Student-Oriented Curriculum A Remarkable Journey of Discovery

To be perfectly honest I probably should have written this blog Thursday night after class so I would remember exactly what I wanted to say. I think the purpose of this blog was to think about what I learned from the presentation. We have the other sheets that we used to critique the performance of the presentation. I learned that one of the most important aspects of learning involves the community. The whole purpose of student led/generated curriculum is that the students learn about something that is relevant to them. The community is very relevant and meaningful because that is the environment they interact in everyday. I also liked Lydia's point that this situation will only work with a strong teacher. The teacher has to lead and model how to build a unit that the students want to do. The teacher also has to recognize when learning is occurring and when it is not and what to do to fix it. The paradox is that most new teachers will probably not have the experience necessary to do this as effectively as veteran. But a veteran will be far more opposed to even trying a situation like this. The last thing I want to mention was i really like the end activity/wrap up/reflection. I thought that was a great way to reflect on what we had learned in the chapter. The pieces of paper made some statements that really could have two sides that would be correct. It definitely made me think.