Download Free Collaborative Learning As Democratic Practice Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Collaborative Learning As Democratic Practice and write the review.

Collaborative learning is not only a standard part of writing pedagogy, but it is also a part of contemporary culture. Collaborative Learning as Democratic Practice examines the rich historical and political contexts of collaborative learning, starting with John Dewey's impact on progressive education in the early twentieth century.
This text argues that difficult problems can not be solved without a democratic process. Essential to the resolution of such problems is a reconstructed school that prepares students to become effective problem solvers and informed, responsible democratic citizens.
The Mission Hill School, founded by MacArthur Award winner Deborah Meier and colleagues in 1997, is a small public school that has rethought almost everything about the process of teaching and learning. Beyond richly describing and evaluating this high-achieving school, the author argues that democratic education is increasingly difficult in this era of testing and standardization and that a school such as Mission Hill must be continually thoughtful, innovative, and courageous in counteracting systemic inequality. This in-depth examination is essential reading for anyone interested in how to better understand seemingly intractable problems related to urban public education in the United States. Book Features: An exemplary model of democratic education that shows the inner workings of a largely teacher-governed school.A rare example of an urban school implementing Dewey-influenced progressive pedagogy.In-depth descriptions of an anti-racist and culturally relevant pedagogy and curriculum.A close examination of successful practices, including shared decision making, intensive problem solving, and looking at student work. Matthew Knoester is a National Board Certified Teacher and former teacher at the Mission Hill School in Boston. He received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Evansville. “Matthew Knoester has done us an enormous favor by showing us, in detail, what could be—one example of how schools can be the building blocks for democracy, recreating community for all to taste, feel, hear, and see.” —From the Foreword by Deborah W. Meier “This is exactly the kind of book that is so necessary at this time. Schools can be respectful, responsive, and caring places. Matthew Knoester gives us a detailed picture of such a school. If more people would read books such as this, the national debate on education would be all the better for it.” —Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Knoester’s account of the Mission Hill School captures the ‘habits of mind’ needed if public schools are to be truly democratic in spirit and in practice, centered on the children, and, as Deborah Meier so powerfully advocates, protected from those policies and social forces that accept and perpetuate disengagement and inequality in our children's education.” —Linda McSpadden McNeil, Professor of Education, Rice University; author of Contradictions of School Reform “To those who have never seen the Mission Hill School in Boston, it may sound like a magical place. The good news is that it is real and Knoester shows us through his compelling narrative how and why they have been able to achieve so much. For educators, students, and parents this book will be a source of inspiration. At a time when our policymakers and many so-called reformers are actively undermining support for public education, this important book will serve as a reminder that we can do a much better job at educating all children.” —Pedro Noguera, Executive Director,Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University
We, the Students and Teachers shows history and social studies educators how to make school classrooms into democratic spaces for teaching and learning. The book offers practical strategies and lesson ideas for transforming democratic theory into instructional practice. It stresses the importance of students and teachers working together to create community and change. The book serves as an essential text for history and social studies teaching methods courses as well as professional development and inservice programs for history and social studies teachers at all grade levels.
Contemporary public policy challenges are increasingly called “wicked problems,” or problems that cannot be solved by one sector or one agency of government alone. Solutions to wicked problems often further require the recognition and acceptance of tradeoffs or drawbacks, which might include a cost or sacrifice for the whole of society or a subsection of society. Based on the premise that government of, by, and for the people is not sufficient to rise to and meet wicked public policy problems, this volume provides strategies and ideas for public administration educators across diverse environments, as well as undergraduate and graduate education, to include and integrate the principles of “with the people” in public administration education and practice. This book explores the ways that notions of governing with citizens can be integrated into courses that focus on public administration and policy. It invites instructors to think about what it means to be educators within higher education institutions in a democratic society, championing deliberation and engagement as a way to prepare students for professional roles in their communities. Each chapter is written by a contributor who has road-tested the inclusion of democratic ideals and principles in their own classrooms, and each chapter therefore provides blueprints, curriculum plans, and lesson plans for the integration of democratic principles in public administration education and practice. Teaching Democratic Ideals to Public Affairs Students is essential reading for faculty in public administration, public policy, and political science departments, and it will also be a useful guidebook for practicing public administrators, as well as those who provide training to practicing administrators and leaders.
Education and Democratic Participation is an important and timely contribution to the emerging debate surrounding the value of educating citizens and communities in order to empower them to participate in democratic change. Responding to the effects of neo-liberal ideology on comprehensive education and public services, this book examines the purposes and conditions for reimagining an educated democracy. Arguing that social divisions and cultural misrecognition have intensified to the point of crisis, Ranson explains that a just society must create opportunities for diverse, cohesive and tolerant neighbourhoods to flourish. In order to achieve this, education will need to reimagine learners as prospective citizens and as cooperative makers of the democratic communities in which they live and work. Showing that participation in public forums, councils and associations can provide a real means of enabling members of different communities to learn how to respect and value one another, this book provides persuasive arguments that a broader pedagogy of democracy is needed to confront the common dilemmas facing society. This work is aimed at researchers, academics and postgraduates, particularly those lecturing and studying in the areas of education, the social sciences and politics. It will also appeal to professional and practitioner communities in school and college teaching, as well as in local authorities and related public services.
In this volume, the authors contend that teaching and learning must be viewed as communal work, whether conducted in one classroom, with colleagues at a programmatic level, or when tackled on a university-wide scale. When educators partner with faculty colleagues or students in teaching and learning, it becomes possible to improve the educational experiences of all students, model professional behaviors that students will soon be expected to embrace, and positively impact graduates, peers, campuses, and even communities at large. By intentionally creating collaborative structures for communal work to occur, educators can broaden access to opportunities for students, improve engagement experiences within the community, and improve faculty support and scholarship. Exploring multiple perspectives on collaborative structures in teaching and learning, this volume discusses ways to consider the collaborative structures within education that allow for shared contributions to teaching and learning. It discusses the need for practitioners to view teaching and learning as truly communal work, regardless of the type of setting. This is the 148th volume of this Jossey-Bass higher education series. It offers a comprehensive range of ideas and techniques for improving college teaching based on the experience of seasoned instructors and the latest findings of educational and psychological researchers.
What needs to be done to strengthen U.S. democracy, to make it work the way it should? Each generation of Americans asks some version of this question, but this book offers an answer that recognizes the heightened urgency and hopefulness in the way individuals are asking the question today. At the heart of the debate is a conviction that persistent public problems call for dialogue and deliberation that results in collective action by diverse groups of informed, skilled motivated, and prinicipled citizens--what many call "deliberative democracy". In this book, contributing authors and editor Nancy L. Thomas focus on the unique role that higher education can play--alongside private, civic and government sectors--in the collaborative process of strengthening democracy. This is the 152nd volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series "New Directions for Higher Education". Addressed to presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other higher-education decision-makers on all kinds of campuses, "New Directions for Higher Education" provides timely information and authoritative advice about major issues and administrative problems confronting every institution. Contents of this book include: (1) Teaching and Learning Civility (Peter Levine); (2) Putting Politics Where It Belongs: In the Classroom (Diana Hess and Lauren Gatti); (3) The Difficult Dialogues Initiative at Clark University: a Case Study (Sarah Buie and Walter Wright); (4) Intergroup Dialogue and Democratic Practice in Higher Education (Gretchen E. Lopez and Ximena Zuniga); (5) "To Establish an Effective Community Spirit": a Land Grant Extension and Deliberative Dialogue (Monica Herrera and Joyce Hoelting); (6) Facilitating Democracy: Centers and Institutes of Public Deliberation and Collaborative Problem Solving (Martin Carcasson); (7) Research for Democracy and Democracy for Research (Kiran Cunningham and Matt Leighninger); (8) Power, Privilege, and the Public: The Dynamics of Community-University Collaboration (Byron P. White); (9) Democratizing Academic Professionalism Inside and Out (Albert W. Dzur); (10) The Politics of Academic Freedom (Nancy L. Thomas); (11) Practicing What We Preach: Democratic Practices in Institutional Governance (Bruce L. Mallory); and (12) Higher Education's Democratic Imperative (Nancy L. Thomas and Matthew Hartley). Additional resources and an index are also included.
In Collaborative Learning, Kenneth Bruffee advocates a far-reaching change in the relations we assume between college and university professors and their students, between the learned and the learning. He argues that the nature and source of the authority of college and university professors is the central issue in college and university education in our time, and that if college and university professors continue to teach exclusively in the stand-up-and-tell-'em way, their students will miss the opportunity to learn mature, effective interdependence—and this, Bruffee maintains, is the most important lesson we should expect students to learn. The book makes three related points. First, we should begin thinking about colleges and universities, and they should begin thinking about themselves, not as stores of information but as institutions of reacculturation. Second, we should think of college and university professors not as purveyors of information but as agents of cultural change who foster reacculturation by marshaling interdependence among student pers. And third, colleges and universities should revise longstanding assumptions about the nature and authority of knowledge and about classroom authority. To accomplish this, the author maintains, both college students and their professors must learn collaboratively. Describing the practical value of the activities encouraged by a collaborative approach—students working in consensus groups and research teams, tutoring peers, and helping each other with editing and revision—Bruffee concludes that, in the short run, collaborative learning helps students learn better—more thoroughly, more deeply, more efficiently—than learning alone. In the long run, collaborative learning is the best possible preparation for the real world, as students look beyond the authority of teachers, practice the craft of interdependence, and construct knowledge in the very way that academic disciplines and the professions do. With no loss of respect for the value of expertise, students learn to depend on one another, rather than depending exclusively on the authority of experts and teachers. In the second edition of this widely respected work, the argument is sharply focused on the need to change college and university education top to bottom, and the need to understand knowledge differently in order to accomplish that change. Several chapters, including that on collaborative learning and computers, have been throughly revised, and three new chapters have been added: on differences between collaborative learning and cooperative learning; on literary study and teaching literature; and on postgraduate education. From COLLABORATIVE LEARNING, second edition: ON THE CURRICULUM: Behind every public debate about college curriculum today lie comfortably unchallenged traditional assumptions. When we become fully aware of how deeply and irremediably these traditional assumptions have been challenged by twentieth-century thought, we see that a potentially more serious, and perhaps more rancorous and divisive, educational debate lies in wait for us. ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE: Remember the time Aunty Molly sat on the Thanksgiving turkey? Tell such a story at a family party and family members follow the story easily and get the point, because they are all members of the same small knowledge community. They know the people and the situation thoroughly, and they understand the family's private references. But try to tell the same story to neighbors or colleagues. For them to follow the story and get the point, you have to explain a lot of obscure details about family events and personalities that they're not familiar with. That is, when a smaller community sets out to integrate itsuelf into a larger one, the level of discourse has to change. The story changes and even its meaning changes as it becomes a constituting narrative of a larger and more complex community. The main purpose of college or university education is to help older adolescents and adults renegotiate their membership in that encompassing common culture. The foundational knowledge that shapes us as children sooner or later circumscribes our lives. We never entirely outgrow the local, foundational knowledge communities into which we are born. But for most people, the need to cope to one degree or another with the diversity and complexity of human life beyond the local and familiar does outgrow knowledge that is familiar and (locally) foundational. ON POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION: The problem is not that graduate professors do not know what they need to know. The problem is that most of them have learned what they know entirely under the traditional social conditions of academic alienation and aggression. Indeed, the problem is that mmbers of current graduate faculties were selected into the profession in part because they evidenced those traits. As a result, their fine education and superb reputations as scholars and critics may in some cased actually subvert their ability to understand knowledge as a social construct, learinng as an adult social process, and teaching as a role of leadership among adults.