Mr. Moreno's Growth Mindset
Learning PHILOSOPHY rEFLECTION
“Be the change that you want to see in the world” said Mahatma Gandhi who inspired the world with his thoughts. Every single day, I spend time in this parenthesis of my life to evaluate my day with my students and reflect about my role as a learning facilitator, in a title I school. Where 88 % of the students have Hispanic background, 78 % of them are at risk students, and 42% of them have limited English proficiency. How can I influence my students to be stronger, perseverant, competitive, and understanding of their reality in the community. Why it is so important to work smart, hard, fun, and learn more than everybody else, in order to break the chain of poverty.
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In my 12 years of teaching and daily observations from Kindergarten to 8th grade. I have noticed that every school community has different challenges, opportunities, and necessities. However, the community that I work with, is more fragile, more susceptible to perish, and lacks a voice to protect the identity and the values of their culture. Every year they are subject to programs that do not recognize the importance of their diversity, their values, and beliefs. To create an authentic learning opportunity and project them effectively to a better future. Such as the “bilingual early exit program” where the best students are transitioned from two languages to one limiting their potential and reducing the connection with their families. Another example, is the Lucy Calkins program from Columbia University, that is effective for students who come from homes where they are exposed to sophisticated oral language and who acquire knowledge from well -educated parents, but not adequate for title I students. I describe these examples as a new “trail of tears” for disadvantage communities. Every year, we receive 6th grade students with more than one-year gap in math, reading, and writing. This reality forces a teaching philosophy, over a learning philosophy.
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I deeply believe in the combination of constructivism, connectivism, and cognitivist load learning theories. These theories are correlated because human beings by nature are always in permanent learning, questioning, inventing, discovering, and challenging themselves. We as humans design and use new tools and technologies to figure out things and solve paradigms in order to create new opportunities. As a learning facilitator in a minority community school, I understand, feel, and visualize the importance of embedding these theories on a daily praxis to implement a new culture of learning environment to catapult them to their future. Our students are left behind in opportunities in technology, math, reading comprehension, and writing compared to students from wealthy schools. My role is to engage and motivate my students to be analytic, deep thinkers, problem solvers, and to develop technology skills instead of just preparing them for the standardize test.
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I side with Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner of the constructivism philosophy of education theory and I believe that learning is a continues process anywhere, anytime. That everyone can do, on their own pace, independent or interacting with others and nature. However, in schools’ settings the learning facilitators have the responsibility to develop the congruence between beliefs and practice. About student engagement, authentic learning and manifestation of them on a positive learning environment in order to be more effective. Students need to make meaningful connections, acquire knowledge (cognitivism load theory by John Sweller), and have experiences that help them to be productive in their future. Where NovaGenesis, artificial intelligent, mass data, nanotechnology, and quantum control will create a new opportunity to learn and share information across the world according with George Siemens and Stephen Downes in the theory of connectivism.
Teachers own beliefs about teaching, learning, and students affect their planning, instruction, and evaluation processes in the classroom. They also repercute on the student’s learning and performance in the classroom. Perpetuating traditional pedagogical practices. Today, we continue observing teachers with practices that were recommended last century (The Factory Model of Education), because their beliefs play bigger roles in decision making than acquired knowledge does. On these classes, students cannot talk, interact, get involve, or think different. If they use a computer it is only to follow a lesson of the same structure online.
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I believe on the nature of human being, whom learn actively, communicate, collaborate, learn from other, share information, and experiment. We need to remember that learning is a dynamic and ongoing process that needs an active educational environment. Where learners can create authentic real -world projects; interactive presentation with critical analytic thinking; and take advantage of the opportunities of the community in order to help them.
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We have to take a proactive approach to understand, what we believe about learning and design our active learning environments according of the school community. In order to create a strong foundation of instructional practices and curriculum planning based on research evidences, not on tradition of teaching philosophy. During my growth mindset in this journey of digital learning, I started to visualize and internalize the influence of me in my regular math classes students and especially on the Techies Club members. Where the constructivism, connectivism, and cognitivist load learning theories flow more frequently. My Learning Manifesto is just a morula.
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In this journey, I am learning and collecting experiences from each member of the Techies Club. Each member has their own interest, style, pace, and their own intrinsic motivation. They explore, discover, design, and create in a collaborative and fun learning environment. Creating apps prototypes, craft digital drawing, digital music, record video-clips and coding. They look for new members to join the club. They feel free and motivated to create and follow their own plan of each session and learn from their mistakes and see them as an opportunity to grow. I also learned that they have different layers of perseverance. Some members persist in their objective and plan independently; others need support and reinforcement to stay focus in their plan; while some need a lot of support.
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In sort, creating an active learning environment with clear knowledge with the combination of the cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism learning theories can prepare better students from title I schools to be more successful in a digital age.
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