NUA Summer Academy 2010
Themes: Equity, Justice, Simple Fairness
Community Builder: Dream Practice
What is an essential practice that if all schools took it on would change the world? Share with others.
Practices, Beliefs and Structures
Yvette Jackson
What is the Pedagogy of Confidence?
Start with strengths! Let’s go deep into the pedagogy of confidence.
Reflects: The fearless expectation and support for all students to demonstrate high intellectual performance.
Enables: Teachers and students have voice and leadership for self directed learning
Enacted via: The art and science of learning to create practices that nurture HIP.
Facilliated via: Mediative Learning Communities
Intellectual Character: For educators to effectivly cultivate student’s oritentation towards thinking, we need to be oriented towards thinking.
HIP: Application of Complex levels of thinking for a product
:: Decentering: how do you see from many different perspectives
:: Hypothetico-Deductive Thinking: hypothesizing and reasoning
:: Dialogical Thinking: take multiple perspectives and come up with your own perspective.
:::: FRAME OF REFERENCE ::::
The evolution of the Pedagogy of Confidence:
Beliefs:
1. Intelligence is modifiable
2. Interconnectedness between culture, language, and cognition
3. Everybody benefits from a focus on HIP
Philosophy:
When given a gifted education, students will show giftedness
Hypothesis:
Theory:
What are the kids of things that need to be enacted to develop a school focused on Pedagogy of confidence? Buy into the belief. Staff development. Access to data. Focus on strenghts. Collaborative community. Risk taking and adminstration support. Leap of Faith::paradigm shift–teachers and students. Adults position themselves as learners. Tools to draw from–strategies, tech tools, etc–to support all students individually. Find ways/means to collaborate more.
1. Beliefs of all teachers that students can learn
2. Students are part of the discourse
3. School becomes an oasis where strengths are valued and self-directed learning is enabled
How are students lives narrated by others?
:: It is not what the issue is, but why the issue is and what can be done about it. This is at the core of the POC.
Assessment: look at the exam and what is the theory/philosophy behind the exam? What do the students need to be able to do? What do they need to know? Other things that came up?
(ELA Test question)
Do: Read and write. Infer. Evaluate for accuracy. Make connections to previous texts. Analyze. Synthesize. Higher level thinking to come up with a low level answer.
Know: Assumption of previous learning. Know what the Plymouth colony is. Know what a colony is. Know why people left Europe to begin with. Know how to take a test. Know QAR to understand the question–author and you question. Know who and what Indians are–Native Americans. Concept of 1600’s–colonial times. Europeans–where and who. What is a settlement? What is a moral? What are your morals? What is a good life–how does that compare to the child’s idea of a good life?
Other: Format of test has changed–how students interact with test. The descriptive verb for the prompt is wrong. Pretend you are European by descent. What is the frame of reference?
If culture can impact cognition, how does that impact assessment/learning?
What is the standard? What are they trying to get at? What is the philosophy behind the test? White, western European.
The expirences the children bring, affects how the children create meaning.
How would different ethnic groups view the test? What might they be able to relate to? Coming to the “new” world. Ask them. Concept of movement. Tell you their frame of reference. Reletives on a different continent.
Culture affects cognition because it create a specific frame of reference. What is the frame of reference the students bring to school?
Culture :: Language :: Cognition
—-Windows and Mirrors—-words for children to connect to content and ideas from other people and their frame of reference.
Mediative learning communities create a new culture for and from the group. Our job is to connect to their frame of reference.
High Operational Practices
- Amplifying student strengths
- Building relationships
- Nurturing High Intellectual performances
- Providing enrichment experiences
- Incoporating Prerequisites for learning
- Situating learning in the lives of students
Philosophical statement about learning:
All students are naturally capable of learning and since intelligence is modifiable, it is our responsibility to start with student strengths, build positive relationships, and meaningfully connect to their frame of reference. All students will flourish given the right conditions.
