Running head: PROGRESSIVISM

Progressivisms Key Leaders Christina Cook Athens State University ED 302 Spring 2014 Dr. Susan Patterson

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Abstract Progressivism is a student-centered way of teaching. It opens up the classroom and transforms it into a learning unit made up of individual groups. In each group, students are feeding off of each others understanding taking their knowledge to a higher level. Guided by a teacher that takes into consideration their needs and ideas. Three key role models have paved the way for this student-centered philosophy. Dewey, Noddings, and Kolb help one understand how this strategy can be executed and maintained. This is the classroom of tomorrow.

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Progressivisms Key Leaders The educational philosophy progressivism is based largely on the belief that lessons must be relevant and flexible around the needs of students in order for them to learn (Sadker & zittleman, 2013). I believe this should be one of our main focuses in the classroom. A progressivist classroom is not stagnant is. Children can talk in groups and ask questions related to the criterion. Letting our students help during instruction follows the lead of our founding progressivist role models. Three key progressivist leaders contributing to this student-centered philosophy are: John Dewey, Nel Noddings, and David Kolb. Their ideas help one understand the idea of democracy in the classroom. The first key progressivist leader was John Dewey. He was exposed to the teachings of G.H. Perkins the famous English evolutionist. Through his experience, the theory of natural selection played a key role on his thoughts of humans learning through interaction with one another. After being an educator at a high school for 2 years, he decided to pursue his career in philosophy. After going back to college at John Hopkins under the tutorage of Morris and Hegelian, Dewey learned to appreciate the scientific method and how it correlated with human sciences. Cooperative learning is defined as the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning. Deweys idea of cooperative learning is still alive today and plays an important part in daily lesson planning. It gives the students the freedom to converse with one another in the effort to further their knowledge. If we teach todays students as we taught yesterdays, we rob them of tomorrow (Servant, 2012). This idea of evolving education relates directly to his idea of cooperative learning. A teacher should

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not stand in front of the classroom and be the sole educator in the classroom. The students should be able to assist one another too. One example of cooperative learning is think-pair-share. This is where students are asked to answer questions in front of the whole class. Another is the round table where the teacher poses a question to team groups with multiple answers. The students in each team write a response on a piece of paper. The team that gets the most answers right wins. Lastly, a group of students can practice higher-level thinking through an activity called investigations. This is usually done through a science related project where the students have a choice in topic (Clairmont Education). Nel Noddings is yet another progressivist leader. She spent seventeen years teaching math and was a school administrator. Then, she earned her PhD and worked as an academic in the field of educational philosophy, specifically moral and ethics of education. She has received many awards for excellence in teaching. Noddings has been President of the Philosophy of Education and John Dewey Society. Her philosophy background has been developed through her early educational experiences and her close relationships. Ethics of care and moral education is a key contribution to educational progressivism. Ethics of care defined is identified in two stages, caring-for and caring-about. The former stage refers to actual hands-on application of caring services, and the latter to a state of being whereby one nurtures caring ideas or intentions. She further argued that the scope of caring obligation is limited (Sander-Staudt). Later, she revised this by stating that caring for distant others is just as important as a reciprocal relationship. Noddings affirmed that it was impossible to care for others.

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Three examples of ethics of care correlate with each other feeding off the one before onto the next. Ethical caring, the relation in which we do meet the other morally [arises] out of natural caring that relation in which we respond as one-caring out of love or natural inclination. The relation of natural caring [is] the human condition that we, consciously or unconsciously, perceive as good. It is that condition toward which we long and strive, and it is our longing for caring to be in that special relationship that provides the motivation for us to be moral. We want to be moral in order to remain in the caring relation and to enhance the ideal of ourselves as one-caring (Smith, 2004). One ought to care for another and receive the same in return. David Kolb is the third key leader in progressivism. He was a graduate of Harvard School in 1964 and 1967. David has received four honorary degrees recognizing his work in experiential learning. In 2008 David A. Kolb received the Educational Pioneers of the Year award (with Alice Kolb) from the National Society of Experiential Education (Smith, 2010). Experiential education is making meaning from an experience. It can be related to action, adventure, and cooperative learning. It can exist without a teacher because it focuses on the experience itself. It takes the learner to a whole new level of understanding. The experiential learning is a cycle of learning. At the beginning of the cycle is the activity phase where the learner actively experiences. Then, the learner shares reactions and observations during publishing. Processing and generating follow as the learner discusses and develops principles. The last stage of the cycle is applying; this is where the student has reached a higher level of thinking.

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These three key leaders in educational philosophy have developed ways for explaining and executing learning strategies that help instructors base their classrooms around their students. Resulting in an evolving classroom made of many units working as a whole, not just one teacher standing in front of the room giving instruction. This is the classroom of tomorrow.

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REFERENCES Clairmont Education. (n.d.). Cooperative learning strategies. Retrieved from http://www.cusd.claremont.edu/edu/el/pdfs/Cooperative_learning_strategies.pdf Sadker. , & Sadker, (2013). Teachers, schools, and society. (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGrawHill. Sander-Staudt, M. (n.d.). Care ethics. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/care-eth/ Servant, V. (2012, April 15). The relevance of john deweys democracy and education. Retrieved from http://www.prometheaeducation.com/2012/04/15/the-relevance-of-johndeweys-democracy-and-education/ Smith, M. (2004). Nel noddings, the ethics of care and education. Retrieved from http://infed.org/mobi/nel-noddings-the-ethics-of-care-and-education/ Smith, M. K. (2010). David a. kolb on experiential learning.. Retrieved from http://infed.org/mobi/david-a-kolb-on-experiential-learning/