ED 671 Middle Level Learning Homepage
A few words about this experience:
Course objectives: Most course conversations will be grounded in contemporary social-constructivist thought with these specific objectives in mind:
Course Overview: There are two major strands in our study of learning in the middle school grades – one on concepts and practices related to learning theory and the other on concepts and practices related to social and emotional development. The course navigation bar (which is included on all middle level classes pages) has links to each of these strands as well as the four units associated with each. In addition, the navigation bar also has links to the ED 670 Middle Level Curriculum coure, strands, and units. If you are taking both courses you can easily move back and forth between courses and units. If you are only take one class or the other, only complete the strands and units associated with the course in which you are enrolled. In other words, the courses are designed together and fit together really well... but, are also compartmentalized so you could easily just complete one. This course (ED 671 Middle Level Learning) is designed for you to work simultaneously in the learning theory strand and the social and emotional development strand from left to right. The Middle Level Curriculum course is designed to work best if you first complete strand one (curricular challenges) and then strand two (curricular solutions - optional units). Keep this in mind as your work unfolds. There are 3 assignments that we will actually turn in – and they are described below as key assignments. There are also, however, prompts for each unit that point you to Moodle to discuss critical issues in the readings related to that unit and strand. Participation in on-line discussions factor in to your final grade as “participation” – the success of this class depends, in part, on the richness of conversations we have on-line. You will receive points for participating with at least three postings in each of the discussion threads under each of the units – think of these as one initial posting/response to the question prompts and at least two responses to other people’s initial postings – this should generate some conversation! In other words, for the learning theory strand there are four units - you need to participate with at least 3 postings in each of the four unit discussions for a total of 12 postings in the learning theory strand. Same goes for the social and emotional development strand... making a total of 24 postings for the course. Key assignments: Movie Review Assignment I believe firmly in the power of looking in other places to inform our understanding of a given issue or problem. For example, ever have the experience of reading a book and thinking, “Hey, that totally helps me think about something else!” That’s what we’re after here – though we are going to watch a movie that isn’t about teaching it is my hope that these movies will likely help us understand something about teaching and learning and certainly about adolescent social and emotional development. As part of our study of middle level adolescent issues you will be required to watch a movie and write a little bit about the adolescent developmental issues dealt with in the film. Choose from either: (1) Stand By Me – filmed in Oregon about 4 boys on an adventure right before they start middle school; (2) Mean girls – about teen girls and their efforts to abuse one another through psychological means; (3) 13 - good girl led down wrong path by charismatic friend; (4) Grease - classic caricature file about adolescence in the 1950's; (5) Breakfast Club - brat packers that started the 80's teen genre; (6) some other movie that deals with kids growing up. I’m open to other films but the ones listed above are great in content so… be prepared to defend your suggestion if you want to go another route. Your task it to write a 3 page paper in which you discuss a theme or set of ideas that you’ve identified as present in the film you watched. For example, in Stand by Me, Stephen King (he wrote the story) draws a very interesting parallel between the main group of younger boys and a group of older boys. The two groups deal with similar issues: (1) seeking adventure; (2) trying to understand themselves and their place in the world; (3) struggling with power and using it over one another… all of these things are dealt with in the movie. An interesting thing to write about, however, would be to compare how these two groups of boys deal with these issues differently. So… about two-thirds of your paper should be about analysis based on themes and the last third should be about you saying… “So, after making my analysis, here’s how this informs my work as a teacher – how it helps me think differently about teaching, learning, curriculum, power, relationships, working with middle school age kids… anything you wish that helps you reconsider practice. Send your Movie Review Assignment to Mark via email by midnight on Friday, August 17th. Complete all of unit 2 before doing this assignment - in fact, work through unit 2 before unit 1! Learning Theories Assignment One of the critical tasks we’ll tackle is to understand contemporary learning theory and how it helps us to think differently about teaching, learning, curriculum, motivation, and transfer. As you will see, our first strand (learning theory) is designed to focus our attention on three contemporary perspectives on what it means to learn: (1) behaviorism; (2) cognitive psychology or schema theory, and; (3) the situative perspective or distributed learning. Each of these three perspectives says something very different and important about our work as teachers and we’ll make strong efforts to understand each. The fourth unit in this strand is an attempt to synthesize your thoughts on these perspectives and is where you should begin to tackle this assignment. The assignment is simple - to make a chart, table, or even concept map (whichever works best for you) that organizes each of these perspectives, the associated language, concepts, and terminology, and their responses to several key questions. For each of the theoretical perspectives be sure you represent responses to these groups of questions:
The goal is to basically make a massive learning theory cheat sheet with all this content organized in ways that make sense to you. Now... keep in mind, part of this is about coming to understand theory but our real goal is to become aware that depending on what it is we need to teach, we are wise to draw on different perspectives of learning (and motivation, and assessment, and curricular design, and instructional strategies...) to maximize opportunties for learning. Send your Learning Theories Assignment to Mark via email by midnight on Wednesday, August 22nd. Complete unit 1 before you do this assignment... but remember to work through unit 2 first so the timing of assignments and due dates works out. Examination of Current Institutional and/or Classroom Practices Employ the ideas and theories introduced in the learning theories strand to analyze a current institutional or classroom practice. The specific topic of the paper is up to you... and the possibilities are many! Consider analyzing a school or a school system; a federal, state, or local educational policy; a particular school policy or practice; the environment or practices of a particular classroom; or even a specific lesson or activity. Whatever the topic chosen, you will be expected to describe the topic, then provide an analysis and evaluation of it using one or more of the theoretical frames discussed in the learning theories strand (behaviorism, cognitve psychology, situative or social perspectives. The analysis should relate the topic to the theoretical frames and judge the topic in the terms of the analysis. For example, if your school has a strict policy around behavior and student conduct... you could examine the policy and explore the theoretical perspective best aligned with it describing how the policy came into being, how it is aligned (or not) with the theoretical perspective you're writing about, the consequences of the policy, the effect of it... and so on. The goal is to think carefully about why we do the things we do in education... and link them to major ideas from the field of educational psychology. Need another example? How about analyzing the workings of the No Child Left Behind act from the perspective of behavioristic or even cognitive frames... or classroom practices and relationships from a socio-cultural point of view, or of a particular lesson in light of what cognitive theory tells us about retention and transfer. There's lots of room to tackle something of personal interest... do it! This paper will be graded on the quality of the description of the topic, the depth of the analysis and evaluation, the skillful and knowledgeable use of ideas from the learning theories strand, and the clarity and consistency of the evaluative judgments made. The paper should be 3 pages long doubtle-spaced. Be creative here and think deeply about what's going on in schools! Send your Examination of Current Institutional and/or Classroom Practices assignment to Mark via email by midnight on Friday, August 24th. Complete all of unit 1 before you tackle this assignment. Remember, to make due dates and readings work out... complete unit 2 before completing unit 1!
I have identified the following characteristics I believe are indicative of a genuine commitment to the spirit of this course. Please be resigned to attend to these expectations:
I believe strongly in asking teachers to engage in readings and assignments that are important and meaningful. I believe the assignments above reflect this commitment. As you all know, grading is the bane of teachers but my experience has been this: engage fully – read, write, reflect, and learn with genuine commitment and grades tend to take care of themselves. Just so you know, however, I will weight our assignments according to the following scale. Assignments
And grades will be assigned according to the following scale:
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