The idea of fluid learning is not new, and those involved with education as “good teachers” know that. Learning from one’s students is nothing new, nor are those teachers that think they know it all and are there to fill empty vessels. What’s new are the ways in which we can communicate and interact with students and others, or – more precisely – the immediacy of that communication and interaction.

I find this notion of fluid learning freeing, but way to loose for k-12.

I believe the new vision of K-12 education is a combination of big picture questions and applying the cutting edge of teaching and learning science. We need to be realistic about what we need to know and be able to do to be good learners and teachers. Are kids born with those skills? No. What are the best ways to teach them?

So how do you push this in K12? We need to really focus on applied skills while learning content. Lehmann is right when he says that Dewey was born 100 years too early. We need to engage kids in active classrooms. Schools are starting to do this (High Tech High, The MET, K12.com) and I think that the wave will happen, but it’s going to take time. I really think it’s about starting new schools to model this type of learning and teaching.

I’m not sure that it’ll be here for your kids, or mine (8, 5, and 3) but maybe by the time they are in HS.

Have you seen it really happening anywhere? You’re the guy who would, right?

Wouldn’t that relieve the fears that student might not receive a well rounded education?

Wouldn’t that give more power to the students to take “ownership” of their own education?

Wouldn’t that require schools to look at the quality of their teachers?

Secondly, if the student consistently choose “easy grader” teachers shouldn’t his or her report card reflect that in a similar manner in which AP classes are adjusted on a report card.

[...]While there may not be a significant difference in how we learn online as opposed to face-to-face there is a difference in how we learn with different types of assessments and teaching strategies. From a funding standpoint we really have two different models: seat time vs. project-based. One involves a talking head and the other authentic assessments and both can be employed in either an online setting or face-to-face[...]

The internet is just one of many disruptive innovations effecting our schools. With the vast data and information available online I think it is easy to forget that while the internet allows all of these machines with data on them to be networked that behind those machines are other real people. The internet is not only becoming the total sum of all human knowledge and information but also a medium through which to connect people. The comments on this blog post are a perfect example of this. I reach out and I can tap into the wisdom of others, not just the information they post.

Another disruptive innovation is school choice. This can come in the form of homeschooling, online schools, charter schools, open enrollment, or private schools. It can also come in the form of unschooling. The role the internet plays in all of these choices, especially homeschooling, is it reduces the need for much of what the teacher did before. Data becomes routine and according to Daniel Pink anything that is routine can be outsourced or automated.

So, to bring these slightly unrelated topics together, if learning is learning and we make little distinction between the modality as far as how we categorize schools then any teacher in a brick and mortar setting can take online teaching strategies and adapt them for their classroom and any online teacher can do the reverse. We do have a better and more useful model of school categorization: Project-based or seat based. In a project-based school teachers could easily apply online teaching strategies to establish a hybrid of what we are seeing today as something that is polarized. A charter school could be set up to operate in this way. Charter schools in Minnesota have been a big disruptive innovation to the public schools by pulling away students and thus pulling away enrollment dollars. I am working now on trying to establish a charter school within a school concept that is project-based and utilizes online teaching strategies to enhance the student’s learning experience. The hosting schools for this charter would lease space for classes and the teachers could have a dual contract and the students could be dual enrolled. Such a system could allow for maximum personalization of the learning experience while making teachers more “productive” and allow districts to keep the programs that make our traditional schools great like the arts, athletics, and extra curricular activities.

I also know as a teacher that many who think themselves teachers are not and I am not sure how we teach our students discernment. Perhaps they need to learn by trial and error. I worry about the networks students build. Not just because they may be getting bad information but because they may lack depth. As an English teacher I am glad I was forced to take mathematics (something I would not likely have done on my own) because it broadened my mind, I think. I worry that students will not add that depth on their own. The key is to make them curious. Curiosity is the best teacher.

Cordially,
J. D.

Thanks for the thoughts. I don’t disagree with you when you say that you want the best of the two wedded together. And I think training and expertise mean something. But are we just measuring those by the degrees awarded? Do we have to do that any more? Did we really ever have to? I like what Pesce says in terms of returning to a 13th Century model where we train at the (virtual) feet of masters now that so many masters are available to us. My deep desire is not for my school system (K-12) to disappear as much as it is for it to prepare my kids to find their own experts, study well with other knowledge seekers, and pursue a program of mastery wherever they can find it. I want my school system to teach my kids to desire diversity in their groups, to revel in dissent and confusion.

Right now, that ain’t happening…

My concern is with the whole notion of everyone being an expert. I think the training required to become a teacher at any level ceases to be a factor online. I love Wikipedia but I know I have to be careful because of the way it is assembled. Dubious stuff is edited out, quite expeditiously for the most part, but there is still the time the dubious stuff remains posted.

Also too many people tend to join groups (online or off) that endorse their own views, as a result self directed learning can put a person in a bubble that excludes dissenting views. That is one of the values of a school, you cannot pick your classmates and are forced to interact with those whose views are different.

I find the online world to be an exciting place and I know it offers things the conventional classroom cannot offer. I have been teaching online since the late 1990′s. I have had students from around the world without having to leave my living room. My students, as well, are exposed to views and perspective they would not be likely to get otherwise. As a teacher few things can beat the thrill that comes from that.

The local school district, I think, is too much like the medieval village. We grow up academically without ever leaving the small communities in which we were raised (and even if raised in a New York City or Los Angeles they are still small compared to the world community). I believe in the doors technology opens, but I am concerned that we are too quick sometimes to shut the door on other things that have value and expand our minds and perceptions.

I guess I want to see the best that the new social technologies have to offer wedded to the best that the traditional liberal arts education has to offer. I believe in elitism to a certain extent. I think training and expertise mean something, though they certainly are not everything.

Cordially,
J. D.