Who Owns the Learning, Pg 82
Quotation: “The students you learn about here have worked hard and exceeded expectations in their dedicated pursuit of learning, creativity, collaboration, and innovation. No points received, no grades involved; the students do this work because it matters, to them and others.”
Question: How do you find appropriate, content related projects that the students will want to work on because it matters, that is realistic in the average classroom or school?
Connection: I believe that many of the ideas in this book are nice, but I have a difficult time seeing them actually implemented in most scenarios. Admittedly, my own classroom experience is not vast, however based on my experiences as both a one-time high school student, and current high school teacher, it seems like finding school work that actually covers the content as mandated by the state/school district, that students will actually care about, would be quite difficult. Even when you put a great deal of effort into making an activity appealing, a significant percentage of students are simply going to be interested in completing it and passing or getting a grade. This is not limited to high school students; even college students who are dedicated to lifelong learning often just want to get through a class or assignment, especially if the biggest positive to come out of the assignment for the person completing it is simply something saying that they have completed it.
Ahah!: It seems to me that the only way that this sort of thing is really feasible is if A), you are dealing with an exceptional group of students who all really like to do school work for the sake of doing school work, or B) the completion of the end product will give the students a benefit which is more valuable than the grade or passing mark they will receive for completing it. People are generally self serving, and do things for specific reasons. If you want students to commit to something and actually care about it, they need to get something more valuable from it than the grade.
Quotation: “The students you learn about here have worked hard and exceeded expectations in their dedicated pursuit of learning, creativity, collaboration, and innovation. No points received, no grades involved; the students do this work because it matters, to them and others.”
Question: How do you find appropriate, content related projects that the students will want to work on because it matters, that is realistic in the average classroom or school?
Connection: I believe that many of the ideas in this book are nice, but I have a difficult time seeing them actually implemented in most scenarios. Admittedly, my own classroom experience is not vast, however based on my experiences as both a one-time high school student, and current high school teacher, it seems like finding school work that actually covers the content as mandated by the state/school district, that students will actually care about, would be quite difficult. Even when you put a great deal of effort into making an activity appealing, a significant percentage of students are simply going to be interested in completing it and passing or getting a grade. This is not limited to high school students; even college students who are dedicated to lifelong learning often just want to get through a class or assignment, especially if the biggest positive to come out of the assignment for the person completing it is simply something saying that they have completed it.
Ahah!: It seems to me that the only way that this sort of thing is really feasible is if A), you are dealing with an exceptional group of students who all really like to do school work for the sake of doing school work, or B) the completion of the end product will give the students a benefit which is more valuable than the grade or passing mark they will receive for completing it. People are generally self serving, and do things for specific reasons. If you want students to commit to something and actually care about it, they need to get something more valuable from it than the grade.