I haven’t given my students enough time.
As I look back on what I’ve taught the last two years - I have jam packed lesson plans and units with information. There’s SO much to know! I want them to be historians & geographers with a bent towards empathy. I want my students to come away with a depth of understanding history and geography.
I have been working counterproductively.
I have crafted a curriculum that’s “a mile wide and an inch deep.” I have since learned that such “superficial coverage of many topics … may be a poor way to help students develop competencies that will prepare them for future learning and work.” (Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning, 2000, p. 42)
Students need time. Lots of time. Way more time than I’ve been giving them.
Learning deeply, developing a real “expertise” in a matter, “necessitates a major investment of time.” (Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning, 2000, p. 58) Students need space and time to practice. It’s one thing in class for me to say, “This is important! It’s vital to know this!”
It’s another for me to prioritize a skill by giving students ample opportunities to practice it. Class time is precious and I communicate what’s valuable by what I repeatedly use time to do.
In a lot of ways I’ve prioritized students completing sets of learning tasks in an expedient and efficient manner. (Henderson, et al., 2015) I’ve hurried students through content in order to get through it all. I consider all the times I’ve not given students enough work time to complete tasks or I’ve only given enough time to complete the task and no time to contemplate or take risks or question what we’re doing.
As an educator, I want to approach new things with a creative and flexible mindset. If I want this for my students, I need to give them space and time to practice this mindset. Let them engage in deep-play, making new things and trying new tools. (Henriksen, et al., 2019)
I want my students to consider my classroom a safe place to take risks.
But honestly how many opportunities have I given them to try out things?
How much time do I allow them to experiment with new ideas before I demand of them to absorb the information a particular way and be able to regurgitate it?
I want to do better.
In the past I’ve wanted students to learn a great breadth of knowledge. Let’s hurry so we can fit as much information in during the time we have together.
This in part traces back to my student teaching - I was given feedback that I wasn’t moving along fast enough in the pacing guide dictated by my mentor teacher. I see now ways I’ve moved to the other extreme - now I’m going through content too quickly. I have jammed too much into too short of time and no wonder my students are displaying such shallow understanding.
As I consider next year, I want to slow down. Do less in order to do more. Do more with less content, have the things we do actually stick and give students space and time to really sit with the skills and information my class tries to disseminate.
I’m looking over my outline of the curriculum for the year and the way I’ve paced things - we’ll finish early. I’ve crammed it all in at such a fast pace, we might finish the year long curriculum early. When I first discovered this my impulse was to add more information to the curriculum - what other units of history and geography could I fit in?
But now, in light of what I’ve learned this week of the value of giving students more time - I’m going to build that into my schedule. No new units. In fact I might cut some content. It seems worthwhile to me in order to give students an opportunity to go deep and really engage, learn and understand the content.
When it comes to our curriculum being “a mile wide and an inch deep” I want to challenge myself to shorten how wide and dare to go deeper.
Sources:
Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. (J. D. Bransford, M. S. Donovan, & J. W. Pellegrino, Eds.) (Expanded). National Acad. Press.
Henderson, Michael, et al. “What Works and Why? Student Perceptions of ‘Useful’ Digital Technology in University Teaching and Learning.”
Studies in Higher Education, vol. 42, no. 25, Feb. 2015, pp. 1567–79. DOI.org (Crossref),
Henriksen, D., Mehta, R., & Rosenberg, J. (2019). Supporting A Creatively Focused Technology Fluent Mindset Among Educators: A Five- Year Inquiry Into Teachers’ Confidence With Technology. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 63–95.
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