Student Centered Curriculum

As I was preparing activities for my English course, I came across a collection of textbooks in one of the filing cabinets.  They were Writing & Literature textbooks.  The first chapter had a poem in Shakespearean English.  The textbook included lessons of writing different genres and grammar.

For a minute, I was overwhelmed by a wave of self-doubt.  I wondered, what if my syllabus is all wrong?  What if it is wrong for me to incorporate such a heavy load of internet-based activities.  What if I am doing too much fun stuff in the classroom?  What is the parents complain that I am just fooling around, and not really teaching their kids the two R’s?

For a moment, I considered dropping everything and just following the textbook that I held in my hands.  The prescribed readings, with their accompanying activities and comprehension questions were right there, enticing me.  It could be so easy.  I asked myself: but some of this material looks quite difficult; what if it is too advanced for my students?  I answered myself: well, I will just work with them to complete the assignments; if need be, I will provide them with the answers.

Hmm.

I got my groove back.

I reminded myself that a boring, prescriptive, one-size-fits-all textbook approach to educating the students was exactly what the Quebec Reform was trying to get away from.  The pedagogy advised by the textbook I held was the old paradigm.

I am lucky to be teaching in a province that is in the infancy of a reform whose tenets mirror my own.  I have been charged with the task of teaching a student-centered curriculum; it is a philosophy that in which I believe; I should try to set my doubts aside and embrace it.

Let students select their own research topics.  Let students choose their own novels.  Write their own stories.  Wherever possible, let them choose how to communicate in their own way.

Certainly, I will have doubts about my program, my activities, and my methods.  The textbook method is safe.  Student-centered classrooms are open-ended.  What can happen?  I don’t know.  I don’t need to know.  Student-centered teachers need to be confident enough to release control.  Student-centered teachers need to be secure enough to accept, nay expect, mistakes.

Photo by Dalboz17.

Controlling Syllabus

Siobhan Curious, a Twitterer, pointed me to an article, entitled, “Death to the Syllabus!”  As you can guess from the title, the essay is a critique of excessive, oppressive planning by teachers.  The author, Mano Singham, writes:

There is a vast research literature on the topic of motivation to learn, and one finding screams out loud and clear: controlling environments have been shown consistently to reduce people’s interest in whatever they are doing, even when they are doing things that would be highly motivating in other contexts.

I am always sceptical when someone states that there is “vast research literature” supporting their assertion.  From personal experience, though, I can attest to this particular idea.  Nothing extinguishes my motivation to do something faster than when I am made to feel like I must do it, or else!  There is an anti-authoritarian component to my personality that I suspect many folks in this society, especially teenagers, share.

That being said, there is also a universal human need for authority, structure and safety.  As always, wisdom prescribes balance.

Singham writes:

To test this, I abandoned the controlling syllabus. I now go to the first class with only a tentative timeline of readings and writing assignments.

It is interesting that Singham refers to this strategy as a test.  For my part, my contemplations on planning, and my intensive efforts at planning over the last two months, have led me to the conclusion that I have very little choice but to approach my assignment at a new school with a “tentative timeline”.  Logic dictates that I must first meet the students, and ascertain their academic levels and personal interests before I can fully develop appropriate lessons.  I could prepare reading comprehension assignments now, but at what level are their reading abilities?  And how diverse are their abilities?  I anticipate that there will be students with differing abilities who will require differentiated instruction.  What about math?  Should I prepare lessons based on the provincial curriculum prescribed for their grade level?  I wonder, what’s the point?  If they already know how to do long division, then why should I waste our time teaching it?  I need to assess the students first before I specify the instructional material.

It would be much more reassuring, and probably easier, if I had a book telling me what to teach for each day of the year.   But I don’t.  And I shouldn’t.  That is not the nature of teaching.  Teaching needs to be student-centered; teaching needs to evolve during the course of the year in order to adjust to the developing needs, interests and abilities of the students.

Siobhan also directed me to this interesting blog post, which is a reaction to the “Death to the Syllabus!” article.

Photo by ganesh_rrv.

Reform

Last year, I was an elementary teacher. This September, I will be teaching secondary.

In preparation for my new assignment, I wanted to draft an outline of academic expectations. I thought this would be good for the students to receive at the beginning of the year, so they could know what their goals were and what they would be graded against. Also, I thought such a document, or checklist, would be beneficial for parents. It would also be beneficial for my superiors, to demonstrate my planning, and beneficial for myself, to guide the development of my curriculum.

I thought that the provincial Ministry of Education would provide a document for teachers outlining what needed to be taught at each grade level. However, the prescribed curriculum is not so clearly defined.

Quebec is in the infancy of an educational reform. There are new curriculum guides for the teachers. The elementary English guide has a sort of checklist enumerating expected skills for each of the three cycles.

The secondary guide is less specific. I have read through it more than once. It does not provide the same level of specific benchmarks that the elementary guide provides. The information is presented with less structure. In an attempt to extract and organize the information, I have begun creating a mindmap of the guide utilizing the website Mindomo.

SELA Cycle 1 via kwout

I had been seeking detailed instructions. But this, I suppose, is the old paradigm of education. We really are experiencing a revolution, one that is affecting not only curriculum within the classroom, but also the job description of teachers. It is no longer: tell the students this information; it is: help the students practise these skills.

Here is a nice video about today’s students, entitled, A Vision of Students Today, that I found on the website, Emerging Internet Technologies for Education.