Ecology of Education

Carolyn Steel provides some relevant historical context for how we eat and the way food has shaped our cities and societies. Her plea for more mindfulness and sustainability is not only rational, it will one day become imperative. Great for providing background information for teachers or to bolster student understanding of anthropological impact of agriculture practices.

Dan Pink, author of the popular Whole New Mind, offers insights into what research tells us about motivation, potential, and the value (or lack their of) of reward systems.  It is a great video that has obvious implications for educators, especially those who feel that the seeming infallibility (and immediate gratification) of a carrot-on-a-stick is actually a hook without a worm. He also explores motivators that have long term benefits for learners and that help unlock the mind’s potential to think critically and creatively.

Janine Benyus showcases some innovative breakthroughs in science and engineering thanks to biomimicry, which seeks to emulate “Nature’s best biological ideas to solve human problems”.  It is a fascinating and enlightening peak at an emerging trend built around the simple essential question, “How has nature overcome this obstacle?” The ensuing discoveries invariably lead to more sustainable and efficient designs and technologies.

The implications for education are profound.  Not only do students need access to investigations that encourage them to pursue solutions to complex problems by looking at how nature has solved the problem, they also need opportunities to observe, explore, and reflect on the natural world . At AskNature.org high school students can enter a Biomimicry Student Design Competition to help learn the skills necessary to find and understand nature’s elegant methods for surviving and thriving.

Ultimately, our long term survival and sustainability is contingent on our capacity for maintaining the system that sustains us. It is imperative that we expose students to new methods for solving problems.

In this short video from TED Talks, mathematician Arthur Benjamin offers up his idea of what he would do if appointed Math Czar of Education. While some math purists may take (and some have taken) offense to his suggestion that calculus would not remain the peak of all math education, I think embedded in his talk are important questions fundamental to how we look at math and learning.

What math skills are most useful? What math is most practical? How might we make math more engaging, sexy, and relevant to students?

These questions do not, by themselves, create a mutually exclusive relationship between calculus and statistics and/or probability. I think it does however, force us to take a second look at how we create and present a math curriculum that engages learners and applies math to the real world students (and adults) live in.

(Thanks @kdwashburn)

In another outstanding video from Edutopia’s Educator page of the Digital Generation Project, Henry Jenkins, participatory media guru and Director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program discusses “this new media landscape” and its implications for learning, teaching, and integrating media literacy.  He challenges us as educators and participants in media to look beyond “natives vs. immigrants” in envisioning and implementing a participatory curriculum that helps students “pool knowledge” with each other.  He advocates for a paradigm shift from the deschooling, deskilling, and devaluing that often happens as soon as students walk into the classroom.

“Originally published on May 27, 2009 © Edutopia.org; The George Lucas Educational Foundation.”

In a world where our students are increasingly surpassing our skills in understanding and utilizing technology, Vicki Davis, aka @CoolCatTeacher, has found a way to harness their enthusiasm and potential to help inform her teaching.  In this video from Edutopia’s Digital Generation Project, Vicki Davis connects her students to the world through a deft use of wiki’s, blogs, avatars, and anything in-between.  Her approach is successful partly due to her own excitement for and expertise in the digital medium, but also becuase she approaches teaching as a learner, allowing students to explore new domains and then teach her a thing or two.  The outcome is an education that provides students with relevant and meaningful skills, while also bridging the gap between school life and home life.

Originally published May 27, 2009 © Edutopia.org; The George Lucas Educational Foundation.