The Natural Organization of Classroom Knowledge = the Unit?

I'll admit that I have yet to read David Weinberger's new book Everything is Miscellaneous. I have read the prologue and the first chapter and also spent time today watching his presentation to Google.

This has me thinking about how we organize knowledge in schools and classrooms as teachers.

If you don't know the premise, Weinberger argues that the organization of knowledge, that has always been done by experts throughout history, is now completely falling apart in a digital world. A perfect example that he gives is the products in a store. In a physical store, a product such as a digital camera can only be in one place. This makes us have to search and find it. Stuff is organized in the physical world by experts whose pattern of organization we need to follow if we want to find stuff.

Online, it is a completely different story. Online products can be in many, many places. Take that same digital camera. If I'm shopping for it online, I might find the same camera model sorted by price, by model, by speed, by number of pixels, by accessories, etc., etc. Even further than the database is that folksonomies and tagging allow us to organize the information in the digital world in ways that are individual to our needs.

Which brings me to classrooms. First of all, the decisions about much of the content that we need to teach in classrooms has been done for us. Most people live in political systems where the content they teach has already been decided upon by experts and is mandated for us to teach. This is something we have very little choice about if we want to retain our jobs and continue to eat, pay our mortgages, etc. Not to say that this content cannot be changed, but that is not an argument for this entry.

But what can be changed is the next level of organization; the unit. Most curriculum documents are lists of specific outcomes ("give examples of different ways that industries separate mixtures using technology.") and these outcomes are separated into units (Mixtures and Solutions, MB. science curriculum, grade 7).

But does this have to be so? Is this the best way to organize the outcomes we teach? Into neatly packaged units separated by subject area? For example, we are currently working on a social studies unit on the colonization of the "New World" by European powers. Looking at the history of a place like Mexico, and the incredible amount of gold that was removed from the Aztec empire and sent to Spain, would not the study of smelting down gold into transferable bars be just as good of a place to look at the outcomes required in my mixtures and solutions unit? Would not this make a lot more sense to some of the kids in my classroom?

The organization of required outcomes into neatly packaged units is easy and the practise of history. But are there other ways to do it? What if we started the entire school year off with outcomes listed on cards which the kids could move around and organize into structures of study that were more meaningful and helpful for them? Several days spent categorizing and forming personal or small group knowledge structures, setting a course for the next few weeks or months ahead would be much more meaningful to students than us imposing a taxonomy of information upon them. It would make the knowledge, the information, the learning that needed to happen become theirs.

This idea has a ways to go before it is ready for junior high classroom reality, but it is definitely something worth considering. As our classrooms need to move towards becoming spaces where education is done with students instead of imposed upon them, therefore helping them to become more independent, innovative, and creative learners, the structure that knowledge takes in our classrooms may be a prime place to be re - invented allowing us to re - think how learning happens.

technorati tags:weinberger, everything, is, miscellaneous, knowledge, structure, classroom

Comments

[Diane Hammond]

It has always amazed me that we do have classroom spaces where learning is integrated, (not broken down into units), where we ask learners to make choices, chart their own directions, and take responsibility for their materials and actions. It's called Kindergarten. Through a trip to the apple orchard, students learn about the nature of living things, growth and development, nutrition, rural communities, number sense, and on and on... We start off on the right foot.

[Clarence Fisher]

I think you are right Diane that integration is a key ingredient of this work, but I think it goes beyond that. This goes to the heart of how we organize the learning that happens in classrooms. Who gets to do this organizing? Can the organization be different from student to student? In a world where any and all information and knowledge are "miscellaneous" how do we decide what is important enough to teach?