Reply to Is FCPS "cheating" my kids out of the minimum instruction required by the state?

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Is FCPS "cheating" my kids out of the minimum instruction required by the state?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've been teaching in FCPS for 22 years. My DW has 8 years with FCPS. Neither one of us has heard much about or have been trained for either PBL or Flipped Classroom.[/quote]

Don't feed the troll. He had some bad experience in high school didn't get into Harvard and haunts the nova board batching about fcps pedagogy. [/quote]

Such ad hominem silliness attempting to divert the dialog away from the question as to are FCPS children being cheated out of a quality education and for thousands of children the answer is clearly an astounding YES!

Flipped Classrooms and Project Based Learning teaching methodologies are disconnecting teachers from their students. Students are expected to learn through independent study or from other equally uninformed students. Teachers assign Final Assessments at the beginning of three week units and then essentially punch out of the teaching process for the next several weeks. The teachers do not do much prep work themselves during those next several weeks and as a result are usually unprepared to answer even rudimentary questions about what the kids are working on. Every kid is working on something different because the only teacher input is a packet of papers and a final assessment date.

Different students are always at different places in the learning process. The students ask questions all over the assignment spectrum and because the teachers have not prepped for any particular lesson they don't have quality answers formulated right off the top of their heads. Rather than answering legitimate valid questions from their students the Teacher's responses are "you should know that answer from your readings" and then they walk away annoyed at the child because they were asked questions in which they were unprepared to answer.

After a while the students stop asking questions and the teachers stop venturing away from their desks and the students stop asking questions.

Dr. Garza is at fault!  She is aware that the failed experimental methodologies of Flipped Classrooms and Project Based Learning are being forced on students in FCPS and she has done nothing to stop it. Thousands of students are lost and confused and as individuals are being rejected by their teachers because they are being subjected to pop teaching methodologies like Flipped Classrooms and Project Based Learning. 
[/quote]

Is your complaint about one school and one teacher?  I can believe regardless of instructional method, that some teachers are disconnected.  But your sweeping statements are disingenuous at best.  This isn't how flipped classrooms work, nor is it how project based learning works.  If either method is utilized correctly, they provide more teacher support as the teacher can and does move from group to group guiding the students and answering questions all along.

Did you talk with the teacher(s) directly? The principal?  I have seen your generalized complaints on a few thread, but no specifics, so I can only guess you just don't like the idea of these methods, but haven't truly seen them in action....[/quote]

Yes ... of course we spoke directly to the teachers and administrators. Their responses were the same. They said this is the future of education across the country and in Fairfax County in particular. Those of you who are buying into Flipped Classrooms and Project Based Learning models are buying into theories and not best teaching practices. They look better in therory than they function in practice. In practice long-term work is assigned and between that point and collection of the assignments the teachers punch out disconnecting from the students because they a no longer required to teach. They essentially show up in the morning and then hang around for several hours waiting for the day to end so they can leave.

People who ascribe to Flipped Classrooms and Project Based Learning are believing in educational theories not educational practices which actually work.

Communism, Laissez Faire Capitalism, Flipped Classrooms, and Project Based Learning all appear pretty good on paper and in therory, but all are horrible in practice because they each fails to take human nature into consideration.

Stop Flipped Classrooms and Project Based Learning NOW!!!

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics