In the article,
Great Teaching Means Letting Go, Grant Wiggins stated two vital lessons about learning: 1)transfer is the bottom-line goal of all learning, not scripted behavior and 2)transfer means that a learner can draw upon and apply from all of what was learned, as the situation warrants, not just do one move at a time in response to a prompt. I am in agreement with him about the two lessons in learning, students should be able to respond to questions about the information they are learning no matter what format it is in and be able to tell how they reached their answer(s). He also stated that the Gradual Release of Responsibility model does not mean the last step is "Independent Practice." According to Grant, Independent practice is still a scaffolded, prompted, and simplified activity in which the student knows full well what single move we want them to use. Grant also discusses how when teachers give assignments or test that they should not tell or give the students any indication about what process or strategy to use but allow them to dig from the strategies they already know to answer the questions as well as tell what they used to determine the answers and why they choose that particular strategy(ies).
After watching the video,
Chris Lehmann - Inquiry: The Very First Step in the Process of Learning, I noticed that he and Grant Wiggins are talking about the same thing except Chris Lehman's video was geared more towards technology and Inquiry Learning. Lehman stated that in order for technology to be inquiry driven it has to incorporate the following:
What are the questions we can ask together?
Has to be student-centered
Teacher-mentored
Community - based (students can learn from others in specific fields within their community)
Collaborative (teachers and students working together)
Integrated - meaning each day has to make sense
Meta-cognitive - students need to think about thinking
Understanding driven - students should understand the importance of doing projects, homework, participating in class, and taking tests and quizzes
The ultimate goal is to have students who are thoughtful, wise, passionate, and kind.
After reading the article and watching the video, I found many similarities to the way I have taught students--telling them how and where to find the answers and giving generic tests to make sure they know but may not necessarily understand what was being taught. Using the scaffolding is beneficial to students but teachers have to learn how to give students space when learning to see if they are able to perform when necessary and in different ways. In hindsight, the article is describing how teachers should allow their students to think for themselves without being given hints or prompts on how to think and how to process information because everyone learns in different ways and will relay information they have learned differently. Teachers should encourage students to think for themselves and use the strategies they have been taught to discuss and answer questions. Having students who can ask and answer questions that requires thinking and pulling from previous knowledge helps to prepare them academically for high school and eventually college as well as for the workforce.