What are authentic learning opportunities? How does a student engage them self in these learning opportunities? How does a teacher present such opportunities or do they even come from teachers? these are the questions that I had while pondering the reading and posting requirements. The overwhelming thought that kept recurring to me was the Gardner's model of interest driven learning. This coupled with Montessori's model of exploratory education seems to answer the questions, but you have to be willing to search for them a little bit. Case in point at the root of the first question there is the implication that all learning may Not be a good authentic experience (meaning to me), yet learning occurs. To further expound... an authentic learning experience has great value and builds interest to further investigate or find deeper meaning. This is the basis for the scientific method... all things start with curiosity, followed by a question, followed by a possible answer, followed by the what do I do to find the answer, which leads to an authentic learning experience (opportunity).
The second question is much harder to answer because of the many different variables that exist when faced with what interest students or drives student learning. This is closely related to so many different things like culture, SES, location, age, maturity... the list expands, yet the root is interest and if you are interested enough then very little will stand in your way on the road to accomplishment. The young lady in the video talked about possibilities, but not once did she dwell on the limitations to achievement. This is what excites me about education... the freedom to do whatever you choose to become if you are willing and determined to put the time and effort into it. As a teacher I want to offer students tools and encouragement to pursue their goals, but also reassuring them that there are NO unimportant jobs. If you choose to do this or that the rest of your life that is 100% okay! I just do not want you to wake up one morning and think, "this is all I have." This is something I can and do attest too, because I haven't completely settled on my career yet... I'm still a work in progress....
The dreaded third question that haunted me for this posting is the role the educator plays in this authentic learning... maybe its the word teacher, educator, professor, mentor... that's the problem and maybe I could use the ideals Vygotsky presented in his learning theory... ZPD (zone of proximal development and Scaffolding. The idea is that when you are presented with a new concept there is an optimal time (ZPD) for learning to take place and if someone that already has that knowledge is present and helps (scaffolds) us then we learn that new concept and now have the ability to help others. This says to me we all are teachers, while we are all also learners, which when you think about it authentic learning opportunities are those that present themselves as a chance for you learn while you teach and vice versa.
All of this helps me connect the theme of the chapter 8 reading in that we are surrounded by choices of what to attend to and what to ignore, what competes for our time and how we spend the time we have. All choices have consequences (not going to debate good or bad) and with these consequences come opportunities for us to learn or teach. This reminds me of an adage from yore... "life's too short to make all the mistakes yourself... learn from others"... discerning what that learning is may be a good place to start. The media source puts forth their story with their observational bias, from their viewpoint, with their editing, the learning (authentic learning) is what are they really wanting me to know about this topic. Like the TedxRainier, what did the storyteller (Sarah) really want me to take from her story... was it possibilities? ... was how she and her friends changed the world? ... was it to challenge the people of Seattle to support her initiative? ... or did she want to challenge me to be anything I wanted to be? ... maybe she was guiding the listener into realizing that to change the world you need to start with yourself and your community by getting involved (civics 101), which changes the world even if its just your little part of it.
Citation:
Hobbs, R. (2011). Research as Authentic Inquiry. In Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.
Tedx Rainier: Sarah Stuteville; Journalism Revived
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