The visit to Albany Senior High School the other day was quite stimulating. It was good to hear things happening. However, it could have been better if the trip was possible when the 'action' was still on (It was quiet during our visit; it's the exam time, isn't it?) More questions keep emerging after the actual trip.
A search to see if this was the first of its kind, Google gave me a few thousand hits and discussion of issues. One such was the discussion on hearing difficulty tied to the accoustics of these new schools. Portugal came with the idea of the OPen Plan School much earler and there is a lot of discussion going on as to the success or failure of these 'innovations'. Someone calls it 'old wine in a new bottle'. In some other discussion these new schools were compared to post World War schools where the need for such school was driven by country's economic conditions. Sokmeone else called it 'Lurching from Fad to Fad' and the article argued that it wouldn't work in an elementary level. It in fact created pandemoneum apparently. It wasn’t long before distraught teachers appeared in droves at principals’ doors pleading for walls or partitions to deaden the sound, lessen the confusion and lower the stress level of teaching young children in this mass of humanity.
Another article discusses the variety of activities that could happen in an open learning space: a girl is curled up with a book in one corner; in another corner a small group of boys concentrate on the brief outline of the day's science project that the teacher is chalking up on a portable board; a dozen children sit in carrles, earphones in place, listening to the recordings of their lessons they missed; in the centre of the space, six boys and girls work round a table discussing the newspaper clippings and so on.
The heterogenity in the tools used, platforms used, software used, learning styles, units of learning, learning intentions - how does it work that they 'pass' or 'fail' a course and an industry can view all these results with some uniformity.
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Hi! David, I am very happy to hear your feedback with more findings about open plan learning. It really broadened my views.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of pedagogy, I always appreciate the concept of “prior knowledge” & “differentiated learning”. Ideally, teachers are supposed to provide learning for students of different levels / backgrounds accordingly. Having said that, it has never been an easy job, and even well-experienced teachers are still striving to achieve this goal. The open plan pattern incorporated with e-learning can foster flexibility in this regard, and make differentiated learning more possible. And I would also like to point out that we should never expect one specific pattern to suit everyone. Every time we encounter a new group of students, we’d better get to know their prior knowledge, cultural background, etc. and take these into consideration when we plan for the lessons. I remember we once commented that we tried not to industrialize our education system and would try to provide more flexibility for individual needs in learning. It is always necessary for a learning pattern or system to be reviewed and modified periodically to reflect contemporary needs of students and teachers as people are live and so is a pattern or system supposed to.
In hindsight, I do appreciate the way we learn through some of the papers this year. The course requirements were outlined and clarified at the beginning, and the teacher and students did discuss on the possible ways to achieve these requirements. In some of the papers, students can identify a project of their preference and work on it to meet the criteria of the paper. In return, the teacher gets to experience a good variety of innovations. In our technology subject, this statement holds true all the time.