As an educator for the past (7) years, I have come to
realize that standardized testing has push away critical thinking in place on
rote memorization facts in the form of multiple choice answers. The longer I
teach the more aware I am of how much these students are dependent on the
answer choices, without the answer choice students become stuck and unsure of
what to do next. It is quite sad, and forget about asking students to reflect
on what they have learned. I feel reflection is very important and necessary;
students need to make those connections and understand why they are learning
the concepts being covered in class.
Purposeful
reflections must be strategic and it must be built in class time so, that
students can build personalized meaning from their studies. As Osterman (1990)
comments, critically reflective teachers-teachers who make their own thinking,
public and therefore subject to discussion are more likely to have classes that
are challenging, interesting and stimulating for students” (p.139) Stephen Brookfield. All of my courses so far with Lamar expresses
the importance of reflection so, I have seen firsthand how crucial it is to be
able make our learning personable to us so, that we can grow from it. I have always
known this to be true, but I guess I didn’t realized how much precedence
reflection really held. I really felt
this particular assignment held value for me because I believe reflection is
important for growth and improvement and so I make sure to include reflection
in my classroom as much as possible. I have been doing this before taking my
Lamar classes, so it is reassuring that I am on the right track with
implementing these skills to my students as well as myself. I know there have been times where I am doing
something and not really conscious of the bigger picture because I didn’t
reflect like I should, so if I am doing that as an adult then I know my
students are doing the same exact thing. So it’s my duty to raise the student’s
awareness about the underlying concepts.
There are many tools that can be used to assist with that as
learn from this course such as wikis, web conferences, and blog participation
and discussion forum. These tools were able to help me reflect on the purpose
of the lesson and what I could do better as well as look at other people ideas
and thoughts. These tools could be used
as e-portfolios like Stiggins (1994) also adds that a portfolio is “a means of
communicating about student growth and development” and “not a form assessment”
(p. 87). I agree that portfolio should
be used as tool to see a student growth and development over a period of time.
This will help students become lifelong learners because they will be
critically thinking about what makes their sample a good piece of work. I know
with my past interactions with colleagues it gave me a different perspective of
how I would have done some things differently based upon their comments and
examples that they had created.
As a lifelong learner, the issues I have is why do we depend
some much on standardized testing when it’s truly affecting our students
ability to think critically. Why can’t we depend on a system of where a student
learning is measured by rubrics and collection of highly thoughtful pieces of
evidenced learning? I truly believe in what John Zubizaretta (2004) says, in
his insightful book on Learning Portfolio in higher education, describe the
primary motive for a learning portfolio: “to improve student learning by
providing a structure for students to reflect systemically over time on the
learning process and to develop the aptitudes, skills and habits that come from
critical reflection” (p. 15). I will definitely be using wikis to get my
students to reflect on their learning and provide evidence of that learning for
Algebra. I want my students to
understand and find ways to incorporate what they have learned in the
real-world. My students already use the discussion question feature on
schoology to discuss what they have learned.
