To be clear, I was not advocating individual tutoring for all. Your question was not "what policy should be implemented" but "what research should be done?" I fear a lot of educational research assumes that the question of how people learn is already clear, or should be relegated to psychologists. I think designing education for the masses is impossible without understanding how *people* learn. And yes, that does put the person first--and yes, to Jeremy's point, it perhaps fails to problematize individual subjectivity, something that a lot of educational theorists also fail to do--but I think the perspective gained by taking the person (in the context of their personal history) as the unit of analysis would help build toward a more useful set of ideas surrounding education, and a reduction in widget production. -A On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Elaine Studnicki <elainestudnicki@comcast.net> wrote:
The teaching of and/or giving individual learning plans (aka: personalize learning) in public education is a practice used for students in need and the other end of the spectrum, the smart students. It is, in my opinion and as it is currently being used, a build in tool to segregate students and our society. The realities of implementing such a program, something that educators are talking about, would require a complete change of our public education system, if it were to provide a equity of services for all students. We are not organized for it and it concerns me that we believe it should change but can't seem to make it so. Nick is right, it is a staggeringly difficult thing to do.
What, however, would happen if we changed the direction of education. Instead of "giving" an education students "select" their education. Which may be what you mean Alex. But I don't think public education was ever intended to teach the individual student. It was for the masses.
One other thought, 21st century skill sets identify collaborative work as a skill students need in their future. If you haven't seem them... http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/index.php?option=com_content&view=a rticle&id=5&Itemid=2 Information, media, and technology skills are listed there.
On 4/15/09 9:34 AM, "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
this worries me.... what if there really is no 'single student', but individualism is just an ideology and really we work best in small groups without that individuality that allows us to construct the 'single student'. there has been a significant amount of research and writing on the problems surrounding the construction of the individual subject in modern society, and a good bit about tribes, groupuscules, and related matters also, but overall i see there are some possible benefits toward pushing against the model of the 'single student' as the target of our learning systems. On Apr 15, 2009, at 9:03 AM, Alex Halavais wrote:
I'll bite. I think we need to figure out what the extremes of personalized learning are, and what implications these have for learning in groups, institutions, and on the network. Yes, that is a broad task, and one that is probably closely associated with Howard Gardner, but designing a good educational system for many means, I think, understanding how to design the best educational system for the single student.
- Alex
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:02 PM, Elaine Studnicki <elainestudnicki@comcast.net> wrote:
Colleagues,
I have hovered in the background for quite some time reading your extremely rich and diverse areas of interest/research. As a K-12 educator/ doctoral student I am interested in the connections between higher ed. research and the daily classroom instruction/environment that composes our national educational system. I am compelled to ask this question:
In your opinion what do you currently think is the most important area of research or perhaps the most important area "needing" research for our K-12 educational system?
Thank you for your help and time,
Elaine
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