rambling & service-learning (adapted BB post)
I'm not sure if this will go anywhere, but bear with me...
I've just started the book Orality and Literacy (which you recommended to me earlier this semester, Bob). It's really interesting so far, though since it was published in 1982 the discussion of electronic communication is limited to television, radio, and the like.
A parallel to something Bob mentioned in the last post is the idea that cultures that use writing study. Because we can re-read text and learn from them, education becomes abstract. Oral cultures have apprenticeships (and I'd guess mentorships) in which studying--as we know it--doesn't exist. Learners work with teachers to pick up skills in order to be able to do skilled work.
So, the mention of tying education to something that matters to people, such as meaningful work, makes me think about internships and service-learning opportunities. Taking abstract lessons and tying them to something real.
Has anyone here participated in doing/teaching a service-learning class? It's really unbelievable.
The model NCSU used was to have a class with reading/discussion/lecture/and writing. The students broke into groups and came up with meaningful service projects that they could do that would reinforce the course material. Throughout the semester the groups would work on the service project, keep journals, and meet in regular reflection groups (guided by SL experienced students) and discuss what they had learned in the "real world" experience and how it tied to class. Everything we learned in the class was tangible, and I ended up putting much more work into that class than I put in others... all because the material seemed so important and real...
So, I guess in this semi-long ramble, I'd say that finding that desire and tying into it does, in my experience, make the learning more exciting to the learner... it's a matter of doing the legwork to find the desire or provide opportunities for the student to find that desire.
I've just started the book Orality and Literacy (which you recommended to me earlier this semester, Bob). It's really interesting so far, though since it was published in 1982 the discussion of electronic communication is limited to television, radio, and the like.
A parallel to something Bob mentioned in the last post is the idea that cultures that use writing study. Because we can re-read text and learn from them, education becomes abstract. Oral cultures have apprenticeships (and I'd guess mentorships) in which studying--as we know it--doesn't exist. Learners work with teachers to pick up skills in order to be able to do skilled work.
So, the mention of tying education to something that matters to people, such as meaningful work, makes me think about internships and service-learning opportunities. Taking abstract lessons and tying them to something real.
Has anyone here participated in doing/teaching a service-learning class? It's really unbelievable.
The model NCSU used was to have a class with reading/discussion/lecture/and writing. The students broke into groups and came up with meaningful service projects that they could do that would reinforce the course material. Throughout the semester the groups would work on the service project, keep journals, and meet in regular reflection groups (guided by SL experienced students) and discuss what they had learned in the "real world" experience and how it tied to class. Everything we learned in the class was tangible, and I ended up putting much more work into that class than I put in others... all because the material seemed so important and real...
So, I guess in this semi-long ramble, I'd say that finding that desire and tying into it does, in my experience, make the learning more exciting to the learner... it's a matter of doing the legwork to find the desire or provide opportunities for the student to find that desire.
posted by Lauren Pressley at 22:09
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