to children (many parents lack abilities in one or both of these areas). 1.2. not interesting about the article? The problem with a concept such as a co-op school in which parents are required to participate, and to a certain extent my mother agrees with me, is that it excludes lower-class parents from enrolling their children. In many cases both parents in a lower-class family work, often at jobs which they may not take time off from. This problem could be solved by turning employers on to the idea and making exceptions for co-op learning, but even then some employers will probably oppose the idea. Building a community of learners is not the final solution because that community will exclude some people due to its nature. 2. what do you consider the main message of the article? The main mesage was presenting the community of learners model and showing its advantages. This model is quite different from normal teaching styles in that it uses a combination of children, adult, and parent led teaching practices in order to get everyone more involved in the educational experience. 3. analyze your own educational experience and 3.1. provide a rough estimate in percentage points for each category and About 20% self directed learning (child), 75% adult, 5% community of learners. 3.2. one example for each category (in case you have encountered all three approaches) Pretty much all of my formal education elementary school to college has been run by adults. There have been the occasional humanities class which the teacher would set up an environment similar to a community of learners (without the parent involvement) by spending classes having students focus on critiquing one another's work, but even then the entire class was not structured like this. A good portion of my learning, especially the technical learning, has been self-directed, either by reading technical books or documentation, or just by jumping into things and trying them. 4. which technologies are used / can be used /should be used to support A general note on some of these technologies: not all technologies are adaptable to every learning scenario. For example, using computers may not be appropriate for early child development. 4.1. adult-run education I see this model as having the least potential for technology support. Since the adult is usually just disseminating information to their class, there is little reason to use collaborative tools. Interaction is typically minimized or discouraged so use of technology is probably limited to watching instruction videos, or individual/small group use of a computer program or something similar. 4.2. child-run education I primarily see educational software, integrated documentation, and the Internet (as a knowledge reference) as the technologies supporting child-run education. 4.3. community of learners education This model has great potential to use collaborative technology. Software such as wikis, forums, Internet conferencing, chatting and version control all support collaboration. The trick will be how to integrate them into a classroom environment. Ideally, the members of a class would all have access to this collaborative technology in the classroom, during class, in order to support class activities. 5. analyze our course from the three dimensions: 5.1. adult-run education Has the least amount of presence in the class. Sometimes during lectures it can revert to this model. 5.2. child-run education The Independent Research and Projects sections of this class are basically child run. Each group is free to pick the subjects they focus on and milestones are required to make sure everyone is on task, but there has been little direction as to the specifics of each. 5.3. community of learners education There is no parent involvement, but I don't think it is necessary in this situation because each student should be knowledgeable enough to direct their own education in the same way a parent would in the community of learners model. The Independent Research and Projects will culminate in class presentation and discussions, which will be a community of learners. Regular in-class discussions and analysis of each other's homework also promotes this model. 6. which possibilities do you see to effectively integrate adult- and child-run education? I think in many situations it is very hard to do, especially in the more technical classes in which discussion may not be appropriate because of the quantity of information the teacher must cover, and simply because a lot of technical material is simply not open for discussion. However, one thing any class can do is peer-review of student work. This can be helpful because it provides another student's perspective on your work, and it simply gets students more involved in the educational process. Instead of just submitting an assignment and waiting for the teacher to assign a grade, students spend time evaluating one another's work, which forces them to think more about the subject, and lets them see how others approach the same problem.
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