End of Day T2P week 5

I loved the fact that we had the chance to think toward the student as a whole.  The Motivation, The Emotional impact on learning, the brain and how we contribute towards shaping our own learning style and intrinsic rewards, the social aspects of learning and the importance of bringing the authentic self to every event.

I spent a great deal of time yesterday putting together what I believe to be a pretty tight T2P.  This is posted under week 5.

Interestingly, I am surprised or have dissonance regarding the final assignment.  Not the work or the thought process.  Rather I think it may be the deliverable and how it is coming together for me.

As usual, I need time to sit with the information presented today and see how it might alter or refine my thinking on the nuances of ethics and values and how it impacts the classroom.

T2P Week 5

If the teacher actively models and encourages trust and empathy, provides meaningful content and attends to the emotional and intellectual need of the students nestled in an inquiry based, knowledge seeking environment

then students will have the opportunity to be an active participant selecting

meaningful content aligned with an important goal that motivates and engages them academically and emotionally allowing them to construct meaningful knowledge by critically analyzing, assimilating or accommodating newly acquired information that erects a framework which is flexible yet strong enough to endlessly support new information as it becomes available

because he/she created knowledge in a way that is transformative and unique, enhancing self confidence, evolving emotional literacy and infinitely expands the possibilities of future learning such that motivation and curiosity sustain the desire to learn and learning provides motion and curiosity.

Sugata Mitra recognizes that in nature, all systems self organize to support the group. His research demonstrates that our children self organize in order to learn (mitra, 2009). They teach themselves, then they teach others and others learn by watching. I support the notion that the desire to learn is natural and we instinctively support each other to learn. This is also supportive of the role motivation and empathy play in the learning process. Nel Noddings’ theory on the ethics and necessity of caring and how caring transforms the learning process into a meaningful, sustainable experience is supportive of Mitra’s theory.

References

Smith, M.K. 2004) Nel Noddings, the ethics of care and education, the encyclopedia of informal education, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/noddings.htm

Goodman, G.S. (2008)Educational psychology An application of Critical Constructivism, New York, Lang.