Saturday, January 24, 2009
Reflections Journal, Week 4
This is the first time I commented on one of my own finds, but in this case, it was the first article of it's kind that I had been exposed to. The document is titled, "Is Constructivism Universal: In Search of Meaningful Technology in Morocco and Namibia," and can be found at http://learnlink.aed.org/Publications/Concept_Papers/constructivism.pdf I although I watch the new and consider myself a rounded individual, I had never thought to apply constructivism or the educational practices and/or theories that I have learned to other countries. I began to wonder, "Have others in my field, here in the United States, had places in their education where they studied or were made aware of educational policies/standards that are practiced in other countries?" I asked around to a few willing people, most replied with short answers all pertaining to "no." Obviously, I'm not going to be doing any serious research, but with the little informal research I did do, I began to think about the vastness of the field of education. I know all the studies I have undergone, as I'm sure most pursuing this field can identify with, and I cannot imagine how we could have worked in a class on global education. The fact that there is so much to learn, and the structured format that is already in place, I don't see how there is any room for expansion. I still do wonder - have others in my field come across such information in their studies?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My school is participating in a 3 year federal grant on ELL instruction in partnership with the University of Missouri - St. Louis. Some of the UMSL participants are teachers from South Korea. Not only do these teachers participate in monthly professional development sessions with us, they spend every Wed. in our building visiting classrooms. Next month they will be spending more time in our district and will be teaching some classes using the models and techniques from our pd training. It's been so interesting talking to these teachers and exchanging information about our schools and methods of teaching. Several of the teachers are very interested in research and how I teach information literacy skills to our students and are very inquisitive about our technological resources. Last Wed. one of the Korean teachers had heard about the program Comic Life and wanted me to show her a demo and sample student work. Their time with us has been rather structured so far so I hope to have more time next month for more "casual" educational conversations with them. This is such a fantastic opportunity to learn about education in another culture.
ReplyDelete