"When Teaching the Right Answers Is the Wrong Direction" Rebecca Alber Blog/Edutopia 11/12/09
"Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn" Scientific American 10/20/09
"Decision Making Becomes the Newest Life Science" Edutopia 12/09
Some great stuff by way of Edutopia. My sister has recently been telling me about motivational programs used in Washington state that appear to be about telling kids what they need to do to change their lives. But perhaps a better approach is to let them explore the alternatives without making initial judgments, as in the Decision Education Foundation's program profiled in Edutopia's December issue.
Amber Lamprecht of Literacy and Learning in San Francisco has really made me think about this, recounting her work in helping young people to chart out positives and negatives of possible decisions and having them visualize possible outcomes. Young people, in my opinion, will more often than not make good life choices when they are given tools to make them and are empowered to do so.
The two articles about the problem with "right" answers really hit home with me. I am currently working with a sixth grader and a seventh grader who have homework "study guides" they fill in for literature and social studies. At times, they get frustrated with me because I press them to give me their own interpretation of the material without letting them know if it is "correct," and I get frustrated with the "study guides" because they end up not guiding study, but filling time with empty busy work.
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