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Last thoughts by the Think Tank
Lana shares what she’s thinking that’s come out of this that could be an interesting model:
- What’s a strategy? What’s a guide? — project is open-ended enough to have flexible definitions
- Not so much create new activities that will be in a guide — go into classrooms and find innovate lessons that teachers are already doing and take an ethnographic stance… to take videos of them in the classroom, not just highlighting best practices but teachable moments and challenges they face. Look how it sinks up, hve teacher provide lesson plans and student work. That would be a sort of unit and through that teachers’ successes and struggles
- Are there improvements, changes, comments
JD: As you do ethnographic — find how students are helping the student teach better. Sometimes the students have better answers.
Innovation might not be the key to successful strategy. Flat Stanley, that I did as a kid — it’s about adding the level of meta-cognition and seeing how to do it in a new way.
Dock: Can you put it into a context of what you did now and what you’re moving towards…
HJ: Tells the history …TSG around Reading in a Participatory Culture being tested in schools. Despite our best of intents, expert driven, content heavy. Discovering that its the strategies afterall, rather than the content. What should it be? Is it a process? Community? Fixed document? Modular activities? Is it links? We’re modeling this process of unconference as an ideation process. Using tools to document…. Next phase will make connections between participatory culture to participatory democracy. What’s the bridge between getting the kids involved in wow or uTube - getting involved in SNS …what’s the next steps to get them involved in their community? Seen some examples, but want to map the participatory side of it and build resources into the design and development continueum. Paradigm shift of integrated across curricula and not an added on subject.
Dock: My anxiety for you is geography is a narrow topic that’s not as valued as we might like. Alot more power in the bigger idea — positioning in what you’re after… know it has to be something you can use immediately… but who are you going to get to bring this into the school?
Juan: I was wondering why it was maps and not profile based FB? Why not something else? It constrains it a little bit. The idea of mapping — a google map application, it constrains things for me.
HJ: Start with subject matter that’s down the center of the plate on disciplines that are in school. When we deal with geography, we deal with maps — part of established curriculum. What change that can make …looking for change as part of philosophy. Looking at geography, new technology has changed. Teachers, what can be done with the tools. We’re resistent to that — we’re talking about skills, competencies. Hunger for tools is something teachers want. We have a special on ethics… focus on profiles
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Juan: Kids in LA …how do we get kids hands on..brought all these experts… I do this, I do that. We take ur curriculum, look at them, study them and have some suggestions — how you could approach it xyz using these tools. The content drives / where the use of the tools is germinated from.
Eric: The analysis and the skills of making the maps… when you dissect the final product and skills going onto producing — might plug into what already exists. Some of the associations… When students aren’t asked to zero in on it. Maps are a blessing and a curse, but hard to put a finger on it — become more complex. Understanding what goes into it is a very important teaching tool.
Juan: Beautiful way to begin the think tank — asking us about our sense of place and what we thought.. this is ultimately the question kids don’t ask… where do they belong to. A kid has to discover his or her place in the world. It’s not a geographical map… a sense of belonging to a place is different.
Anne: Your place isn’t always tangible — it could be a belonging through new media… profound change. Recognize students have a chance to where am i? who am I? to I’m a global citizen — wrestle with all the scales of identity in school. Recognize that they’re apart of a larger community and each one is a different level and the tools allow them to go there. New geographies (more narrow in the 20th) are larger in the 21st.
Dock: It isn’t 20th century geography — but change the vocabulary. That there is another aspect, multiple dimensions in this. What’s the urgency, got to have as opposed to —I think we can fit it in on Wednesdays. Make sure to not feeding the faw. Those on the edge least need it. Here’s an opp to reach kids who are not apart of the mainstream. Knowing where Taihland is isn’t urgent
Anne: Until they’re talking with those kids in Taihland
Dock: Who I am? I want to fit into school? What matters…
Lana: Conservative — get it into the classroom.
Dock: There’s part of the beauty of being in geography — not in the middle of where it’s fighting. The minor leagues …but you can show. It’s where the innovators are. How do you get out of the corner to be something bigger? Establish yourself there… Elevate that
Anne: maybe its world geography classes in Mass 7th grade. When they say I want to go to school — but in the long term, it could help / scale.
Dock: Psycho social content — that has nothing to do with content but has a huge impace on performance.
Sue: In geography — mass doesn’t have a licensure… growing gap.
Erin: Come from content matter from a different angle — this is just being part of a citizen of the world.
Ellen: Many schools offer geography majors but move into the private sector. Geographic alliance are disheartened …doing grassroots efforts to get license back again.
Eric: If there’s a certificate that is more interdisciplinary where teachers could learn… if this is opportunist.
Mary Ellen: 6th or 7th mandated curriculum …not certified. Will they scoop them up, yes. Will they have the background, not so sure. Kids are required to know this material. Larger Discussion… Strong geographic program — like Clark. People go elsewhere b/c Mass doesn’t attract those people.
Tom: Sad irony …at the time when it’s more important than ever to be a citizen of the world — we’re cutting back on geography education. Math and Science are more because of the economic benefits. I think it’s inevitable that there’s going to be a renaissance and ubiquitous of cell phones, RFID chips — it’s going to make it an absolute necessity…
Sylvia: Geography can be integrated into everything …so do we need that separate discipline for every thinking.
Eric: That’s what I’m trying to get at… disconnect who don’t teach. Don’t understand how teachers are certified for different disciplines. RE-think how geographic certification happens. Not just a practitioner, but other disciplines that are certified, where they can apply geographic ideas to other disciplines.
Paula: Other side of the coin… when frameworks were written — geography wasn’t in them at all. It was a political movement. The republican party put it in their platform for 96… becoming a global society. Globalism was to teach. Mass to put geography in the standards… Though you don’t have to be certified in it, schools have mandated it to incorporate it into the school. State mandated — it has great credibility. Agree that it’s conservative, not going away. Civic education has to be next. Take a look at social studies - covers so much. And geography connects with everything — lit, art, science. Just like you don’t need to know cursive anymore… you can go on google to find out where it’s at …don’t have to carry that around, don’t need a mental map. I’m not discouraged about mass or places around the country to teach it. It’s in the law.
Anne: NCLB …9 subjects, geography is one of them — but geography is the only one that has no federal funding. And very few states that test it and doesn’t have the time to test it. Often times if it’s not tested, it’s not required.
Tom: Are the frameworks asking the questions that we’ve been asking all day? I think that party who put it on it — you hear about a student not knowing the state. But wondering about struggle between culture / tribes …it’s about geography, artificial lines — don’t understand that, then don’t understand the problems we have now. I don’t think those are the questions that are being asked.
Lana: How geography is being used in school …but also across the curriculum. The TSG should include cross curricula.
Paula: It should be across the curricula
Anne: geographic education — this takes it away from the discipline but a descriptive versus geographic education (spatial thinking / spatial understanding).
Erin: Can we describe that more…
Anne: Math class, give a data …the kind of things of interdisciplinary approaches that we’ve been talking about all day. National Council for geography teachers is looking out. National council for social studies — not sure if they’re looking beyond. We wrestle with this and what is the mission of NG and how do we prepare them, and where should we put the emphasis… in training, where should we put our efforts.
Lana: Most interesting things brought out today… unexpected, surprising
Tom: I’m glad everything was about the big issues, big questions. No one talked about the 50 capitals and why kids don’t know it… but more why we map and to think about it. No matter what discipline, trying to get the kids to think critically — that is the challenge in the classroom. Moving away from rote learning.
Lana: No kid bashing… and there wasn’t alot of excessive marveling on how wonderful digital natives are. Great balance for thinking about youth.
Tom: It’s naturally exciting and how can we engage them with it. Give access to google earth — do amazing things with very little prompting. Engage teachers and give them the push in the right direction.
Katie: 2 things i liked: new kinds of maps generated by new questions. Why does terroism happen and the answers through a map. How are biology majors created? You can take all the disciplines …and see how they see how they got there. Come up with different kinds of questions and answer it with a map.
Anne: B4 arriving was about using the technology as part of the day …alot of my nrg to manage both My comfort level was fine and it was very open-ended. Capturing the ideas in a way I’ve not seen it.
Tom: We talked about how to incorporate this type of approach with students… this is the perfect kind of outlet for them. Flexible for different types of media, appraoch of what they learn… a meta — take what we use and apply it to students.
Randy: Practice what we’re preaching …use as a model in teaching. Everything in public school setting is against innovative and critical thinking. Hard to make it work for a lot of kids — got inspired by that.
Lana: Unconference mode — coming up with great ideas is an enormous learning experience for me.
Anne: We came motivated …a huge challenge if students are not there.
Last word from henry …not suffication - but THANK YOU!
