| Want a quiet classroom? Worksheets will help. |
Education researcher, Louis Volante, has found that among other things, worksheets have been proven to waste valuable class time and focus on teaching only rote skills (2004). Founder of MAX Teaching, Mark Forget, has suggested that worksheets eliminate the collaborative approach that is conducive to learning (2004).
My own experience tells me that worksheets are a crutch, used by traditional teachers, who have either no interest or no experience engaging students in real learning. The year-long project provides students with a menu of choices for demonstrating numerous learning outcomes over the course of an entire school year.
The teachers provides mini lessons (typically brief videos, discovery activities and models) and plenty of class time for project work. Students are engaged by the freedom that a workshop environment creates. Plus, since students help create the projects, they are intrinsically motivated to move forward with them, to watch them grow.
So, if you build a powerful year-long project that integrates learning outcomes and provides students with plenty of choice, collaboration and time to work, you'll see that teaching without worksheets is very easy.
References
Forget, M.A. (2004). Max teaching with reading and writing: classroom activities for helping
students learn new subject matter while acquiring literacy skills. Portsmouth, VA: Trafford.
Volante, Louis. Teaching to the Test: What Every Educator and Policy-maker Should Know.
Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy.
I think the workshop idea is spot-on. I can imagine the focused, quiet buzz of conversation, work and being in community with others. I see this when I use these project based designs. Where I am challenged is continuing to manage PBLs with an ever increasing size of class...it's a very personalized/customized way to work with students that I find is conversation dependent. In the last 3 years, my class size has increased by about 10 kids per class....and I'm struggling to keep up.
ReplyDeleteMy second challenge is to extend it beyond a single project. While we use the same organizing systems, the projects aren't necessarily linked. I'd love to do a year-long project, but don't quite know how.
I think "worksheet syndrome" has caused some far-reaching problems. Kids who are required to complete them do not read, nor understand the material they are supposed to use to complete the worksheet - they only look for the right answers. Often the "right answer" is thought to be one that contains the bold or key words in the worksheet question. They often have no clue what it means. Even though I don't use this in my class, it carries over.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Worksheets produce a treasure-hunt effect, which does not encourage real learning.
ReplyDeleteClass size is a real problem. I think, however, that PBL is easier with larger numbers, especially when you allow students to work together.
ReplyDeleteIf you teach them how to delegate tasks, while creating a lengthy project with many parts that require many skills, students in groups will have plenty to do to collaborate and demonstrate mastery learning. Plus, evaluating these lengthy group projects is much easier than collecting 100-plus individual papers.