Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Updated Timeline
Timeline
January – March
Identify goals – find individual goals of pursuit
· Eric – perceptual/psychological
· Samantha – Historical developments and future trends
· Brandon – Functionality driven design
· Leah – Learning outside of traditional environments
Create research plan
Identifying potential sources
Creating methods
Gathering resources/references
Participated in real planning phases (architects meeting)
Observed and recorded use of studio space
Completed IRB/CITI certification
April
· Get IRB approval/waiver
· Interviews / investigate questionnaires
· Interviews
· Design surveys
· General secondary research
· Progress report
o Catered to target audience in order for them to anticipate our future completed research (brief)
o Class progress to outline needed future work (comprehensive)
o Poster presentation
April 3rd - 5th – Individual research/interview plans (conducting as well)
-post significant findings to weblog prior to the 9th
April 10th – 12th – Finalizing plans and find gaps
April 17th - 19th – Complete remaining research for the semester
April 24th – 26th – Compile and revise short paper summarizing our findings and goals
January – March
Identify goals – find individual goals of pursuit
· Eric – perceptual/psychological
· Samantha – Historical developments and future trends
· Brandon – Functionality driven design
· Leah – Learning outside of traditional environments
Create research plan
Identifying potential sources
Creating methods
Gathering resources/references
Participated in real planning phases (architects meeting)
Observed and recorded use of studio space
Completed IRB/CITI certification
April
· Get IRB approval/waiver
· Interviews / investigate questionnaires
· Interviews
· Design surveys
· General secondary research
· Progress report
o Catered to target audience in order for them to anticipate our future completed research (brief)
o Class progress to outline needed future work (comprehensive)
o Poster presentation
April 3rd - 5th – Individual research/interview plans (conducting as well)
-post significant findings to weblog prior to the 9th
April 10th – 12th – Finalizing plans and find gaps
April 17th - 19th – Complete remaining research for the semester
April 24th – 26th – Compile and revise short paper summarizing our findings and goals
Monday, March 26, 2007
Positive Classroom Experiences
I view a classroom to be effective and successful if it instils in a child a sense of wonder, curiosity, and a desire to learn. School should not be the horrible pill shoved down one's throat; it can be succesful and create a person of value to one's self. I personally consider a class to be succesful if I leave the lecture w/ questions and what if sequences or perhaps if I leave w/ a new awareness and perspective of our world, its functioning, and life in general. If a student can become independently motivated to learn and a desire to succed, knowledge has been transferred. Not just, patterns, facts, and textbook information but a way of living that will affect a person's interaction w/ others, and other aspects of life.
Ambition, that is what I am talking about. School offers us pieces of a puzzle, which we then use to add and apply throughout our life; however, if a classroom or more importantly a teacher can introduce and encourage ambition in a student this student will be a successful "result" from a classroom and this will translate to business owners, future coworkers, friends, etc. etc. These are my thoughts on a succesful classroom. Curiosity and ambition are the two most valuable characteristics/attitudes a classroom can present.
Ambition, that is what I am talking about. School offers us pieces of a puzzle, which we then use to add and apply throughout our life; however, if a classroom or more importantly a teacher can introduce and encourage ambition in a student this student will be a successful "result" from a classroom and this will translate to business owners, future coworkers, friends, etc. etc. These are my thoughts on a succesful classroom. Curiosity and ambition are the two most valuable characteristics/attitudes a classroom can present.
Friday, March 16, 2007
The signs of a successful classroom
A successful classroom is one in which it is difficult to discern which students are at the top and which are at the bottom. A class that draws out great levels of participation, attention, and most importantly a thirst for knowledge does a great service for those students involved. The students in a class should be the gauge of its success. The reason the class is there in the first place is to prepare those that are currently not prepared for the future. Although there will inherently exist differences between students, a successful classroom will exhibit the ability to draw out the best in all of its students.
To create a classroom that caters solely to one kind of individual, whose traits and characteristics are known, is easy when compared to the real challenge at hand; create a classroom that caters in some way to everyone throughout a span of years in which it is used. Certainly to create a classroom that makes A students out of every pupil is seemingly impossible; however, it is possible to create a classroom that takes more information into consideration than ever before, aiming to enable its students to create the world that best suits them when their time comes.
To create a classroom that caters solely to one kind of individual, whose traits and characteristics are known, is easy when compared to the real challenge at hand; create a classroom that caters in some way to everyone throughout a span of years in which it is used. Certainly to create a classroom that makes A students out of every pupil is seemingly impossible; however, it is possible to create a classroom that takes more information into consideration than ever before, aiming to enable its students to create the world that best suits them when their time comes.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Successful Classroom
A successful classroom is one that produces a student who is able to not only regurgitate information, but also analyze it in order to turn it into useful knowledge that can be implemented in problem solving. This student must be able to analyze the information they receive and use it with their own reason. The measure for a successful classroom can not solely rely on test scores, it must be the classroom which produces the most well-rounded student that is prepared for the next stage of his or her life. How to find this student is another question. So what does this student’s classroom look like? First of all, it is imperative that all technology be available to the teacher. Internet access, projection monitors, presentations screens, television, audio, etc. should be implemented into every classroom. Information must come alive through every medium possible. The classroom setting must allow for hands on learning. Studies show that people learn best through experience. So how does a classroom do this? Flexibility. Classrooms with moveable furniture allow for different teachers’ individual experiments, group collaboration, and the addition and subtraction of elements such as presentation screens as needs change. In addition to allowing flexibility, when a classroom’s aesthetics change, it can raise enthusiasm, comfort, or relaxation, and if nothing else, it will break the monotony of the everyday.
Even the most trivial change can affect the learning that happens in a classroom. Take the color of the walls. Certain colors promote relaxation, others stimulation. A study was conducted in an elementary classroom by painting a white colored wall to blue. After this was done there was a 22% decrease in distracted mannerisms in the students as well as a 9% decrease in blood pressure. So it is to be assumed that a relaxed student will be better focused. The colors of a classroom need to be conducive to relaxation. The lighting of a room also contributes to a student’s relaxation and comfort levels. So what goes on top of the color? What should be on the walls? Presentation aids can act as billboards that sell the information being taught in the same way that an actual billboard sells a product. When information comes alive through media presentation, it is inherently more important, interesting, and pertinent to a student. The arrangement of furniture can also affect the focus and comfort of a student. Innovative furniture placement, the empty space between the furniture, and the amount of distance separating the students from the teacher and each other are all aspects that should be considered in an ideal classroom. A comfortable level of acoustics must also be attained. Every aspect of a student’s surroundings effects the way they learn and how they will use the information they are receiving so each aspect must be considered in an ideal classroom.
Even the most trivial change can affect the learning that happens in a classroom. Take the color of the walls. Certain colors promote relaxation, others stimulation. A study was conducted in an elementary classroom by painting a white colored wall to blue. After this was done there was a 22% decrease in distracted mannerisms in the students as well as a 9% decrease in blood pressure. So it is to be assumed that a relaxed student will be better focused. The colors of a classroom need to be conducive to relaxation. The lighting of a room also contributes to a student’s relaxation and comfort levels. So what goes on top of the color? What should be on the walls? Presentation aids can act as billboards that sell the information being taught in the same way that an actual billboard sells a product. When information comes alive through media presentation, it is inherently more important, interesting, and pertinent to a student. The arrangement of furniture can also affect the focus and comfort of a student. Innovative furniture placement, the empty space between the furniture, and the amount of distance separating the students from the teacher and each other are all aspects that should be considered in an ideal classroom. A comfortable level of acoustics must also be attained. Every aspect of a student’s surroundings effects the way they learn and how they will use the information they are receiving so each aspect must be considered in an ideal classroom.
Last question before break
Please describe in 2 paragraphs or less, what "successful outcomes" means in terms of classrooms. Make sure to identify "to whom." In other words, who should get to be the "benchmark" for determining what represents success, and then what does "success" mean.
Have a great break, and remember to be safe. :-)
Have a great break, and remember to be safe. :-)
Goals
The goal of our research is to reach an understanding of how space can be utilized in order to best promote learning as well as the preparation for the contemporary information based workplace. Our findings will be published in a report that will be presented to officials in charge of the design of educational space.
Objectives
1. Research the historical use of space in order to understand if and why it has evolved
2. Interview teachers and students at all levels of education
3. Interview employers and employees in order to find out what qualities employers hope to find in people entering the workplace and if these qualities are present or if education is failing to produce adequate workers.
4. Conduct surveys with teachers, students, employees, and employers
5. Observe classroom settings that are already in use at all levels of education and across all curriculums in order to find out what special arrangements are conducive to focused, active learning.
6. Conduct experiments within the classroom setting in order to observe the effect of changing an aspect of the space whether it is a aesthetical or technological change.
7. Come to understand what the effects of certain aspects of space have on a student by conducting interviews and surveys.
8. Collect our data and publish our suggestions for constructive educational space.
9. Present the data to whom it may concern.
Literature Reviews
Leah Worthy
Research Questions and Literature Review
Q. What kind of learning should pedagogical spaces encourage?
Source: Inventing Better Schools Philip C Schlechty
“The dominant form of work done by people in the United States, at least until after World War II, was manual work. Manual work requires physical sill m manual dexterity, strength, bone, and sinew. Knowledge work requires thought, analysis, articulation, in-sight, brain power, and reasoning…If industries are to restructure in ways that exploit the power of knowledge and knowledge work, we must have a strong and broad supply of knowledgeable workers.” 38
** New “product” needed: knowledge workers, a person who uses information available and solves new problems rather than plugging it into an existing formula. In addition they must be able to change information they receive in to usable knowledge.
**New access to greater pools of information: information highway, which includes computers, the Internet, ect.
“All citizens from preschoolers to seniors will be called on to handle more information each day than was available to the average citizen in a lifetime only a century ago. If our educational system does not prepare the citizenry to give meaning to this information, to create knowledge as well as to use and evaluate knowledge created by others, citizens will feel overwhelmed by the information they are receiving.” 39-40
**Suggestions to produce these kinds of workers:
• Active learning
• Hands on Experience
• Teach students how to receive and analyze information
o This is important because our concept of what is normal, what other nations and cultures are, and who we should be is shaped by the media we receive.
**Other needs: group collaboration, freethinking, innovation, information analyzing and utilization, well-rounded workers with flexibility.
Q. What elements of space can encourage the kind of learning sited above?
Inclusion of new information transmitting technology like internet, power point presentations, projections, ect.
New arrangements that promote enthusiasm, comfort, relaxation, and focus ect.
(Herman Miller representatives came to Clemson Universty to showcase new products that they believe will do so in the renovations of Daniel hall see www.hermanmiller.com)
Q. What changes have been tried and are these changes that need to be made? Did they work?
1. Change in color and lighting
Studies show that light pastels promote relaxation, decreased blood pressure which lead to better learning and test performance. (Sources: The Investigation of the effects of color (article) Hoadley and Effects of color as an executional cue in advertising (article) Gorn)
Example: An experiment was conducted in which an elementary classroom was painted blue and given different lighting for a period of time, then changed back. The reactions of students were video taped and the number of actions that suggested distraction as well as heart rate was counted in each environment. The results showed that the blue walls led to a 22% decrease in distracted mannerisms and a 9% decrease in heart rate. Is it to be assumed that a more relaxed student is more attentive? (Source: Color and Light effects on learning (article) Grangaard)
Change in walls – visual stimulus in DW Daniel’s German High School
Aspects of space to consider:
Walls:
• What color?
• What should be on walls?
• Where should presentation aids, presentation screens, white boards, maps, posters, ect be placed?
Furniture Arrangement:
• Seating position in relation to other students, room, and teacher
• Accommodating technology/media in classrooms so that all sources of information can be utilized to aid the presentation of information
Teaching methods:
• Position of teacher
• Movements, mannerisms, volume and speed of teachers’ voice
Free space:
• How much should there be and where should it be located?
Audio Acoustics:
• How much noise is conducive to learning?
• What kind of noise if any is conducive to learning?
• What is the effect of a teacher’s voice?
What yields focus without limiting freethinking, group work, and problem solving?
The use of media studies to improve education:
Media captures attention for the purpose of selling a product; think of information as a teacher’s product. Is it possible to take methods used by media to sell information to the typically uninterested or distracted student?
Example: In media color is used to increase enthusiasm for what is being sold. Bright stimulates the brain but light promotes relaxation – which is most conducive to the classroom?
Eric Browning
1.)The importance of physical space in creating supportive learning environments
-This book explores how spaces can be designed to effectively embrace both physical and
virtual learning spaces, and the implications of learning at the intersection of these two
worlds.
2.)Space, objects, minds, and brains
-Spatial based attention and reference frames are addressed here as well as how space
can be utilized to effectively direct the attention of students.
3.)Designing places for learning
-Using cultural information to create schools that work is the goal of this book. It examines
the relationship between school achievement and building conditions. All types of students,
including the disabled, are taken into account when designing learning spaces in this book.
4.)Advances in web-based education : personalized learning environments
-Covers the array of factors that play a part in actually designing personalized learning
spaces.
5.)Learning & behavior
-Psychology journal that may provide insight into the factors involved in learning on a
physiological and perceptual level.
6.)Academic ability, motivation and feedback : a predictor of learning performance
-Examines the personal aspects of learning.
7.)Environment and behavior
-Studies how personality traits can manifast as well as directly effect how a student learns.
Using this knowledge schools can be designed with a greater body of knowledge about its
pupils in mind.
Brandon Grace
The New American Workplace - James O'Toole & Edward Lawler
Inventing Better Schools - Phillip Schlechty
Teaching with Technology: Creating Student Centered Classrooms - Judith Haymore
The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom - Todd Oppenheimer
Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paolo Friere
I also plan to interview many primary sources to identify the virtues and skills upon which employers place high value today and expect to desire over the coming decades. These would include at least one person in all the major sectors of the economy: Medical Care, Technology, Government, Education, Manufacturing, and Service.
Samantha Cawthorne
Websites: There are two websites listed in my last entry. The first provides a directory of one-room schoolhouses throughout the east coast, and can be a handy tool for researching how shool used to be. The second website is a aid for teaching children in a one-room schoolhouse environment. I thought this website was interesting because it is modern,and based on federal code.
Books:
Schools of the Future - this book was published in 1985; it lists some of the chapters as funding and school/business partnerships of today and tommorrow. To compare how our schools of today were viewed in the past would add an additional perspective to this work.
The Problems of American Education - This is another semi-dated book, it was published in 1975. What were the problems in this decade, are they relevant to the problems we are facing today? I thought that Adolescent Meets the Bureacracy as well as The Crisis of Purpose and Identity in Higher Education
Politics, Markets, and America's School: This book was published in 1990, and would be relevant to our discussions of the economy and its influence in the education.
Social History of American Education (Vol.I&II) These books are research books. I want to learn about the facts of American Education. On a side note, one of the practices of my history class was evaluating our sources and their validity. It would be interesting to note when the book was published and how the atmosphere of its time could affect the relaying of information.
Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites 20 Techniques for Managing a Brain-Compatible Classroom: This book is an aid for teachers today. What is the media telling our educators? This book would be interesting to browse through and note the common philosophies of today.
Research Questions
Brandon Grace
Are our current and future educational spaces meeting our needs as a society?
• What are the current requirements in the workforce and how will they change over the next 50 years?
• How are current educational spaces meeting the needs of our workforce?
• Is technology integrated into educational spaces in a way refleting what students can expect when they enter the workforce?
• What new educational spaces should be developed to develop skills students will need in 21st Century Business and Industry?
• What educational techniques will be necessary to prepare these students and how can space assist the process?
I will have to look at sources of information in
Workforce trends (Dept. of Labor Data, Census Data, Business and Economic Journals)
Current and future workspaces (Investigating current systems and analyzing new developments)
Current and Future teaching philosophies (Educational Journals, First Hand Observation)
Current and Future educational Spaces (Journals in Education, Architechture, Technology)
Eric Browning
What are the major influences on a students (school) education, and how does space affect these influences?
-Is there a balance between physical and virtual learning spaces?
-What environmental factors can motivate students to learn?
-What factors distract students from learning?
Leah Worthy
How is one’s education affected by spaces in the environment outside of the classroom.
Samantha Cawthorne
How was education structured in the past and how can space be used in the future to create students ready for the work world.
Background
In communities across the United States, a great deal of public revenue is being spent building new schools. Billions of dollars annually are invested in new educational spaces. Often, little thought is put into the plans guiding these construction programs, and many of the new schools being built are being modelled on the buildings they hope to replace or augment.
These schools are the factories manufacturing the workforce of the future. The unspoken goal of public education is to produce the proper workforce to continue driving the economy forward. The model being currently used was very successful for most of the 20th Century. However, the needs of the employers have changed dramatically in the past few decades, and the economic landscape of the future will require completely different workers to exploit it efficiently. It is essential school districts embarking on new construction plans consider whether the educational spaces to be constructed will meet these changing needs.
Anderson School District Five, serving the Metropolitan Anderson, South Carolina area, is embarking on a comprhensive construction plan intended to serve the community over the next 50 years. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to replace and augment their current facilities. We intend to look at the various elements in educational spaces to make reccomendations on this specific initiative.
Justifications
American education has evolved as the economic systems have changed. A review of these advancements reveals a pragmatic, methodical parade of changes focused on meeting the needs of particular communities. However, the economic landscape has changed much more in the past few years than it has in all of the preceeding decades. The methodical evolution may no longer meet the needs of the dynamic environment. Much more accurate and sometimes revolutionary predictions and plans must be created to meet this challenging environment. This research plans to survey past theories, determine current trends, and make suggestions about future programs.
Outcomes
As we move forward in our research it is essential that we have a plan; a guide map to help direct our steps and remind us the purpose of every action. All of us are working towards the common goal of generating a more effective classroom for students. We are striving to make an environment more efficient and learning friendly as well as develop an initiative, which will better prepare the next generation of workers. Because the stark reality is our country must move forward as a whole from the economy, political system, and especially our public education system. Brandon, Leah, Erix, and I are working towards creating a useful prototype to hopefully present to a political board in Anderson, or basically we want our research to matter therefore it will be taken to those persons who have a hand in the education of tomorrow.
On a more specific level we each have our different tasks and each hope to piece together a different product. Brandon, as a political science major, is interested in the political and economic aspects of classroom dynamics. He wants to know what successful business people are looking for in their employees, what they are not finding, and how this can be corrected. His results from his research will be dynamic and direct and his outcome will be based largely on these results. Leah, is approaching our research question from a different viewpoint of not how the classroom can aid a child in education but how does that child’s entire environment and his/hers interaction with it change their “education.” Through observation and personal interviews Leah will produce an assessment on different environments, its actual affect on people, and how this can be incorporated into the classroom. With Erix research we see a change of perspective; he is interested in not how the environment impacts a child’s uptake of knowledge but rather how that child himself/herself affecting their knowledge gained. This encompasses physical aspects, as well as teaching methods. His outcome will be a compilation of these many different factors in individual education. And finally, I will be focusing on the history of classroom education in the United States. I will report how it has or has not changed; if it has changed why, and what remnants of the past and or existing models should we maintain. My outcome will be a mini progress report detailing what has been done, what has or has not been effective, and how this can aid in our main presentation.
Potential Difficulties
1 – Research overlaps / unnecessary duplications
2 – Time and Resource constraints
3 – Availability
4 – Public cooperation and support
5 – Application of research as well as cohesive working amongst sources
6 – Ability to properly interpret results.
Conceptual Frameworks
This will often depend on our perspective. Who counts? Teachers, employers, interviewees. Who will be the subject of our “effective” goals, or who are we working towards creating an effective space. (Teachers, businessmen) There are many different sources of data, test scores, applications within life, etc.
The goal of our research is to reach an understanding of how space can be utilized in order to best promote learning as well as the preparation for the contemporary information based workplace. Our findings will be published in a report that will be presented to officials in charge of the design of educational space.
Objectives
1. Research the historical use of space in order to understand if and why it has evolved
2. Interview teachers and students at all levels of education
3. Interview employers and employees in order to find out what qualities employers hope to find in people entering the workplace and if these qualities are present or if education is failing to produce adequate workers.
4. Conduct surveys with teachers, students, employees, and employers
5. Observe classroom settings that are already in use at all levels of education and across all curriculums in order to find out what special arrangements are conducive to focused, active learning.
6. Conduct experiments within the classroom setting in order to observe the effect of changing an aspect of the space whether it is a aesthetical or technological change.
7. Come to understand what the effects of certain aspects of space have on a student by conducting interviews and surveys.
8. Collect our data and publish our suggestions for constructive educational space.
9. Present the data to whom it may concern.
Literature Reviews
Leah Worthy
Research Questions and Literature Review
Q. What kind of learning should pedagogical spaces encourage?
Source: Inventing Better Schools Philip C Schlechty
“The dominant form of work done by people in the United States, at least until after World War II, was manual work. Manual work requires physical sill m manual dexterity, strength, bone, and sinew. Knowledge work requires thought, analysis, articulation, in-sight, brain power, and reasoning…If industries are to restructure in ways that exploit the power of knowledge and knowledge work, we must have a strong and broad supply of knowledgeable workers.” 38
** New “product” needed: knowledge workers, a person who uses information available and solves new problems rather than plugging it into an existing formula. In addition they must be able to change information they receive in to usable knowledge.
**New access to greater pools of information: information highway, which includes computers, the Internet, ect.
“All citizens from preschoolers to seniors will be called on to handle more information each day than was available to the average citizen in a lifetime only a century ago. If our educational system does not prepare the citizenry to give meaning to this information, to create knowledge as well as to use and evaluate knowledge created by others, citizens will feel overwhelmed by the information they are receiving.” 39-40
**Suggestions to produce these kinds of workers:
• Active learning
• Hands on Experience
• Teach students how to receive and analyze information
o This is important because our concept of what is normal, what other nations and cultures are, and who we should be is shaped by the media we receive.
**Other needs: group collaboration, freethinking, innovation, information analyzing and utilization, well-rounded workers with flexibility.
Q. What elements of space can encourage the kind of learning sited above?
Inclusion of new information transmitting technology like internet, power point presentations, projections, ect.
New arrangements that promote enthusiasm, comfort, relaxation, and focus ect.
(Herman Miller representatives came to Clemson Universty to showcase new products that they believe will do so in the renovations of Daniel hall see www.hermanmiller.com)
Q. What changes have been tried and are these changes that need to be made? Did they work?
1. Change in color and lighting
Studies show that light pastels promote relaxation, decreased blood pressure which lead to better learning and test performance. (Sources: The Investigation of the effects of color (article) Hoadley and Effects of color as an executional cue in advertising (article) Gorn)
Example: An experiment was conducted in which an elementary classroom was painted blue and given different lighting for a period of time, then changed back. The reactions of students were video taped and the number of actions that suggested distraction as well as heart rate was counted in each environment. The results showed that the blue walls led to a 22% decrease in distracted mannerisms and a 9% decrease in heart rate. Is it to be assumed that a more relaxed student is more attentive? (Source: Color and Light effects on learning (article) Grangaard)
Change in walls – visual stimulus in DW Daniel’s German High School
Aspects of space to consider:
Walls:
• What color?
• What should be on walls?
• Where should presentation aids, presentation screens, white boards, maps, posters, ect be placed?
Furniture Arrangement:
• Seating position in relation to other students, room, and teacher
• Accommodating technology/media in classrooms so that all sources of information can be utilized to aid the presentation of information
Teaching methods:
• Position of teacher
• Movements, mannerisms, volume and speed of teachers’ voice
Free space:
• How much should there be and where should it be located?
Audio Acoustics:
• How much noise is conducive to learning?
• What kind of noise if any is conducive to learning?
• What is the effect of a teacher’s voice?
What yields focus without limiting freethinking, group work, and problem solving?
The use of media studies to improve education:
Media captures attention for the purpose of selling a product; think of information as a teacher’s product. Is it possible to take methods used by media to sell information to the typically uninterested or distracted student?
Example: In media color is used to increase enthusiasm for what is being sold. Bright stimulates the brain but light promotes relaxation – which is most conducive to the classroom?
Eric Browning
1.)The importance of physical space in creating supportive learning environments
-This book explores how spaces can be designed to effectively embrace both physical and
virtual learning spaces, and the implications of learning at the intersection of these two
worlds.
2.)Space, objects, minds, and brains
-Spatial based attention and reference frames are addressed here as well as how space
can be utilized to effectively direct the attention of students.
3.)Designing places for learning
-Using cultural information to create schools that work is the goal of this book. It examines
the relationship between school achievement and building conditions. All types of students,
including the disabled, are taken into account when designing learning spaces in this book.
4.)Advances in web-based education : personalized learning environments
-Covers the array of factors that play a part in actually designing personalized learning
spaces.
5.)Learning & behavior
-Psychology journal that may provide insight into the factors involved in learning on a
physiological and perceptual level.
6.)Academic ability, motivation and feedback : a predictor of learning performance
-Examines the personal aspects of learning.
7.)Environment and behavior
-Studies how personality traits can manifast as well as directly effect how a student learns.
Using this knowledge schools can be designed with a greater body of knowledge about its
pupils in mind.
Brandon Grace
The New American Workplace - James O'Toole & Edward Lawler
Inventing Better Schools - Phillip Schlechty
Teaching with Technology: Creating Student Centered Classrooms - Judith Haymore
The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom - Todd Oppenheimer
Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paolo Friere
I also plan to interview many primary sources to identify the virtues and skills upon which employers place high value today and expect to desire over the coming decades. These would include at least one person in all the major sectors of the economy: Medical Care, Technology, Government, Education, Manufacturing, and Service.
Samantha Cawthorne
Websites: There are two websites listed in my last entry. The first provides a directory of one-room schoolhouses throughout the east coast, and can be a handy tool for researching how shool used to be. The second website is a aid for teaching children in a one-room schoolhouse environment. I thought this website was interesting because it is modern,and based on federal code.
Books:
Schools of the Future - this book was published in 1985; it lists some of the chapters as funding and school/business partnerships of today and tommorrow. To compare how our schools of today were viewed in the past would add an additional perspective to this work.
The Problems of American Education - This is another semi-dated book, it was published in 1975. What were the problems in this decade, are they relevant to the problems we are facing today? I thought that Adolescent Meets the Bureacracy as well as The Crisis of Purpose and Identity in Higher Education
Politics, Markets, and America's School: This book was published in 1990, and would be relevant to our discussions of the economy and its influence in the education.
Social History of American Education (Vol.I&II) These books are research books. I want to learn about the facts of American Education. On a side note, one of the practices of my history class was evaluating our sources and their validity. It would be interesting to note when the book was published and how the atmosphere of its time could affect the relaying of information.
Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites 20 Techniques for Managing a Brain-Compatible Classroom: This book is an aid for teachers today. What is the media telling our educators? This book would be interesting to browse through and note the common philosophies of today.
Research Questions
Brandon Grace
Are our current and future educational spaces meeting our needs as a society?
• What are the current requirements in the workforce and how will they change over the next 50 years?
• How are current educational spaces meeting the needs of our workforce?
• Is technology integrated into educational spaces in a way refleting what students can expect when they enter the workforce?
• What new educational spaces should be developed to develop skills students will need in 21st Century Business and Industry?
• What educational techniques will be necessary to prepare these students and how can space assist the process?
I will have to look at sources of information in
Workforce trends (Dept. of Labor Data, Census Data, Business and Economic Journals)
Current and future workspaces (Investigating current systems and analyzing new developments)
Current and Future teaching philosophies (Educational Journals, First Hand Observation)
Current and Future educational Spaces (Journals in Education, Architechture, Technology)
Eric Browning
What are the major influences on a students (school) education, and how does space affect these influences?
-Is there a balance between physical and virtual learning spaces?
-What environmental factors can motivate students to learn?
-What factors distract students from learning?
Leah Worthy
How is one’s education affected by spaces in the environment outside of the classroom.
Samantha Cawthorne
How was education structured in the past and how can space be used in the future to create students ready for the work world.
Background
In communities across the United States, a great deal of public revenue is being spent building new schools. Billions of dollars annually are invested in new educational spaces. Often, little thought is put into the plans guiding these construction programs, and many of the new schools being built are being modelled on the buildings they hope to replace or augment.
These schools are the factories manufacturing the workforce of the future. The unspoken goal of public education is to produce the proper workforce to continue driving the economy forward. The model being currently used was very successful for most of the 20th Century. However, the needs of the employers have changed dramatically in the past few decades, and the economic landscape of the future will require completely different workers to exploit it efficiently. It is essential school districts embarking on new construction plans consider whether the educational spaces to be constructed will meet these changing needs.
Anderson School District Five, serving the Metropolitan Anderson, South Carolina area, is embarking on a comprhensive construction plan intended to serve the community over the next 50 years. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to replace and augment their current facilities. We intend to look at the various elements in educational spaces to make reccomendations on this specific initiative.
Justifications
American education has evolved as the economic systems have changed. A review of these advancements reveals a pragmatic, methodical parade of changes focused on meeting the needs of particular communities. However, the economic landscape has changed much more in the past few years than it has in all of the preceeding decades. The methodical evolution may no longer meet the needs of the dynamic environment. Much more accurate and sometimes revolutionary predictions and plans must be created to meet this challenging environment. This research plans to survey past theories, determine current trends, and make suggestions about future programs.
Outcomes
As we move forward in our research it is essential that we have a plan; a guide map to help direct our steps and remind us the purpose of every action. All of us are working towards the common goal of generating a more effective classroom for students. We are striving to make an environment more efficient and learning friendly as well as develop an initiative, which will better prepare the next generation of workers. Because the stark reality is our country must move forward as a whole from the economy, political system, and especially our public education system. Brandon, Leah, Erix, and I are working towards creating a useful prototype to hopefully present to a political board in Anderson, or basically we want our research to matter therefore it will be taken to those persons who have a hand in the education of tomorrow.
On a more specific level we each have our different tasks and each hope to piece together a different product. Brandon, as a political science major, is interested in the political and economic aspects of classroom dynamics. He wants to know what successful business people are looking for in their employees, what they are not finding, and how this can be corrected. His results from his research will be dynamic and direct and his outcome will be based largely on these results. Leah, is approaching our research question from a different viewpoint of not how the classroom can aid a child in education but how does that child’s entire environment and his/hers interaction with it change their “education.” Through observation and personal interviews Leah will produce an assessment on different environments, its actual affect on people, and how this can be incorporated into the classroom. With Erix research we see a change of perspective; he is interested in not how the environment impacts a child’s uptake of knowledge but rather how that child himself/herself affecting their knowledge gained. This encompasses physical aspects, as well as teaching methods. His outcome will be a compilation of these many different factors in individual education. And finally, I will be focusing on the history of classroom education in the United States. I will report how it has or has not changed; if it has changed why, and what remnants of the past and or existing models should we maintain. My outcome will be a mini progress report detailing what has been done, what has or has not been effective, and how this can aid in our main presentation.
Potential Difficulties
1 – Research overlaps / unnecessary duplications
2 – Time and Resource constraints
3 – Availability
4 – Public cooperation and support
5 – Application of research as well as cohesive working amongst sources
6 – Ability to properly interpret results.
Conceptual Frameworks
This will often depend on our perspective. Who counts? Teachers, employers, interviewees. Who will be the subject of our “effective” goals, or who are we working towards creating an effective space. (Teachers, businessmen) There are many different sources of data, test scores, applications within life, etc.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Citi
It was good to be reminded that research with human subjects can not be taken lightly - this was illustrated with examples from the past in the first module. We needed to be exposed to the regulations of the IRB because I was personally assuming that most of our research would be self proclaimed exempt from the review, and this is not the case because even an exemption must be reviewed. We need to be aware of what steps are necessary in order to maintain ethical research as well as who to contact and what type of review is necessary for each step of the way. I know that I was thinking about doing observations in the classroom and previously did not even think about the risk of breaching a subjects privacy. it is important to understand the potential consequences of what we are planning on doing with this project. Once we understand them, we can avoid violating research ethics that we might not have even thought about prior to the citi program.
You took the words right out of my mouth Brandon! It is VERY necessary to ensure that researchers not only follow ethical guidlines for their work, but to also be informed of past abuses of research and why the current rules are in place. This, hopefully, will allow someone versed in this area to structure functional and ethical practices as well as have the ability to point out and correct bad methods. If only the information were in video form like, say a Discovery Channel program, it would be much more interesting and easy to absorb...to me at least!
It seems that at some point, especially in higher education, that a general ethics class should be taken so that the government, a board, or committee is not necessary for creating the standards of moral behavior inside and outside of the classroom. We've got a long way to go, but these quizzes are a start!
It seems that at some point, especially in higher education, that a general ethics class should be taken so that the government, a board, or committee is not necessary for creating the standards of moral behavior inside and outside of the classroom. We've got a long way to go, but these quizzes are a start!
CITI Program
Not to be confused with SETI program...
I found the CITI training module a bit on the dry side, but understand why it is completely essential for researchers to become familiar with the regulations for gathering human data and the historical and ethical elements contributing to their rationale. On the surface it would seem most researchers would follow these guidelines out of common sense and decency without having them codified. However, history has shown how the water where science and ethics swim is murky at best. The establishment and dissemination of these rules and their application is absolutely necessary to future research following an ethical and beneficial path.
Nonetheless, the delivery is so repetitive and monotonous it can make even the conscientious reader start to skim and skip to get to the next quiz. A better way to present this would be to have monthly seminars available through IRB's which present the information through multimedia in just a couple of hours. The important information being communicated by this program would have more impact if delivered in a more accessible way.
I found the CITI training module a bit on the dry side, but understand why it is completely essential for researchers to become familiar with the regulations for gathering human data and the historical and ethical elements contributing to their rationale. On the surface it would seem most researchers would follow these guidelines out of common sense and decency without having them codified. However, history has shown how the water where science and ethics swim is murky at best. The establishment and dissemination of these rules and their application is absolutely necessary to future research following an ethical and beneficial path.
Nonetheless, the delivery is so repetitive and monotonous it can make even the conscientious reader start to skim and skip to get to the next quiz. A better way to present this would be to have monthly seminars available through IRB's which present the information through multimedia in just a couple of hours. The important information being communicated by this program would have more impact if delivered in a more accessible way.
