Post by Admin on Feb 16, 2016 17:17:38 GMT
In this weeks’ Cultural Relevant Tools for Teaching, Educating, and Advancing, we want to present to you the information that will allow ourselves to think critically about how do we effectively prepare for inviting cultural into our classroom and most important how do we put that plan to action.
Deconstructing the Lesson: As educators, our speaker Wren Walker Robbins, PH.D (Director of Changing Communities Consulting) spoke about the importance of creating a classroom space that invites the perspectives of authentic cultural models. As educators, it is important that we constantly reevaluate our lesson to deconstruct it to make sure that we are eliminating and confronting cultural models and explicit theories that are exclusive presented in our lesson. Cultural Models are belief, values, and/or attitudes that one has. A cultural model is often unconscious. Explicit Theory is when we make our cultural models active. We are conscious of them and thus they can create a great divide or a great community.
Randy L. Hover, PH.D, Youngstown State University speaks about the process of deconstructing a lesson.
In general, Deconstruction is a process that seeks to: (Derived in large part from Cherryholmes, C. H., 1988)
A. Illuminate counter structures such as the claim that by working hard in school anyone can reach any position or goal in society when in reality schools serve to sort, limit, and stratify people across race, class, gender, and ethnicity, disability, and lifestyle.
B. Expose history, politics, and values such as are manifested in the unequal distribution of power. It looks for the centering or marginalization of people and for the values motivating the people and policies that created the construct.
C. Examines relations between truth (small "t") and credibility in terms of what the construct claims, what actually happens, and the motives for making the claims made about the construct. Credibility = Claim + Motive (Broudy, 1981)
D. Examines the sources of the construct in terms of both metanarratives and ideologies.
E. Establishes the foundation for reconstructing the construct such that the reconstruction promotes intellectual, social, economic, and political empowerment within the vision of democratic ideals.
Deconstructing consist of exposing all the cultural models within the lesson Once you do that, you can start reconstructing the lesson. Reconstructing the Lesson: Is the process of recognizing the cultural models in the lesson plan and rethinking/revamping them to First, take them out of the lesson completely because they hold not authentic place in the lesson; second, expose them to furthermore present counter narratives to bring in different cultural models; and three, use them to enhance the critical thinking skills of scholars in comparison to their own experiences. Below are some areas to think about when
reconstructing a lesson plan:
1. Does the activity-assignment provide the student the opportunity to learn, to experience using the knowledge stated in the instructional objectives as the primary means of resolving the problem?
a. The test of this is:
i. Read the assignment and then ask-- What knowledge is needed to do the assignment?
ii. If the knowledge required to do the assignment does not include the knowledge stated in the instructional objectives, then the opportunity to learn the specified knowledge is absent and the activity is not valid.
iii. An activity-assignment is valid when it requires the student to use the knowledge it claims to require.
iv. Then ask if the activity-assignment can be successfully completed using surrogate knowledge.
1. If the answer to the preceding question is "yes," then the activity is still not valid but, there is opportunity to learn (to use and experience) concepts, principles, and ideas via the hidden curriculum. Make the hidden curriculum the unhidden curriculum
v. Is the activity-assignment reasonably authentic? Note: An authentic activity is one that has congruence with the real world and is representative of a situation where the knowledge being applied is reasonably analogous to or congruent with real-world applications.
1. If the assignment is not valid, authenticity is moot.
2. If the assignment is not authentic, but has been deemed valid then what the student is learning is miseducative (Dewey, 1938). The student is learning the inappropriate use of the knowledge and, therefore, being mis-educated and deskilled.
2. How does the activity-assignment function to facilitate the relationship discussed by Dewey between the psychology of the child and the logic of the subject matter?
a. Does the student have decision latitude in determining how to solve the problem?
(Yes = empowering)
b. Is the student required to replicate specific steps listed by the teacher?
(Yes = deskilling)
c. Are there multiple approaches to solving the problem?
(Yes = empowering)
d. Are their multiple solutions/resolutions to the problem?
(Yes = empowering)
3. Does the activity-assignment encourage or require critically reflective thinking?
a. Are any elements of critically reflective thinking contained in the instructional objectives that are articulated in the assignment?
(Yes = empowering)
b. Are any elements in the activity-assignment contrary to an obstacle to developing skills and dispositions toward critically reflective thinking?
(Yes = deskilling)