Democratic classrooms let students have voices and opinions. Students see lessons as having no control, sitting there and just absorbing information. These democratic classrooms let students feel like they have a say in what happens, and gets them involved in what they learn. After lessons are taught, students are encouraged to give feedback. I have never personally experienced this type of learning, but it seems like it could be fun and interesting.
Alfie Kohn stated that standardized tests cannot accurately measure intelligence and I agree! I actually did a report for this subject last semester and I was able to uncover a lot of points. Standardized tests produce a lot of anxiety and stress, making it difficult to pass! The fact that these tests are a pass or fail technique is unfair to students and the teachers, too.
I think most schools rely on tradition and are fearful of the potential loss of control that democratic schools posit. Still many teachers try to take some of the principles into their classrooms - an easy start is to create choice in how students are assessed. Clickers are becoming passe' as a student feedback tool with web-based tools like Socrative and Kahoot that can be used with BYOD or even Plickers (teacher is the only one who needs a device) are more accessible and affordable than the clickers. Nice Bitstrips - love how comics can express so much!
ReplyDeleteRemember that you always need to add your resources (minimum is the textbook, but here you would reference both as a resource and an in-text citation the source for the Alfie Kohn statement).