Education has (at least) one great luxury over business - the luxury of an extended learning curve. By definition, business depends on the bottom line, where one must produce or hit the pike, but school is a place where management has the option of being reasonably patient.
As teachers, we love to receive a great product when a student hands in an assignment and slap that 'A' on the top of the paper. But there is a critical next step to take that is often overlooked.
If the student doesn't understand how she created that product, then how confident can we be that she will be able to duplicate similar results the next time? Or that she can apply her skills to new and different situations?
This is where a determined focus on process comes in. After an assignment or activity is completed, teachers should debrief with their students and give them the opportunity to genuinely consider what worked well, what was a challenge, and what they learned from the experience. It is through this kind of metacognition that a student can gain a greater understanding of himself as a learner and approach his education in an active rather than passive way.
Let's take advantage of the extended learning curve the education laboratory allows us. It may be nice to develop producers, but it is even nicer to create producers who can think and lead.
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2 comments:
What if grades were given for process instead of product?
I think it's feasible to do that up to a point, but there would have to a fair amount of subjectivity involved, as well as taking a longer view at a body of work over time as opposed to a single product. For a while, people were talking about 'processfolios' instead of portfolios. Such an approach would provide evidence of growth, but would not provide the ranking statistics many seem to love.
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