I really enjoyed this video. One of the things I appreciated most about Laufenberg's speech is that she not only brought up the problems but she offered solutions and showed examples of how the solutions have worked. The point of how students no longer have to go to the school for information is very true and adds to why school is so boring for students today. I also like her point of failure being needed. My favorite teachers in school and in my personal life have always allowed me to make mistakes. I think that failing is why you learn and grow so much in your early twenties.
Definitely. I had never particularly thought about how ubiquitous information affects school itself, but the point is definitely well-taken. I hate to bring up the Wood book, especially since I haven't commented on it just yet, but this just reminded me of the whole "teach from behind" thing he talked about, essentially giving students an end to meet but sitting back and letting them reach the end (at least partially) on their own terms, allowing them to fail while providing guidance to keep them on the path, but never tugging at the proverbial leash.
I really loved the video because Laufenberg presents some very valuable information. I agree with allowing the kids to fail to learn what not to do the next time but with that being said it becomes it extremely difficult for the teacher because you may have the kid that just completely shuts down and reacts negative to failure but some kids will strive harder to do better the next time. Determining the kids personality will helpful in this particular teaching method. Having the kids use their own voice and letting them know the classroom is nothing without each of the kid’s voice. At the teenage level if you lead them to believe that they have input in the learning methods it can work wonders. I have used this idea in coaching baseball at the high school level and it works. Each day I would have the practice schedule wrote out of what I was wanting to cover and then each day I would let one of the players incorporate something of their own, within reason of course, into the practice schedule. Some of the kids had great ideas of various drills and practice techniques and became helpful and allowed them to have a voice instead of me just being the only one who was teaching and coaching. It was amazing how the kids adapted and became a cohesive bunch.
I like her idea of 'just go do it' because I think it takes the micromanagement out of learning. There have been many times in my life when someone has asked me to do something for them (at work or a favor for a friend) but they tell me exactly how to do each step and tell me in which order to do those steps. I think learning does improve when it is left to the student to fail or succeed. After failing, you can take all those little failures and all those successes, ball them up, and use them to make something better in the future. The possibility of failure is never ending but the ability to succeed is also never ending.
I absolutely loved it when Laufenberg said that "We deal right now in the educational landscape with, just, an infatuation with the culture of the one right answer that can be properly bubbled on the average multiple choice test..." As someone who has never really done that well on standardized tests, it was nice to hear that I'm not necessarily "alone" in my thoughts that those tests are not always the best ways to measure one's learning.
I really liked the video overall (I wrote down several quotes - an entire side of a legal pad page - that inspired me) but this quote was the highlight of the video for me.
The last minute or so of this video is what stood out to me the most. As soon as she mentioned learning from mistakes, I immediately thought of a quote from Marva Collins' book where she says, "If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything." How true this is! And Laufenberg is agreeing with Collins, who has been in education for many more years and clearly saw the same thing in her classroom, so if we know that Collins has been extremely successful in her methods, then Laufenberg must be headed in the right direction as well. The experiential learning also ties into The Big Picture program where kids are doing more outside the classroom than in and their success rate is high as well. The interconnectedness of these ideas is thrilling and enlightening. Rose mentioned how students are so bored in school today and experiential learning is a great way to counteract that boredom. Technology is both responsible for that boredom, in my opinion, but also offers a solution to it, which is why I think that a lot more than books and lecturing is necessary in future educational systems.
Like everyone else, I greatly enjoyed this video. I felt Diana Laufenberg had a lot of great points. What stood out the most to me is that she used creative projects that had not been done before. The classes I had that gave me room to be creative and try new things I usually excelled it.
My one comment on learning from failure is to make sure your have the parents on board and have explained this concept to them. I had a teacher that had this philosophy and it made since to me but when I didn't bring home A's to my parents they became highly upset. So though I strongly believe in this type of learning I think it needs to be made clear to all those involved.
I also really enjoyed this video. Laufenberg thinks outside of the box and I really admire this. I often experienced the “all or nothing” attitude in school. Whenever I failed to perform well on an assignment it was always very discouraging. One of the most common ways we learn is from our mistakes, and I like that Laufenberg reminds us of this. I think we need to be more encouraging and remind students that no one is perfect and that you sometimes just have to try again. We make mistakes and experience trial and error scenarios every day, so why not incorporate this type of learning into the classroom? I feel that our country’s education system is too afraid to steer away from traditional methods that are obviously out of date. Information can be accessed almost anywhere now and this has to be taken into account. Not only does this make it easier to cheat on traditional “yes or no” type tests (with a click of your iPhone)…it doesn’t require the students to put as much thought and effort into their assignments. I know that sometimes a standardized test is necessary for example; if you are teaching an Algebra class, then you really must require the students to give the exact answers. It is impossible to ask educators to forget about traditional testing methods, but it is not impossible to ask them to start looking for new ways to challenge students.
She is showing that linear learning is not the only way to learn. We are growing in technology and ideas, so education should move along with it. Is it only Georgia that is having so many stunted learning experiences? I know in a professional learning class they said they wrote to students in India, and all of the students asked to personally skype with the students. But, the school wasn’t even allowed to connect to skype and especially didn’t have enough computers in the room. India students all have a netbook. If this country, who is not supposed to be as established as USA, then why aren’t we accommodating the students with the equipment that allows them to learn and broaden their ideas? The non-acceptance of failure. She says that failure is a necessary part of learning. The idea that there is only one answer is not realistic and is not the way the world truly works. So, why would we make them learn a certain way to perceive right and wrong that will not be useful when they are not working for a standardized test? Failure does not mean you will forever be wrong, it means you have room to grow. This, presented in the right light, will show them that there is even excitement with being wrong! You get to learn, you get to do something better. Who wants to be right all the time? It stunts knowledge and you never experience that feeling of accomplishment that you do when you did something not completely right, tried really hard and then got where you wanted to be.
Part of learning is developing the skills to know what information is useful to the task at hand. At my own school I would encourage students to develop good research skills by first telling them to find as much information about their topic or thesis of choice as they can. Once they have as much information as they could find from a variety of sources (Internet, books, news, audio sources, journals, encyclopedias, magazines, art, interviews etc…) I would encourage them to sift through the information they gathered for the most helpful sources (those with the most accurate information). This would encourage them to learn how to deal with the surplus of information that is available to them when they need to solve problems it will also teach them the skills and research methods to be able to distinguish between useful and extraneous information. I want to enable by students to be able to use technology as a tool to help them come to informed conclusions and make decisions based on the information they have gathered. I want them to question the authenticity and biases inherent in the information they select rather than blindly accept what is presented to them in academia, on the Internet, and the news. Students need to be able to develop the ability to learn by experience, develop their own voice, and fail as much as succeed since failure can help them learn what will not work so they can rethink their approach and try something new. All of this will create intellectually astute, creative, questioning, self-confident learners who are not afraid to take chances and for whom failure is an opportunity rather than an end. As a society we have a terror of being wrong and our education system has become a place where the fear of failure, whether it be answering a question in class or drawing an erroneous conclusion in a science experiment, has become a sign of irresponsibility, unpreparedness, intellectual inferiority, and personal unpreparedness to interact socially. (Thomas Edison’s quote about finding more ways to not make a light bulb pops into mind). When many people make mistakes in social or intellectual settings they are ashamed and the amount of embarrassment they feel probably has a direct correlation to how failure was treated in their education. Those who were subjected to a school system where the attitude towards was failure was extremely negative will be more likely to fear taking chances and making mistakes in all aspects of their lives. They will stifle intellectual and creative solutions to problems as “too risky” if they feel that these solutions are not guaranteed to succeed. Society has a lot to do with the fear of failure that governs our lives and our academic system. In some ways the fear of failure has worked too well, we are afraid to change a failing academic system because we are scared we will fail to succeed in making it work. As a community of learners we must rethink failure to encourage our students, teachers, parents, local and national leaders to take charge and create better, more innovative, student-driven, informed decisions regarding the structure of education and its impact on students today. When students are taught that mistakes are opportunities for further intellectual growth and are not afraid to take chances, be creative, and are trusted enough to be allowed to make mistakes in the first place they can achieve more than if mistakes of any kind are stigmatized. Because we do not allow students to take intellectual risks we curtail their powers of free thought and creative problem solving, insisting that they shouldn’t, can’t, and are wrong for making mistakes or trying potentially unsuccessful solutions to problems.
I LOVED this video for one main reason: her message about letting kids fail and learn from their mistakes. It is the Mrs. Frizzle concept of "take chances, get messy, make mistakes!" and that is the concept children need to have. Mistakes inspire creativity, and creativity helps with education. It reminded me of this saying from a Disney movie "Meet the Robinsons" (yes I will use Disney movies as references sometimes in my lessons) "From failure you learn, from success not so much," and it inspired the character to just keep moving forward. If you haven't seen the movie, see it.
so here is my answer to number 2
2. If you could create a school of your own design, or if you had the chance to redesign education in this country, what ideas would you use from this piece? a. I am going to have a sign in my classroom that says “From failure you learn, from success not so much.” It is going to be the motto of my classroom. when I was in high school, I did these extensive projects known as “Data Sheets.” Each sheet was eight pages long with boxes on it that had to be filled COMPLETELY with ten point times new roman font on the book we were reading in class. And not just plot summary, but time period, genre, symbols, characters, significance, motifs, themes, etc. And so, the first around I failed both of them. But after those failures, I worked with my teacher and she told me exactly what to do to fix my failure. From that point on I made straight 100’s on all of them. Not even kidding. So there. From my mistake I learned.
how does everyone else feel about the Mrs. Frizzle approach to learning? (in case no one knows what i am talking about - its the Magic School Bus)
Diana Laufenberg argues against the culture of one right answer. She advocates the embracing of mistakes as the most effective way to learn. She explains that learning has to include an amount of failure because failure is instructional. The educational system must value the qualities of student voice, experiential learning, and embracing failure. As a teacher I want to avoid the culture of one right answer. I want to advocate experiential learning and embrace failure, but how is this possible in America’s current education system? My students may be infinitely more knowledgeable citizens but if they cannot bubble in the correct answers we will both suffer. As teachers how do we integrate passionate experiential learning and test performance?
I really enjoyed this video. One of the things I appreciated most about Laufenberg's speech is that she not only brought up the problems but she offered solutions and showed examples of how the solutions have worked. The point of how students no longer have to go to the school for information is very true and adds to why school is so boring for students today. I also like her point of failure being needed. My favorite teachers in school and in my personal life have always allowed me to make mistakes. I think that failing is why you learn and grow so much in your early twenties.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. I had never particularly thought about how ubiquitous information affects school itself, but the point is definitely well-taken. I hate to bring up the Wood book, especially since I haven't commented on it just yet, but this just reminded me of the whole "teach from behind" thing he talked about, essentially giving students an end to meet but sitting back and letting them reach the end (at least partially) on their own terms, allowing them to fail while providing guidance to keep them on the path, but never tugging at the proverbial leash.
ReplyDeleteI really loved the video because Laufenberg presents some very valuable information. I agree with allowing the kids to fail to learn what not to do the next time but with that being said it becomes it extremely difficult for the teacher because you may have the kid that just completely shuts down and reacts negative to failure but some kids will strive harder to do better the next time. Determining the kids personality will helpful in this particular teaching method. Having the kids use their own voice and letting them know the classroom is nothing without each of the kid’s voice. At the teenage level if you lead them to believe that they have input in the learning methods it can work wonders. I have used this idea in coaching baseball at the high school level and it works. Each day I would have the practice schedule wrote out of what I was wanting to cover and then each day I would let one of the players incorporate something of their own, within reason of course, into the practice schedule. Some of the kids had great ideas of various drills and practice techniques and became helpful and allowed them to have a voice instead of me just being the only one who was teaching and coaching. It was amazing how the kids adapted and became a cohesive bunch.
ReplyDeleteI like her idea of 'just go do it' because I think it takes the micromanagement out of learning. There have been many times in my life when someone has asked me to do something for them (at work or a favor for a friend) but they tell me exactly how to do each step and tell me in which order to do those steps. I think learning does improve when it is left to the student to fail or succeed. After failing, you can take all those little failures and all those successes, ball them up, and use them to make something better in the future. The possibility of failure is never ending but the ability to succeed is also never ending.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved it when Laufenberg said that "We deal right now in the educational landscape with, just, an infatuation with the culture of the one right answer that can be properly bubbled on the average multiple choice test..." As someone who has never really done that well on standardized tests, it was nice to hear that I'm not necessarily "alone" in my thoughts that those tests are not always the best ways to measure one's learning.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the video overall (I wrote down several quotes - an entire side of a legal pad page - that inspired me) but this quote was the highlight of the video for me.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe last minute or so of this video is what stood out to me the most. As soon as she mentioned learning from mistakes, I immediately thought of a quote from Marva Collins' book where she says, "If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything." How true this is! And Laufenberg is agreeing with Collins, who has been in education for many more years and clearly saw the same thing in her classroom, so if we know that Collins has been extremely successful in her methods, then Laufenberg must be headed in the right direction as well. The experiential learning also ties into The Big Picture program where kids are doing more outside the classroom than in and their success rate is high as well. The interconnectedness of these ideas is thrilling and enlightening. Rose mentioned how students are so bored in school today and experiential learning is a great way to counteract that boredom. Technology is both responsible for that boredom, in my opinion, but also offers a solution to it, which is why I think that a lot more than books and lecturing is necessary in future educational systems.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else, I greatly enjoyed this video. I felt Diana Laufenberg had a lot of great points. What stood out the most to me is that she used creative projects that had not been done before. The classes I had that gave me room to be creative and try new things I usually excelled it.
ReplyDeleteMy one comment on learning from failure is to make sure your have the parents on board and have explained this concept to them. I had a teacher that had this philosophy and it made since to me but when I didn't bring home A's to my parents they became highly upset. So though I strongly believe in this type of learning I think it needs to be made clear to all those involved.
I also really enjoyed this video. Laufenberg thinks outside of the box and I really admire this. I often experienced the “all or nothing” attitude in school. Whenever I failed to perform well on an assignment it was always very discouraging. One of the most common ways we learn is from our mistakes, and I like that Laufenberg reminds us of this. I think we need to be more encouraging and remind students that no one is perfect and that you sometimes just have to try again. We make mistakes and experience trial and error scenarios every day, so why not incorporate this type of learning into the classroom? I feel that our country’s education system is too afraid to steer away from traditional methods that are obviously out of date. Information can be accessed almost anywhere now and this has to be taken into account. Not only does this make it easier to cheat on traditional “yes or no” type tests (with a click of your iPhone)…it doesn’t require the students to put as much thought and effort into their assignments. I know that sometimes a standardized test is necessary for example; if you are teaching an Algebra class, then you really must require the students to give the exact answers. It is impossible to ask educators to forget about traditional testing methods, but it is not impossible to ask them to start looking for new ways to challenge students.
ReplyDeleteShe is showing that linear learning is not the only way to learn. We are growing in technology and ideas, so education should move along with it. Is it only Georgia that is having so many stunted learning experiences? I know in a professional learning class they said they wrote to students in India, and all of the students asked to personally skype with the students. But, the school wasn’t even allowed to connect to skype and especially didn’t have enough computers in the room. India students all have a netbook. If this country, who is not supposed to be as established as USA, then why aren’t we accommodating the students with the equipment that allows them to learn and broaden their ideas? The non-acceptance of failure. She says that failure is a necessary part of learning. The idea that there is only one answer is not realistic and is not the way the world truly works. So, why would we make them learn a certain way to perceive right and wrong that will not be useful when they are not working for a standardized test? Failure does not mean you will forever be wrong, it means you have room to grow. This, presented in the right light, will show them that there is even excitement with being wrong! You get to learn, you get to do something better. Who wants to be right all the time? It stunts knowledge and you never experience that feeling of accomplishment that you do when you did something not completely right, tried really hard and then got where you wanted to be.
ReplyDeletePart of learning is developing the skills to know what information is useful to the task at hand. At my own school I would encourage students to develop good research skills by first telling them to find as much information about their topic or thesis of choice as they can. Once they have as much information as they could find from a variety of sources (Internet, books, news, audio sources, journals, encyclopedias, magazines, art, interviews etc…) I would encourage them to sift through the information they gathered for the most helpful sources (those with the most accurate information). This would encourage them to learn how to deal with the surplus of information that is available to them when they need to solve problems it will also teach them the skills and research methods to be able to distinguish between useful and extraneous information.
ReplyDeleteI want to enable by students to be able to use technology as a tool to help them come to informed conclusions and make decisions based on the information they have gathered. I want them to question the authenticity and biases inherent in the information they select rather than blindly accept what is presented to them in academia, on the Internet, and the news. Students need to be able to develop the ability to learn by experience, develop their own voice, and fail as much as succeed since failure can help them learn what will not work so they can rethink their approach and try something new. All of this will create intellectually astute, creative, questioning, self-confident learners who are not afraid to take chances and for whom failure is an opportunity rather than an end.
As a society we have a terror of being wrong and our education system has become a place where the fear of failure, whether it be answering a question in class or drawing an erroneous conclusion in a science experiment, has become a sign of irresponsibility, unpreparedness, intellectual inferiority, and personal unpreparedness to interact socially. (Thomas Edison’s quote about finding more ways to not make a light bulb pops into mind). When many people make mistakes in social or intellectual settings they are ashamed and the amount of embarrassment they feel probably has a direct correlation to how failure was treated in their education. Those who were subjected to a school system where the attitude towards was failure was extremely negative will be more likely to fear taking chances and making mistakes in all aspects of their lives. They will stifle intellectual and creative solutions to problems as “too risky” if they feel that these solutions are not guaranteed to succeed.
Society has a lot to do with the fear of failure that governs our lives and our academic system. In some ways the fear of failure has worked too well, we are afraid to change a failing academic system because we are scared we will fail to succeed in making it work. As a community of learners we must rethink failure to encourage our students, teachers, parents, local and national leaders to take charge and create better, more innovative, student-driven, informed decisions regarding the structure of education and its impact on students today.
When students are taught that mistakes are opportunities for further intellectual growth and are not afraid to take chances, be creative, and are trusted enough to be allowed to make mistakes in the first place they can achieve more than if mistakes of any kind are stigmatized. Because we do not allow students to take intellectual risks we curtail their powers of free thought and creative problem solving, insisting that they shouldn’t, can’t, and are wrong for making mistakes or trying potentially unsuccessful solutions to problems.
I LOVED this video for one main reason: her message about letting kids fail and learn from their mistakes. It is the Mrs. Frizzle concept of "take chances, get messy, make mistakes!" and that is the concept children need to have. Mistakes inspire creativity, and creativity helps with education. It reminded me of this saying from a Disney movie "Meet the Robinsons" (yes I will use Disney movies as references sometimes in my lessons) "From failure you learn, from success not so much," and it inspired the character to just keep moving forward. If you haven't seen the movie, see it.
ReplyDeleteso here is my answer to number 2
2. If you could create a school of your own design, or if you had the chance to redesign education in this country, what ideas would you use from this piece?
a. I am going to have a sign in my classroom that says “From failure you learn, from success not so much.” It is going to be the motto of my classroom. when I was in high school, I did these extensive projects known as “Data Sheets.” Each sheet was eight pages long with boxes on it that had to be filled COMPLETELY with ten point times new roman font on the book we were reading in class. And not just plot summary, but time period, genre, symbols, characters, significance, motifs, themes, etc. And so, the first around I failed both of them. But after those failures, I worked with my teacher and she told me exactly what to do to fix my failure. From that point on I made straight 100’s on all of them. Not even kidding. So there. From my mistake I learned.
how does everyone else feel about the Mrs. Frizzle approach to learning? (in case no one knows what i am talking about - its the Magic School Bus)
Diana Laufenberg argues against the culture of one right answer. She advocates the embracing of mistakes as the most effective way to learn. She explains that learning has to include an amount of failure because failure is instructional. The educational system must value the qualities of student voice, experiential learning, and embracing failure. As a teacher I want to avoid the culture of one right answer. I want to advocate experiential learning and embrace failure, but how is this possible in America’s current education system? My students may be infinitely more knowledgeable citizens but if they cannot bubble in the correct answers we will both suffer. As teachers how do we integrate passionate experiential learning and test performance?
ReplyDelete