posted 06-15-2001 12:20               

FACE TO FACE
Closing the Achievement Gap: An Interview with Belinda Williams
by Kali Saposnick

For at least 20 years, an urban American elementary school teacher taught her students about animals by taking them to the zoo and asking them to write about the experience. Although she noticed that only some children responded enthusiastically to the writing assignment, she continued to use the same lesson. Then she discovered new information about human development, which suggests that environment and culture play a critical role in how children learn, so she decided to experiment. This time, she asked the class to write about how they would have to change their homes in order to bring an animal from the zoo to live with them. Suddenly, all of the kids' eyes lit up and they eagerly tackled the task.

Why did more children become engaged in the activity once the teacher personalized it? According to psychologist Belinda Williams, "For some kids, writing about the animals is enough; others need to give their experience more meaning--especially those who are socio-economically disadvantaged." For the last 30 years, Williams has been trying to broaden educators' knowledge about how children learn in order to close the achievement gap between diverse populations in academic settings. Her work focuses on expanding our understanding of human development beyond traditional theories, such as Jean Piaget's idea that most children grasp knowledge in developmental stages from concrete to abstract. Her findings suggest that "in addition to psychology, there are at least two other knowledge bases--the neurosciences and sociology--that are equally and arguably more important for understanding learning and teaching." Read the complete article.

Copyright 2001 Pegasus Communications.

posted 06-19-2001 18:47            

.

quote:

---

Originally posted by RodWilliams:
Posted by admin(RW)
from Leverage Points Issue 13

FACE TO FACE
Closing the Achievement Gap: An Interview with Belinda Williams
by Kali Saposnick

For at least 20 years, an urban American elementary school teacher taught her students about animals by taking them to the zoo and asking them to write about the experience. Although she noticed that only some children responded enthusiastically to the writing assignment, she continued to use the same lesson. Then she discovered new information about human development, which suggests that environment and culture play a critical role in how children learn, so she decided to experiment. This time, she asked the class to write about how they would have to change their homes in order to bring an animal from the zoo to live with them. Suddenly, all of the kids' eyes lit up and they eagerly tackled the task.

Why did more children become engaged in the activity once the teacher personalized it? According to psychologist Belinda Williams, "For some kids, writing about the animals is enough; others need to give their experience more meaning--especially those who are socio-economically disadvantaged." For the last 30 years, Williams has been trying to broaden educators' knowledge about how children learn in order to close the achievement gap between diverse populations in academic settings. Her work focuses on expanding our understanding of human development beyond traditional theories, such as Jean Piaget's idea that most children grasp knowledge in developmental stages from concrete to abstract. Her findings suggest that "in addition to psychology, there are at least two other knowledge bases--the neurosciences and sociology--that are equally and arguably more important for understanding learning and teaching." Read the complete article.

Copyright 2001 Pegasus Communications.

[This message has been edited by RodWilliams (edited 06-19-2001).]

---

posted 06-20-2001 15:15               

I spoke with Belinda Williams, who responded as follows:

First, I think it’s an excellent question. My answer is yes and no. I think of service learning as an experience that develops social awareness and a sense of making contributions. That experience can be tied to learning. My work is specifically focused on enabling students who have not traditionally been successful in the schools as they are currently structured to achieve the standards. So to the extent that a service-learning project somehow is used to develop the knowledge and skills that are going to be tested, then it could be tied into improving achievement. For example, if a writing or problem-solving component that required mathematical skills such as graphing or estimating was built into the project, and kids were going to be tested on that, then it could fit in with what I’m talking about. From what I understand about serving-learning projects, they’re designed to develop in students a sense of giving, caring, and responsibility. I think that work is very important. If that’s the project’s sole purpose and that’s all that’s involved, however, that’s not what my work is about. My work is about identifying and valuing the knowledge in students’ experiences to engage them in learning the content that is going to be assessed by state standards, specifically.