SHEILA KING Educational Jargon DAN TRIPLETT 07-26-96
SK>Dan Triplett writes:
SK> 
SK>-> We have difficulty in education arriving at common definitions for
SK>-> the terms we use.  Outcome Based Education (OBE) is a perfect
SK>-> example.  The originators of the OBE concept (I know very little
SK>-> about its origins) had a specific idea in mind.  In our district
SK>-> we implemented OBE and it failed miserably. Teachers throughout
SK>-> our district were doing what they "thought" OBE was. Even with
SK>-> training (which was minimal) there were wide gaps in our
SK>-> understandings. 
SK>I would bet that the insufficient training was a HUGE part of the
SK>problem in your schools situation. It is difficult to implement
SK>something if you don't even understand it in the first place.
Yes....and I think this was the major reason it failed.  Some districts 
fail to realize that without teacher support for something like OBE it 
cannot possibly succeed.  The district went ahead with the plan to 
implement OBE in spite of the many objections raised by it's teaching 
staff.
SK> 
SK>Take "cooperative learning" as an example. I have done a fair amount
SK>of reading (3 books plus a number of articles and discussions) and
SK>attended a full day workshop, plus isolated sessions at professional
SK>conferences on this topic, as it interests me. I still find it
SK>challenging to pull off cooperative learning situations in my
 SK>classroom. Some of the teachers in our math department have been
SK>known to complain about "cooperative learning". They don't like to do
SK>it and say that it isn't successful. Well, seeing how difficult it is
SK>to implement even _with_ some knowledge and training, I'm not
SK>surprised that they have trouble (while I couldn't swear to it, I'm
SK>pretty certain they haven't done a great deal of reading and etc.. on
SK>the topic).  
I think that cooperative learning is very difficult to pull off 
successfully.  I know of teachers who use cooperative learning 
situations in the classroom and they are very successful with it.  For 
some kids it can be very difficult to work in groups. I think one idea 
is to keep the groups small so that all members can participate in the 
project and feel they have contributed.  When you get groups too big 
some kids drop off. (This is an assumption of mine...)
SK>-> Regarding your comments of "in terms," we need these terms to
SK>-> identify educational concepts.  I agree with you that the real
SK>-> problem is in the defining and understanding (and implementation)
SK>-> of the concepts.
SK> 
SK>I guess we need them. Certainly having a term like "sponge
SK>activities" is shorter than describing every time you want to talk
SK>about it, what a "sponge activity" is.
Yes terms can be very helpful.  Sometimes they get overused and then 
people reject them like worn-out cliches.  If an idea or concept is good 
we shouldn't reject it simply because the term used to describe it is 
overused (such as Developmentally Appropriate Educationally Activities). 
* CMPQwk 1.42 445p ** To tell the sex of a chromosome, pull down its genes. *
--- GEcho 1.11+
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