Educ 5313 Week 2 Blog

 

WEEK 2

Part 1

Traditional education very often grades students based on basic skills, knowledge of facts, and procedures.  Although students do certainly learn, the lack of context is not very motivating.  One day in the future as adults, these lessons might make sense and the knowledge may have some benefit.  But what if we could make the learning experience more adult-like?  What if teachers could engage students in a way that they are using their knowledge in real world experiences?  Would learning this way be more efficient?  Would students learn more from their lessons?

Authentic Intellectual Work is a philosophy of lesson design where knowledge and skills are applied to socially complex problems requiring higher level thinking skills.  This type of intellectual pursuit creates products or presentations that give more meaning to students than the specific memorized information students often obtain from traditional lessons in class. 

Research conducted in the National Education Longitudinal Study between 1988 and 1992 in over 1,000 high schools concluded that students scored between 60% and 100% higher on test scores when AIW strategies were used.

Authentic Intellectual Work includes three characteristics:  construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond school.

As a Spanish teacher, I see value beyond school as the most important characteristic to include in lessons for my students.   I live and teach in an upper middle-class suburb.  I have a diverse group of students, most of whom will go on to college.  Everyday more and more native speakers of Spanish are immigrating to this country.  My students do not understand how the influx of these migrants will affect their future careers no matter where they go in this country.  They also do not understand the perspective of migrants, as there are few in our school.  I believe a project where students create questions and interview migrants and their families about their experiences will not only give them some perspective but will also increase their Spanish through conducting the interviews.  This project would include interviews conducted over the internet as well as in person.  After interviewing, students will brainstorm with classmates and research possible solutions to migrant issues.  Each student will prepare and present a slide presentation including some geographical information about the home countries and cities of three of their interviewees.  Finally, students will practice writing an E-mail to their U.S. Congressperson about the hardships of migrants in the U.S., possible solutions that they researched and ways his/her congressperson could help.  I believe this assignment would show students the value of Speaking Spanish beyond school as well as give them authentic activities to practice their Spanish.

  

Part 2

Although the National Education Technology Plan has not been updated since 2017, there are many facets of the plan where Authentic Intellectual Work and Instruction could be intertwined to not only increase learning but also help students become more globally competitive.

In the previous lesson for my Spanish students, interviews are conducted over the internet.  Multimedia presentations are used as one of the culminating activities for the unit.  Students are required to send an email to a congressperson after collaborating with peers, doing research and critical thinking to solve problems.  These are all skills that the NETP would like students to develop to become competent in the 21^st century.

 

Part 3

There are many similarities between the Authentic Intellectual Work and Instruction framework and Kolb’s Triple E Framework, and the research project I discussed previously demonstrates this well.

AIW highly encourages student investigation as a means to critical thinking.  These investigations can be made authentic by creating questions for interviews and using active listening techniques during these interviews.  Students will be discussing and debating the real-world issue of immigration.  A visual presentation will be used to share information students learned about where and why immigrants left.  Students then engage with politicians to discuss issues and remedies for immigration problems.  All of these activities are part of Kolb’s framework and are authentic intellectual work.