Final Reflection:
By removing the threat of fear and showing my students that I trusted them, positive outcomes arose. Allowing the students the freedom to work together and speak with their friends at first resulted in off topic conversations but as the months proceeded, the conversations became overwhelmingly mathematical in nature. I challenged them to use math in ways that they had rarely done before, activities were constructivist, hands-on and applicable to them. For example when examining algebra we went outside with stop watches and tennis balls and timed descents to deduce heights, they played with math to prove who could throw a ball the highest. They argued math to prove they were correct. They laughed and learned in an environment that was fun. I showed them that I trusted them to make good decisions and the overwhelming majority returned that trust by being trustworthy.
John Dewey said, ”Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself.“ How can a social process like constructivist learning prosper in fear, distrust and silence? This researcher has come to believe, after this process, that it cannot. Why is it that so many classrooms are mired in old thinking about learning? How is it that anti-social classroom models linger in the age of constant connection? How is it that teachers still believe that children who are in constant contact with nearly everyone they know via cell phones, text messages, email, and social networking would learn best in isolation?
Through this process of doing my action research project I realized several things about myself as a teacher, first I believe in the power of an active and noisy classroom. It is time that education realizes that the old model is no longer relevant, the world has changed, the students have changed, the book has changed, the library has changed and it is time the classroom change as well. It is time that that Papert’s mythical time traveling teacher from the 18th century be just as lost while visiting a 21st century classroom as the 18th century surgeon would be in a 21st century operating room.
During this process of personal examination, learning theory investigation, and action research I truly believe that I have improved my teaching because of the process. Never one to shy away from sharing, what I believed were controversial beliefs about what a classroom environment should look like, I found myself armed with the theories of Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky to support my beliefs. Edison education walked through my classroom at least once a week with clipboards and cold blank stares, with some weeks seeing three to four groups walking into my room unannounced. Through my action research I found myself armed with quality learning theory to back up what to some may have looked like a chaotic classroom. I could quickly point out ‘why’ I was doing what it was I was doing, and that was the most liberating feeling for me as a teacher.
Action research provided me with the data necessary to support what I had always believed, not only for those walking through my room in an observational capacity, but also for myself. Believing and proving are very different things and my action research allowed me to prove to myself that I was taking the correct steps. Without the collection of data on the positives occurring in the classroom the disruptions of the few would have quickly led me to abandon the actions, which I believe, were instrumental in the children’s success.
As I examine the effects this process has had on my perception of my profession, I realize that this process once started can never be stopped. I must be able to justify my actions if I intend, as I do, to continue to push education in a direction I believe it must go. My ultimate take away from this research is that if I am to create trusting students who are receptive to learning I must employ an army of teachers to my task. I believe the mutual-trust-based classroom model’s largest stumbling block is the cumulative years of ‘lack of trust’ before my students ever reached my room by 6th grade, I must find a way to help other teachers create trust filled constructivist classrooms in every grade starting in kindergarten, or earlier.
By removing the threat of fear and showing my students that I trusted them, positive outcomes arose. Allowing the students the freedom to work together and speak with their friends at first resulted in off topic conversations but as the months proceeded, the conversations became overwhelmingly mathematical in nature. I challenged them to use math in ways that they had rarely done before, activities were constructivist, hands-on and applicable to them. For example when examining algebra we went outside with stop watches and tennis balls and timed descents to deduce heights, they played with math to prove who could throw a ball the highest. They argued math to prove they were correct. They laughed and learned in an environment that was fun. I showed them that I trusted them to make good decisions and the overwhelming majority returned that trust by being trustworthy.
John Dewey said, ”Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself.“ How can a social process like constructivist learning prosper in fear, distrust and silence? This researcher has come to believe, after this process, that it cannot. Why is it that so many classrooms are mired in old thinking about learning? How is it that anti-social classroom models linger in the age of constant connection? How is it that teachers still believe that children who are in constant contact with nearly everyone they know via cell phones, text messages, email, and social networking would learn best in isolation?
Through this process of doing my action research project I realized several things about myself as a teacher, first I believe in the power of an active and noisy classroom. It is time that education realizes that the old model is no longer relevant, the world has changed, the students have changed, the book has changed, the library has changed and it is time the classroom change as well. It is time that that Papert’s mythical time traveling teacher from the 18th century be just as lost while visiting a 21st century classroom as the 18th century surgeon would be in a 21st century operating room.
During this process of personal examination, learning theory investigation, and action research I truly believe that I have improved my teaching because of the process. Never one to shy away from sharing, what I believed were controversial beliefs about what a classroom environment should look like, I found myself armed with the theories of Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky to support my beliefs. Edison education walked through my classroom at least once a week with clipboards and cold blank stares, with some weeks seeing three to four groups walking into my room unannounced. Through my action research I found myself armed with quality learning theory to back up what to some may have looked like a chaotic classroom. I could quickly point out ‘why’ I was doing what it was I was doing, and that was the most liberating feeling for me as a teacher.
Action research provided me with the data necessary to support what I had always believed, not only for those walking through my room in an observational capacity, but also for myself. Believing and proving are very different things and my action research allowed me to prove to myself that I was taking the correct steps. Without the collection of data on the positives occurring in the classroom the disruptions of the few would have quickly led me to abandon the actions, which I believe, were instrumental in the children’s success.
As I examine the effects this process has had on my perception of my profession, I realize that this process once started can never be stopped. I must be able to justify my actions if I intend, as I do, to continue to push education in a direction I believe it must go. My ultimate take away from this research is that if I am to create trusting students who are receptive to learning I must employ an army of teachers to my task. I believe the mutual-trust-based classroom model’s largest stumbling block is the cumulative years of ‘lack of trust’ before my students ever reached my room by 6th grade, I must find a way to help other teachers create trust filled constructivist classrooms in every grade starting in kindergarten, or earlier.
