Author: Joshua Rogers

Problem: Most lecture based classes are taught on a memorization structure. This is a problem because actual learning does not take place in these kinds of environments.

Solution: Implementing an additional class period containing smaller number of student for more one-on-one interactions and have more of a group discussion based structure.

Effects: Students get the interactions between each other and the teacher for actual learning to take place

Less memorization is taking place

Maybe difficult to schedule these class periods for all classes

Leads to better overall grades

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q-rxyL2fnueNGe2h8MbFuFIe9-JX8EZOubZIWppNQNU/edit?usp=sharing

Topic: Education Beyond the Major

Team: Myself

Thesis: Learning things outside of a specific major are very important. Education beyond the major helps students such as building necessary life skills, discovering how the student learns…

Supporting Ideas: “It is only the rarest student who knows that the sonnet must be salvaged from the package”(Percy 4)

“They have in common the stratagem of avoiding the educator’s direct presentation of the object as a lesson to be learned and restoring access to sonnet and dogfish as beings to be known, reasserting the sovereignty of knower over known”(Percy 5)

Group members: Kyle Owens, Bella B, Jake D, Kenzie Neiderer, Jason Gabby, Shawn, Jenna, Sabrina, Cristian Galilea, David Heffron, Muhammad Rabi, Jake Heikkinen, Sean Redding, Tyler E, Nick,Timothy Domanowski, Sam Livorno 

On Thursday, I attended a large discussion group where we talked about the topic of the “beaten path” discussed by Percy. The group talked about different situations where someone taking shortcuts can have both positive and negative consequences. We believe that a lot of people take these shortcuts and expect the best results from their actions. For example, a student who cheats on a test expects that cheating is a good thing because it helps him get a better grade. This may be true, however, the student is cheating himself by not actually learning anything so the student is really hurting themselves. When connecting this to Percy and education, we all agreed that when shortcuts are taken by teachers or professors there is no room for creativity which hurts the students.

Link to Draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11JyBlAht-h_49HjGNwKaLOkK6ogOmeQNPa_y2S7meGE/edit?usp=sharing

Topic: Topic 3

Team: Joshua Rogers

Thesis: According to Freire, when students learn by memorizing and repeating information, they do not actually learn anything. Freire believes that “Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction”. At West Chester University, the vast diversity between the students and professors is key to providing a successful learning experience for everyone.

Quotes: “Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.”(1)

“The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them.”(2)

Discussion Group: Katherine, Sam, Leann, and Jeff

In our discussion group we focused on two of Freire’s quotes where he stated, “the teacher teaches and the students are taught” and “the teachers know everything and the students know nothing”. We began our discussion by all agreeing that it is not true that all teachers know everything and that all students know nothing. We believe that there are many situations where students can teach teachers something they do not know much about or something completely new. We also identified that they can be situations where students may even be able to prove teachers wrong and that can be a learning experience for all. We also pointed out that this can depend on the teacher. Some teachers what student input so that both the teacher and the students can benefit from the different perspectives they all bring. Our group also believe that some students even prefer if other students teach them instead of the teacher. In order for that to happen the student teaching has to know the information and therefore he knows what the teacher knows. After we all shared our ideas we had other great conversations on various topics and went on our way. This was a group of great people.

Discussion Participants: Isabella Bedore, Mackenize Neiderer, Adam Griffin, Jenna Schreiber, Luke Jarvis, Emily Foley

In our group discussion, we focused on memorization in education and dove deeper on the topic further talking about memorization and standardized testing. In Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education”, Freire discusses how in education teachers act as if they know everything and the students are ignorant and now nothing. The teachers then continue to give out information and expect the students to receive and store the information like “containers”, and memorize that information. We compared this statement to our own individual high school experiences and discovered that our experiences are very similar to Freire’s claim. We all agreed that memorization was heavily pushed on us and we do not remember much of what we actually learned in high school. Our group believes that teachers and schools cared more about test scores to gain more money so they made us memorize information to pass test to make our test scores look better. We also believe that memorizing so much in high school has limited some of our creativity and has made is more like robots taking in so much information but not really understanding it. We ultimately came to the conclusion that teachers have become lazier later in high school and care more about memorization than about learning and as a result we have been negatively affected.