Why hasn’t education changed in two centuries?
Our 29th guest on the Teacher Toolkit podcast is Reggie Grant, Assistant Professor of Journalism at Tallahassee Community College in Florida. Prior to this he taught in High Schools for 10+ years.
Podcast Summary
In this episode, you can hear Reggie and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill:
- discuss Reggie’s frustrations about how little education has changed in the last two centuries
- talk about when Ross and Reggie first met – on a bus!
- describe the state of education in Florida and how it could be improved
- offer an alternative to standardised testing
- explore why friendship amongst colleagues is so important
- reveal what book Reggie is reading.
Remember, our podcast is available on iTunes!
Project-Based Learning
In a follow-up conversation with Reggie, we asked: “Why is project-based learning so important?”
“I think that teaching students individual subjects like Mathematics and English and Science, compartmentalised in different rooms in a way that shows no obvious relationships between them, is beyond madness. Everything relates to everything. We should be developing meaningful projects that teach students how all of these subjects relate to each other, while providing them with an opportunity to problem solve and exercise their creativity by creating products that actually mean something. We should be doing this to make our students better citizens, emphasising empathy for others, so they understand the importance of making the world a better place for all of us.
He went on to explain that all his classroom-based projects help develop four skills:
- Problem solving
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Creativity
You can follow Reggie on Twitter and read his blog Media 4 Literacy. In particular, take a read of the post “Distracted Driving Project Helped Make My Students Better Citizens” and see if you feel inspired to run a similar project in your school.
