Into the Driver's Seat

It is a myth that we operate under a set of oppressive bureaucratic constraints. In reality, teachers have a great deal of autonomy in the work they chose to do in their classrooms. In most cases it is our culture that provides the constraints. For individual teachers, trying out new practices and pedagogy is risky business and both our culture, and our reliance on hierarchy, provide the ideal barriers for change not to occur. As Pogo pointed out long ago, “we have met the enemy and it is us.” http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/brian-harrison/2013/09/5/stop-asking-permission-change

Educational psychology has focused on the concepts of learned helplessness and more currently growth-fixed mindsets as a way to explain how and why students give up in the classroom setting.  These ideas can also be applied to educators in this day of forced standardization, testing, scripted curriculum, and school initiatives.

Learn more:

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=Growth+Mindset

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/professional-development-why-educators-and-teachers-cant-catch-up-that-quickly-and-how-to-change-it/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/learning-to-learn-for-my-professional-development-i-did-it-my-way/

Via Gust MEES

A major theme during the Educon 2.8 conference in Philadelphia during the last week of January, 2016, was learner empowerment. Here is a Storify of tweets about empowerment from the conference: https://storify.com/jackiegerstein/what-conditions-are-necessary-for-empowerment-in-s. ; Highlighted Tweets include . . . The conference and Twitter discussions motivated me to write this post on learner empowerment. Thomas and Velthouse…

 

Learn more:

 

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=Empowering

 

Via Gust MEES, Nancy Jones