Siemen’s (2008) “Metaphor of Education” that most stands out to me is the educator as “curator”. Having spent several years studying the pedagogy of Reggio Emilia and the Hundred Languages of Children, I believe that children learn through experiencing their topic of interest. The Reggio approach comes from Italy and believes that children learn through representing their learning on a topic through media, discussion, art, writing, the building of concepts and background about their learning, and much more. It is commonly referred to as the project approach in the states.
The curator is the subject matter expert and acts as the facilitator of knowledge. I feel that it is the most prescriptive of the metaphors offered. The “teacher” provides opportunities for the learner to come to their own conclusion and solutions to answer a question. The teacher provides resources and experiences that are directly related to the needs of the learner. The learner has the option of representing their acquired knowledge through a variety of modalities. Learning is fluid and constantly building off of previous knowledge.
As I was trying to think of my own metaphor, I first thought of a cook, mixing all those flavors together and experimenting with combinations as a learner does as they sift through information. However, once the ingredients are mixed together, they become one and it is difficult to distinguish one ingredient (idea) from the other. I thought about a sculptor. A sculptor can change designs and learn from misconceptions. All strong traits for a learner, but when they start over, they have to completely erase the first design and knowledge is built off of all conceptions, including misconceptions. I settled on the metaphor of the educator as a sailor.
A sailor draws on knowledge to maintain a constant momentum; similar to the drive of the learner. A sailor is a master of knowledge, but has to continuously look to the environment to build new concepts because he is in an ever changing environment. The sailor draws from past experiences to make sense of current knowledge, but must use current situations to determine if the current understanding holds up or if he has to form a new idea based on current events. A sailor has many tools to draw from. His equipment is vast and with the right use of what is available, he can make predictions and draw conclusions from the results. He interacts with his learning and is constantly evaluating the current situation to reconstruct his previous knowledge.
Siemens, G. (2008, January 27). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. Paper presented to ITFORUM. Retrieved from
http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.JPG)
4 comments:
Shannon
Nice post. I am very interested in that book to which you referred, Hundred Languages of Children. Who is the intended audience or what is the main purpose of it? I am just curious as to its original intention as it sounds very interesting.
Your metaphors sound very enlightening. Am I correctly interpretting it that your metaphors are more about the role of a learner rather than an educator? It’s funny you used a sailor as an example, because I posted a link to a YouTube video about the educator as a skipper. It has relatively the same basis as your metaphor. But that’s no surprise, as in my opinion, as “ugly bags of mostly water” (this is how a space alien described humans in a Star Trek episode), I think we are all related, drawn to, or have a connection with water. But that is a topic for an entirely different subject.
Koh
Koh,
It is funny that I asked the same question on your post. I felt that it was geared more toward the learner than the instructor. I did the same thing. I guess it is a matter of the point of view.
I will have to look at your skipper example. I suppose I went with the sailor because I had been on three ferries crossing the Atlantic, Irish Sea, and the English Channel that week and the power of the water and my thoughts of the number of decisions the sailor had to make on our trips. Of course you think of the Titanic when in those situations :) However, I am always impressed, as I was on the ferry, when someone takes something challenging and makes it look simple. That’s when you know they are good.
I suppose in looking at it from the perspective of the instructor, the instructor would be more like the water setting the challenges for the learner (the sailor in the boat). At times, the instructor allows for easy sailing by creating safe and familiar environments for learning. Calm seas, if you will. Then other times, and instructor builds challenges and pushes the learner harder. In the sailor metaphor, the sailor would have to use more resources and be more intentional in their approach to learning. Other times, the waves are choppy and difficult. The sailor plugs on, but get tired and no longer enjoys the sea. At this point, as a facilitator, I have to help the sailor by giving him a break, or I have to pull back and try another strategy to help make the sea challenging, but not overwhelming. I see the instructor as the facilitator and guide.
I enjoyed reading your post. I think that one of the problems with the current way the educational systme is set up is it doesn't focus on the instructor enough. Instructors are not prepared to faciliate because of lack of knowledge in regards to technology. I understood what you said about the instructor being the water but I think society is the water because it forms what we need to teach our students.
I agree with what you said your first paragraph about how students have to have interest in what is being taught. That is a good reason why we do need technology, so that students can explore and make their interest relevant.
I think you made a good point when you said that instructors are not prepared to use technology. I think there are several reasons for this. One is that they don't want to use it; another is that they don't utilize all of its potential, and another is that they don't understand how to use it. It is time consuming to learn and if you are not passionate about it, sometimes frustrating. Teacher's plates are already so full. I have contemplated this question many times when thinking about administration roles.
I think that teachers need slow and steady training that is supported when they leave the training. Having a few actual lessons prepared using the technology with ideas on how to incorporate it into the classroom. I found at my old school, that teachers that resisted were willing to try technology if it was already together, when they got positive results (sound like behaviorism) they would then ask for help on using the resource.
For example, we got a few Elmo document cameras at our school. No one was really interested, but I started using it on a regular basis, before long, several teachers were using them and more wanted them. The problem is that technology is growing so fast that it is tempting to bypass the modeling stage and just have teachers dive in when they need to get their feet wet first.
Post a Comment