the scenario
Each morning as you walk the hallways prior to first bell, you see your students' plugged in to their iPods, you hear them discussing the latest "castle craft conquest", you see cell phones put away in lockers, you overhear discussions using terms like L O L, O.M.G., your school's hallways are buzzing with energy. First bell rings. Students file into their seats. It's quiet. Books are pulled out. You realize the students have already tuned out.
the instructional challenge
Your instructional challenge is convincing your administration that you can recreate the hallway energy and students will still be learning.
My Proposal:
By using Discovery Learning instructional strategies and one of the computer labs of the school I can recreate the hallway energy in my class and my students will still be learning.
Introduction:
Globalization & exponential growth of technology has changed the way world used to exist. Fierce competition is prevalent in the businesses and recession has impacted the way the companies work. They prefer to hire the people who are creative, flexible, work collaboratively and are highly adaptable to the changing situations. If this is current situation of the job market, then what kind of job scenario will exist few years from now?
We prepare the future citizens and employees of this world. But we cannot use old ways to prepare them for new situations. So, how can all of the above mentioned skills be instilled in the learners of 21st century? I propose the idea of using Discovery Learning method to a large extent because it instills all the necessary skills that can be required to survive in an unpredictable environment. To find out what is Discovery Learning and its attributes, please take a look at a short presentation prepared by me on prezi:
Globalization & exponential growth of technology has changed the way world used to exist. Fierce competition is prevalent in the businesses and recession has impacted the way the companies work. They prefer to hire the people who are creative, flexible, work collaboratively and are highly adaptable to the changing situations. If this is current situation of the job market, then what kind of job scenario will exist few years from now?
We prepare the future citizens and employees of this world. But we cannot use old ways to prepare them for new situations. So, how can all of the above mentioned skills be instilled in the learners of 21st century? I propose the idea of using Discovery Learning method to a large extent because it instills all the necessary skills that can be required to survive in an unpredictable environment. To find out what is Discovery Learning and its attributes, please take a look at a short presentation prepared by me on prezi:
Discovery Learning on Prezi
Some critics give the following reasons as to why Discovery Learning is not adopted by most of the teachers:
Discovery Learning in a classroom:
In a class, the teacher can initiate the guided discovery learning by questioning. The prompt stimulates the curiosity of the learners, it motivates them to explore. But answers are not provided to them by the teacher as Mosston (1972:122) cautions that discovery learning cannot take place if the answers are given.
Initially the teacher should support the formation of hypothesis and designing of experiment because learners may not know what a hypothesis should look like or may try to design the experiment to conform to their hypothesis rather than negate it. (Later on they should be allowed to formulate and design on their own). Then the learners explore and investigate by experimenting. The data collected from the experiment is used to draw a conclusion. When it comes to presentation of their result, technology comes to the aid of students. There are variety of ways they can present their learning. They can use the web 2.0 tools like blogs, wiki spaces, prezi, slideshare, animoto.... to present their understanding of a concept.
In a class, the teacher can initiate the guided discovery learning by questioning. The prompt stimulates the curiosity of the learners, it motivates them to explore. But answers are not provided to them by the teacher as Mosston (1972:122) cautions that discovery learning cannot take place if the answers are given.
Initially the teacher should support the formation of hypothesis and designing of experiment because learners may not know what a hypothesis should look like or may try to design the experiment to conform to their hypothesis rather than negate it. (Later on they should be allowed to formulate and design on their own). Then the learners explore and investigate by experimenting. The data collected from the experiment is used to draw a conclusion. When it comes to presentation of their result, technology comes to the aid of students. There are variety of ways they can present their learning. They can use the web 2.0 tools like blogs, wiki spaces, prezi, slideshare, animoto.... to present their understanding of a concept.
Benefits: Discovery Learning ensures that students play an active role to learn at their own pace. It helps in building up the motivation of the learners and they take up the ownership of their learning. Since Discovery Learning is process oriented, learning takes place even through failure. When any student fails to get the desired result, learning still occurs because it motivates the learner to find out the reason for getting anomalous results. This is very much different from the traditional classroom where failure is looked down upon and penalized. Discovery Learning teaches them not to be afraid of being wrong. Sir Ken Robinson in one of his TED talks (Schools kill creativity) said, if we are not prepared to be wrong then we cannot expect to come up with something original. He also said, we stigmatize mistakes. I think, stigmatizing the mistakes leads to the slow death of creativity. But Discovery Learning provides the learners the room to be wrong. Hence the students learn to retain their creativity. Apart from this, since failure is acceptable in the Discovery Learning process, the learners learn to take the reasonable risks. They also internalize the concepts because emphasis is on mastery of problem-solving skills.
Successful Models of Discovery Learning:
Watch this video to see how deeply engaged the learners of Ben Porat Yosef school of New Jersey are and the skills they learn by doing these activities. Had these concepts been taught to them as mere facts, they would have forgotten them in few days.
Watch this video to see how deeply engaged the learners of Ben Porat Yosef school of New Jersey are and the skills they learn by doing these activities. Had these concepts been taught to them as mere facts, they would have forgotten them in few days.
Another model of Discovery Learning:
Here is another video showing 3rd grade learners of Tim Bedly, totally engrossed in their learning of Saxon math in an elementary school of California.
Here is another video showing 3rd grade learners of Tim Bedly, totally engrossed in their learning of Saxon math in an elementary school of California.
Some critics give the following reasons as to why Discovery Learning is not adopted by most of the teachers:
1. It requires too much preparation time.
2. It requires too much learning time.
3. Class size is a constraint.
Resolution: Technology makes Discovery Learning much easier to adopt. Availability of variety of resources on web has made planning the discovery based lessons much easier. Teachers of same grade level can pool their resources and research findings to plan their lessons. By this collaboration and use of technology, less time will be spent on the planning. An efficient lesson plan will allow the learners to have maximum time for their experimentation and data collection. Learners can then go to the computer lab to prepare their presentations. To sort out the problem of class size, teachers can form the groups of learners if the class size is very large and if the class size is small then collaboration with other small classes of the same grade will solve this problem.
Support and Input from department teachers and administrators:
Designing the lesson plan to incorporate this instructional methodology will require the collaboration on the part of same grade level teachers. Their planning periods should synchronize in order to let them plan the lessons together. They can also conduct some of the activities jointly. Apart from this, it also has to be ensured that the computer labs are free for the learners to use when they are done with their discovery learning. Sometimes the space requirement for the activities is very large and for that gym and playground can be used with the prior permission of the coaches and administrators.
Discovery Learning in my learning environment:
I advocate the use of Discovery Learning because in my previous school, under a 'Fellows program' initiated by the University of that state, the graduate students from different streams of science brought their content expertise into the classrooms. They planned along with the teachers to design the hands-on activities for all the lessons taught in the class. This partnership brought a tremendous change in the learning, motivation, enthusiasm and academic performance of the students. The classroom buzzed with learners' enthusiasm, who were discovering that learning is fun!
Designing the lesson plan to incorporate this instructional methodology will require the collaboration on the part of same grade level teachers. Their planning periods should synchronize in order to let them plan the lessons together. They can also conduct some of the activities jointly. Apart from this, it also has to be ensured that the computer labs are free for the learners to use when they are done with their discovery learning. Sometimes the space requirement for the activities is very large and for that gym and playground can be used with the prior permission of the coaches and administrators.
Discovery Learning in my learning environment:
I advocate the use of Discovery Learning because in my previous school, under a 'Fellows program' initiated by the University of that state, the graduate students from different streams of science brought their content expertise into the classrooms. They planned along with the teachers to design the hands-on activities for all the lessons taught in the class. This partnership brought a tremendous change in the learning, motivation, enthusiasm and academic performance of the students. The classroom buzzed with learners' enthusiasm, who were discovering that learning is fun!
References:
- Akinbobola, A. O. (2009). Constructivist practices through guided discovery approach: The effect on students' cognitive achievements in Nigerian Senior Secondary School Physics. Retrieved Jan. 27,2012 from http://bjsep.org/getfile.php?id=61
- BPY Discovery Learning Day [Video] Retrieved Jan.31,2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naQ7AjggwIM
- Castronova, Joyce A. (2002) Discovery Learning for the 21st century: What is it and how does it compare to traditional learning in effectiveness in the 21st century? Retrieved Jan. 26,2012 from http://teach.valdosta.edu/are/Litreviews/vol1no1/castronova_litr.pdf
- Discovery Learning: Math Consensus with 3rd graders [Video] Retrieved Jan. 31,2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp38JjygZH8
- Inquiry based learning. Retrieved Feb. 2,2012 from http://www.neiu.edu/~middle/Modules/science%20mods/amazon%20components/AmazonComponents2.html
- Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity (June 2006). Retrieved Feb. 1,2012 from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
- Schneider,Daniel K. (Sep,2006). Guided discovery learning. Retrieved Feb. 2,2012 from http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Guided_discovery_learning
- Teaching and learning strategies (2002). Inquiry based learning. Retrieved Feb. 2,2012 from http://www.ndtwt.org/Blackboard/P2SST2/inqu.htm
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