My Connect Classroom Mindmap
Based on the readings found in Resources listed below
I work in higher education in a community college, where I
build community networks for experiential learning. Given this focus, I found it professionally
validating to learn about the Ministry of Education’s policy framework for
community-connected learning. This
connects to my students in that it implies a direction for the future of
education in which community-connected learning is understood, valued and
encouraged.
Experiential learning was not always embraced. I think this is because this type of learning
is seen as messy, unpredictable and difficult to control and quantify. One connection that resonated with me is the
idea that both students and teachers must be willing to give up a sense of control,
in both process and outcome, in order to truly learn. Deep
learning means going into uncharted territory, as pointed out by Furco. “Boundary-crossing activities that challenge
young people cognitively, physically, and emotionally to move out of their
comfort zones has been show to enhance the development of expert cognition” (Furco,
234).
I believe Furco’s idea of “expert cognition” was further
developed in the Ministry of Education’s paper “Community Connected
Experiential Learning”, which provided a simple three-question template to
“focus student thinking and drive the process” (9-11). This will provide much-needed structure to an
ill-structured, but rich and valuable, experience in community-connected
learning. By simply prompting questions
like “what?”, “so what?” and “now what?”, as suggested in this paper, teachers
can help students to cognitively organize the community learning experience,
derive personal meaning from it and understand how it might effect them into
the future (Furco, 9-11).
One of the issues that I face in supporting students’ in maximizing
community-connected learning is that there is no dedication of resources to assisting
the student to do this critical cognitive processing. And yet, the Ministry of Education states
that, “the development of a reflective mindset gives students the ability to
turn every experience in to a learning experience” (Ministry of Education, 8). If learning is becoming increasingly
community-focused, and less confined to the classroom, then my role as a connected-classroom
teacher must change to guiding metacognition and transfer of learning. In doing so, the true goal of the Ministry of
Education can be achieved, which was articulated as developing students’ “capacities
for deeper learning, including learning for transfer, and helping them to
acquire important 21st century competencies (such as critical
thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration) so that they
have the talent and skills necessary to succeed in the global economy”
(Ministry of Education, 8). Given a
small increase in the investment of time, and using simple templates for
reflection, students can not only achieve credit and gain community connected experience,
but also weave the experience into a more confident and promising future.
Resources:
Furco, A. (2010). The community as a resource for learning: an
analysis of academic service-learning in primary and secondary education. The
Nature of Learning: Using Research to
Inspire Practice. University of
Minnesota.
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016). Community-Connected Experiential Learning: A Policy
Framework for Ontario Schools, Kindergarten to Grade 12. Toronto, ON.
Taylor, A., Butterwick, S., Raykov, M., Glick, S. &
Peikazadi, N., Mehrabi, S.
(2015). Community service-learning in Canadian higher education. The University of British Columbia.
No comments:
Post a Comment