Changing the educational paradigm

            Many American critics believe that the major problem with public education today is a lack of focus on results. Students aren’t expected to meet high standards, the argument goes, and the process of education takes precedence over analyzing education results in policy-making circles. I also agree that there many problems in public education, it restricts students to be educated in real meaning. Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity and innovation. His success changes in the educational paradigm. I agree with the changes in the educational paradigm that Ken Robinson suggests. Also, I think that it is possible to make changes to the current system of education in my country. I recognized that there are many organizations to do it in turkey, For example, some places which is like Açev, Public Education Centers have been opened in last ten years to make people conscious about changes in education of Turkey. These new things all show that Turkey is open for changes in education. I thing that I will help for changes in current education paradigm. I definitely support constructivism in education but the education system in the world is generally far from constructivism. Teachers have active role everywhere. However, I want students to be active. If a can be a teacher, I will firstly work to support changes in education paradigm according to the way of constructivism.

The power of 'yet'

 

               Growth mindset is a self-perception or “self-theory” that people hold about themselves. Believing that you are either “intelligent” or “unintelligent” is a simple example of a mindset.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work brains and talent are just the starting point

I had a teacher when I was elementary school who is Aytaç Taşdelen. Aytaç hoca always were saying that you can not blame your intelligence because of your failures because intelligence is only a tool to success. The main tool is your  willpower to success. You should believe yourself to deal with errors. Do not afraid of being unsuccessful. He was saying us that do not give up and effort to learn. During this process, you will understand that errors are temporary. They support you to learn what you do not know. You only should understand how to use them. 

                Advices of Aytaç hoca effected us very much. After that, we saw errors as a friend who make corrections in our experiments. Also, our self-confidence increased because we learned that our main problem is below our failures.

                I think that everyone can have growth mindset. It depends on the willpower.

#takeaimandsuccess

Constructivism in Education

                

Constructivism reveals an idea that learners construct knowledge for themselves, each learner individually and socially construct meaning as she/he learns.

              

                 There is a teacher who is called Sarabinh Levy-Brightman. She helps competing teams prepare for a class debate on Jacksonian demcracy. Sarabinh apply constructivist learning philosophy on her students. I think that Sarabinh’s approach is consistent with a constructivist learning philosophy because she let her students to reveal their own idea about any subject. Also, students make their own process to prepare their individual idea.

                

                    The best process for a student is the process which is made by him. Constructivism gives students ownership of what they learn since learning is based on students’ questions and explorations, and often the students have a hand in designing the assessment as well. Constructivist assessment the students’ initiatives and personal investments in their journals, research, reports.  Furthermore, constructivist learning is transferable. In constructivist classrooms, students create organizing principles that they can take with them to other learning settings.    

     On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages of Constructivism. The Constructivism curriculum eliminates standardized testing and grades. This eliminates grade-centered goals and rewards as well as the comparisons of student state-wide or district-specific progress. Also, the training necessary for constructive teaching is extensive and often requires costly long-term Professional development. 

Differentiated Instruction

Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a

successful approach to instruction.

In differentiated instruction, students are supported according to their capacity and they are educated depending on a method which is determined as suitable for their understanding ability. In my primary and high school years, we could not take advantage of differentiated instruction. All of us were getting same education, some of us have had lower understanding ability and some of us have had very good understanding ability. When they are behaved as if they were same in terms of understanding, the students who have lower understanding will definitely get harm and will be failure in their lessons because they will feel their weaknesses and they will lose their hope and self-esteem.

Moreover, every student have different ability. For example some of them have mathematical smart and some of them can have music smart. If we work to develop the students who have music smart to make them very successful in math like the students who have math smart, we do injustice the students. Also, this is same for the students who have math ability, we cannot want them to be very successful in music because their abilities are innate and we cannot change it and should change it.





When I was primary school, there was a math teacher who is Nejdet Taşdemir. After I recognised my weaknesses belonging to math lesson, he decided to solve my problem and he talked with me to find solutions. We understood that I had learned something wrong with math subjects so I had been failure. He decided to give me an individual course to take me to the stage of the other children in our class.  As a result, we had overcome my problems belonging to math and the teacher had built on one of my strengths. The method worked because he encouraged me and my fear about the lesson had lost. I think that when I am a teacher, I will also encourage my students to take risks in completing assignment so that they could win their self-esteem and they can do their assignment as a funny activity. With the time, this behaviour will change to a habit and they will win their responsibilities to complete their assignments.

Teaching as a Profession:

Collaboration with Colleagues

Collaboration is a good way to deal with problems or to produce new methods and solutions for any situations and problems with other people by discussing and suggesting. Also, collaboration can be used for being better in any subject. I also had a collaboration experiences in high school with my peers. We were making collaboration to be better at our lessons and to produce solutions to learn how to deal with our lessons and their exams. We were discussing subjects of lesson which we could not learn well and we were suggesting how to deal with the subjects which we could not understand. For example, if one of us could not understand a math subject which the teacher talked about in class, we were suggesting him to learn it out of class. We were saying him to watch an online video about the subject. If the person could not again understand it, we were suggesting another method. We actually were not making collaboration only for finding solutions. We were sometimes making it only to produce a social environment in our class. As a result, the collaboration was working well. When we talk about the benefits which collaboration supplied us. I can say that we were getting better in our lessons and their exams. We were being more social and our collaboration skills were improving. If some of us do not know solutions his/her problems about lesson or any subject, we were sharing solutions as much as we know. Moreover, some of us did not know that he/she has a problem which can be solved. We were helping him/her to recognise it. We were relaxed in our conversations because we were not testing us in any subject so we were getting real solutions.

Collaboration can help better when people managing collaboration have necessary collaboration skills. When I talk about my collaboration skills, I can say that I have some strengths and weaknesses. For example, I can transfer my thoughts to my peers and I have self-confidence to show my ideas about subjects when we all come together. On the other hand, I get some harm in terms of accepting mistake ideas which are told by another person for me but the idea can be correct for the person who says it. In fact, I can do something to develop my collaborations skills. For instance, I can demonstrate respect for the opinions, expertise, and experience of others. I can address negativity with empathy. Moreover, I should not hoard my knowledge I can share my own expertise with others so they are in a better position to accomplish group goals.

            It is also important to transfer what is known about being a collaborator to the career. I will transfer what I know about being a collaborator to my teaching career by practicing. I will participate in collaborations, and then I will apply my information about being a collaborator in real. Moreover, I will begin to do it by inviting my peers to prepare a collaboration environment. I will use my collaboration skills to encourage other people in group so that they can transfer their ideas in any subject. As a result, we can start to take advantage of collaboration.