[Air-L] Your Opinion

Alex Halavais alex at halavais.net
Thu Apr 16 07:57:16 PDT 2009


To be clear, I was not advocating individual tutoring for all. Your
question was not "what policy should be implemented" but "what
research should be done?" I fear a lot of educational research assumes
that the question of how people learn is already clear, or should be
relegated to psychologists. I think designing education for the masses
is impossible without understanding how *people* learn.

And yes, that does put the person first--and yes, to Jeremy's point,
it perhaps fails to problematize individual subjectivity, something
that a lot of educational theorists also fail to do--but I think the
perspective gained by taking the person (in the context of their
personal history) as the unit of analysis would help build toward a
more useful set of ideas surrounding education, and a reduction in
widget production.

-A


On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Elaine Studnicki
<elainestudnicki at comcast.net> wrote:
> The teaching of and/or giving individual learning plans (aka: personalize
> learning) in public education is a practice used for students in need and
> the other end of the spectrum, the smart students.  It is, in my opinion and
> as it is currently being used, a build in tool to segregate students and our
> society.  The realities of implementing such a program, something that
> educators are talking about, would require a complete change of our public
> education system, if it were to provide a equity of services for all
> students.  We are not organized for it and it concerns me that we believe it
> should change but can't seem to make it so.  Nick is right, it is a
> staggeringly difficult thing to do.
>
> What, however, would happen if we changed the direction of education.
> Instead of "giving" an education students "select" their education.  Which
> may be what you mean Alex. But I don't think public education was ever
> intended to teach the individual student.  It was for the masses.
>
> One other thought, 21st century skill sets identify collaborative work as a
> skill students need in their future.  If you haven't seem them...
> http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/index.php?option=com_content&view=a
> rticle&id=5&Itemid=2
> Information, media, and technology skills are listed there.
>
>
> On 4/15/09 9:34 AM, "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns at vt.edu> wrote:
>
>> this worries me.... what if there really is no 'single student', but
>> individualism is just an ideology and really we work best in small
>> groups without that individuality that allows us to construct the
>> 'single student'.   there has been a significant amount of research
>> and writing on the problems surrounding the construction of the
>> individual subject in modern society, and a good bit about tribes,
>> groupuscules, and related matters also, but overall i see there are
>> some possible benefits toward pushing against the model of the 'single
>> student'  as the target of our learning systems.
>> On Apr 15, 2009, at 9:03 AM, Alex Halavais wrote:
>>
>>> I'll bite. I think we need to figure out what the extremes of
>>> personalized learning are, and what implications these have for
>>> learning in groups, institutions, and on the network. Yes, that is a
>>> broad task, and one that is probably closely associated with Howard
>>> Gardner, but designing a good educational system for many means, I
>>> think, understanding how to design the best educational system for the
>>> single student.
>>>
>>> - Alex
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:02 PM, Elaine Studnicki
>>> <elainestudnicki at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> I have hovered in the background for quite some time reading your
>>>> extremely
>>>> rich and diverse areas of interest/research. As a K-12 educator/
>>>> doctoral
>>>> student I am interested in the connections between higher ed.
>>>> research and
>>>> the daily classroom instruction/environment that composes our
>>>> national
>>>> educational system.  I am compelled to ask this question:
>>>>
>>>> In your opinion what do you currently think is the most important
>>>> area of
>>>> research or perhaps the most important area "needing" research for
>>>> our K-12
>>>> educational system?
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for your help and time,
>>>>
>>>> Elaine
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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