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Feedback on ETAP 640 Blogs II

#etap640 2013 Blog feedback for Ryan, Matt, Mary and Luke - also examples of diigo highlighting and sticky notes

The Enrichment Triad Model was designed to encourage creative productivity on the part of young people by exposing them to various topics, areas of interest, and fields of study, and to further train them to apply advanced content, process-training skills, and methodology training to self-selected areas of interest. Accordingly, three types of enrichment are included in the Triad Model (see Fig. 2). Type I enrichment is designed to expose students to a wide variety of disciplines, topics, occupations, hobbies, persons, places, and events that would not ordinarily be covered in the regular curriculum. In schools - that use this model, an enrichment team consisting of parents, teachers, and students often organizes and plans Type I experiences by contacting speakers, arranging minicourses, demonstrations, or performances, or by ordering and distributing films, slides, videotapes, or other print or non-print media. Figure 2. The enrichment triad model. [Click on the figure to see it as a PDF file.] Type II enrichment consists of materials and methods designed to promote the development of thinking and feeling processes. Some Type II training is general, and is usually carried out both in classrooms and in enrichment programs. Training activities include the development of. (1) creative thinking and problem solving, critical thinking, and affective processes; (2) a wide variety of specific learning how-to-learn skills; (3) skills in the appropriate use of advanced-level reference materials; and (4) written, oral, and visual communication skills. Other Type II enrichment is specific, as it cannot be planned in advance and usually involves advanced methodological instruction in an interest area selected by the student. For example, students who become interested in botany after a Type I experience might pursue additional training in this area by doing advanced reading in botany; compiling, planning and carrying out plant experiments; and seeking more advanced methods training if they want to go further. Type III enrichment involves students who become interested in pursuing a self-selected area and are willing to commit the time necessary for advanced content acquisition and process training in which they assume the role of a first-hand inquirer. The goals of Type III enrichment include: providing opportunities for applying interests, knowledge, creative ideas and task commitment to a self-selected problem or area of study, acquiring advanced level understanding of the knowledge (content) and methodology (process) that are used within particular disciplines, artistic areas of expression and interdisciplinary studies, developing authentic products that are primarily directed toward bringing about a desired impact upon a specified audience, developing self-directed learning skills in the areas of planning, organization, resource utilization, time management, decision making and self-evaluation, developing task commitment, self-confidence, and feelings of creative accomplishment.

I have observed at least three major phases that many teachers go through, or far too often, fail to go through. Phase I might be described by Harry Wong as "Doing what you have been doing, and getting what you have been getting". In other words, Phase I is simply the pre-reform effort phase. Of course, we as educators hope to move teachers to a new vision and this can result in Phase II.

    In Phase II, teachers are presented with a new teaching strategy, usually in the context of an afternoon or one day workshop. So armed with this new skill, but little else, they venture back to their classroom to try implementation or worse, write off the whole experience and tell colleagues seated near them that they already do that. What is immediately noticeable for those who at least think about possible implementation, is how these teachers internalize this new strategy and attempt to move it into practice.

Phase III is where teachers reflect on 1. what they were doing that worked, and 2. how they might integrate these new ideas into their pre-workshop repertoire of teaching tools.

In the 1960s, some liberals praised the one-room school of yore as "the precursor to group learning" and "open classrooms"

Decades after consolidation had obliterated one-room schools, researchers discovered their advantages. The child in the small school is not just a statistic on a government chart. She receives "individual attention and recognition." She works at her own pace. She has, most important, a place. As Mr. Zimmerman remarks, recent alternatives to "the large, alienating modern school," from charter schools to homeschooling, have sought to foster "the snug, communal aspects of the one-room school." But the one-room-school model entails community control, which liberals and conservatives alike resist if the "community" sings from the wrong hymnal.

By World War II, the little red schoolhouse whose razing had been a New Deal project became a symbol of homefront democracy. In the 1960s, some liberals praised the one-room school of yore as "the precursor to group learning" and "open classrooms" -- daily Bible reading not included. At the same time some conservatives extolled its alleged (and exaggerated) hickory-stick discipline.

They will be schools no longer; they will be popular academies, in which neither pupils nor masters will be known, where the people will come freely to get, if they need it, free instruction, and in which, rich in their own experience, they will teach in their turn many things to the professors who shall bring them knowledge which they lack. This, then, will be a mutual instruction, an act of intellectual fraternity between the educated youth and the people.

because my exploration was respected. This kind of supportive environment makes me – or any student I am sure – fearless

I can say that I think I am on a completely different level in my teaching and design work.