PME 811- Post #8
- Riley Victoria
- Nov 3, 2019
- 3 min read
Two things I have realized this week. First, everyone has different teaching philosophies, ideas, design, ect AND THAT IS OKAY! Accept that, understand, and believe there is many strategies and ways to achieve the same goal. You are in charge of your students journeys and how you teach! Second, is giving students boundaries killing their creativity or has society created an atmosphere where student NEED choices to succeed?
With my focus to still achieve the student-centered classroom, I know a big part is "Learner-centered teaching motivates students by giving them some control over learning processes."
But are the boundaries for projects I am creating killing the creativity in students (example of this in post #7)?
After such a great turn out from my project in post #7, I decided I wanted to allow students to pick their own research topic for the next writing unit. The curriculum we use asks them to "research a city" and in previous years we have asked students to "research an animal." I do believe there is an importance to structure and rules, but what is the harm in allowing them to pick their topic? Truly, what could go terribly wrong?
I thought I was brilliant when suggesting to my co-workers that we allow students to pick any topic they want to research! Students who like Roblox can research that, my kid who loves history can research a historical battle, and my student who loves Taylor Swift can research her. I was envisioning students typing aware fearlessly at the computers thrilled about this assignments. My co-workers thought differently. They thought that we should give them more structure, give them a few topics to pick from, that this could be a disaster and become overwhelming for the students. Were they correct in the aspect not giving students choice on content that they do not know yet? Or are they overwhelmed with the idea and attention that student choice requires from the teacher?
I feel we have killed creativity in the classroom. Society is always telling us what to do, how to behave. We are constantly being told the next step to take or what we can and can not do. If we give students the opportunity to decide on their own, can they even handle it? Or have we set them up and prepared them to not be creative?
I decided to type my question in the google search bar, "Should be allow students to pick their own research topic?" to see what other teachers thought... Here are a few quotes I compiled that gave me hope that I can bring creativity back into my classroom!
"By inviting her class to choose their own subjects for a historical reformers project, Sarah Cooper learned a lot about her students' interests and passions."
"I wholly advocate such flexibility, which allows students to tailor a generally interesting course to their individual passions and gives them an opportunity to take increased responsibility for their own learning."
"The common argument is that teachers avoid student choice because they are afraid of turning over control to students. However, the problem is not loss of control for teachers, but the difficulty of directing their attention to each individual student. Student choice can create a wide variety of individual projects with a range of outcomes and varying degrees of progress in classroom learning."
"Students should be given the opportunity to choose their own topics for their literary works. It will create more student interest in the literary arts, inspire student inventiveness and bolster confidence in their linguistic abilities."
It is clear that students can handle this opportunity and will blossom with the opportunity to be creative. We often underestimate our little ones. Let them try, let them fail, but don't kill their creativity.
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