Tuesday, September 22, 2015

To "Know, Do, and Be" or not to "Know, Do, and Be"

Teachers have many responsibilities in a classroom. They have to meet the individual learning needs of their students, provide a safe and effective learning environment, keep the classroom organized and efficient, and on top of that, of course, is actually teaching the required curriculum material.


This year has been my first year learning about curriculum, how it works and what it consists of, but I did have some preconceived ideas of what that might entail. I will not go into detail on the particulars of these ideas, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised to discover the "Know, Be, Do" framework (Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014). I had assumed that curriculum frameworks would only describe the kind of material to be taught to the students. Instead, I was happy to see that the curriculum framework was structured so that students would not only memorize the information, but that they would take it in in such a way that it would have an impact on who they are as people (Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014). 




 Figure 1. The Know, Do, Be Framework. This framework breaks down curriculum learning goals into three categories. (Drake & Burns, 2004)



      The goal of education should not just be to have students memorize facts but to have them become responsible and capable citizens in society and to actually be able to use the information we've taught them. Therefore this framework takes a very progressive view of education and I like what it means for the future. As is described by Drake, Reid, and Kolohon (2014), this kind of curriculum framework is built around a new form of pedagogy in which deep learning is the ultimate goal.


I do have some concerns however as to what this means for teachers. There are some excellent teachers out there who very much know their craft, but there are those that may not be up to the task of teaching material in such a way that students can "be"a certain kind of person. This may be due to a lack of experience or a lack of confidence in their own abilities in what is, admittedly, a daunting task. It is therefore very important in teacher education, to introduce the idea of deep learning early enough that future teachers can start preparing themselves mentally to teach this way. What we may see however, is that the students who have been taught by teachers who use this framework will be able to teach it better themselves should they decide to become teachers in the future. Either way, this framework is an excellent idea, and it will be very interesting to see what direction education takes in the future, especially as we seem to be moving towards more meaningful teaching, a concept that I personally would be very excited to explore more deeply.


                                                          Sources

Drake, S. M., & Burns, R.C. (2004). Meeting standards through integrated curriculum

     Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford.


Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L., & Kolohon, W. (2014) Interweaving curriculum and classroom 

      assessment: Engaging the 21st-century learner. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford.