Thursday, June 4, 2009

School Laptops: Norway versus Philadelphia


June is the time of year when I like to chill out by the pool and read. Recently, I was looking through my Spring 2009 issue of GOOD magazine and found an interesting article. It discussed the observations of two inner city high school classes that are both using laptops. One class was in Norway and the other Philadelphia. The Norwegian students were working on problem solving with the use of freeware that challenges them to build the cheapest functional bridge. Meanwhile; back in the United States, kids were plotting simple inequalities on a number line. BORING!!!


As a frequent participant in school observations, it is sad how frequently I see students who are not challenged or given the intellectual freedom to solve problems in creative and unique ways. For the most part, students in our district are being taught what the teachers believe will help them on standardized test. According to Andreas Schleicher, "The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the ones that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource." Is that what the United States is working toward? We all know that in "real life" problems don't come with multiple choice answers. Since life is not a standardized test; I believe we need to either find a better way to test students on how well they can use the knowledge they are gaining at school, or begin teaching in a way that will ensure students can solve problems that require more than multiple choice answers.



Here is a link & image below to the freeware mentioned in the article: http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/index.htm







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