possible definitions, questions

I feel less-than-crystal-clear on some of these terms but I'll throw a couple thoughts out. I think I have been using "progressive" and "constructivist" somewhat interchangeably, but I would like to be more precise. According to my notes from math class, Linda said at one point that "Progressivism" refers to the idea that "Humans are social beings and learn best in real life situations with other people" and "Constructivism" refers to the idea that "Education should support students constructing knowledge and deriving concepts for themselves." This coincides with Natalie's definitions. These are helpful distinctions. But, I think in real life a lot of people use the term "progressive" more loosely, not really for its reference to the social nature of education but for its connotations of "using liberal ideas"...there's a cultural/political connotation there to me. E.g. I might expect a "progressive preschool" to have organic food, lots of imaginative play time, dolls representing a variety of races, and encourage both girls and boys to build with hammers and nails.

Here is what I found out about the term "higher order thinking." I kind of cheated and looked it up online but this definition seemed to work with my understanding of it: "The idea that skills involving analysis, evaluation and synthesis (creation of new knowledge) are of a higher order, requiring different learning and teaching methods, than the learning of facts and concepts. Higher order thinking involves the learning of complex skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. Higher order thinking is more difficult to learn or teach but also more valuable because such skills are more likely to be usable in new situations (i.e., situations other than those in which the skill was learned)."

Olivia asked if it was related to codes of power. Whether or not students at a given school have the opportunity to learn or be tested on higher level thinking skills would be related to class and race. Also, the "Shoulders of Giants" article we read seemed to be saying that in some other countries, students are assessed more on these higher-level skills than they are with our test systems here in the US.

Like some of the rest of you, the question of standards and assessment is puzzling me. Basically, I do feel that "there should be standards"...but I get pretty stuck around the questions of who determines those standards and how they are assessed. I would like to see high expectations and high levels of support for students and teachers to match them. Like it sounds so great in Finland, how come we can't manage that? But then I think about how homogenous Finland is, and how wealthy overall. The inequalities in the US create such a different situation. Standards could be helpful to make things more equitable, but then the punitive testing/funding link results in less equity. Even without that, there is the loaded question of who gets to decide what the standards and tests are. The weird dance between the feds and the states seems to have us in a less-than-direct situation that just doesn't work, and then we add in the corporate influences and it seems we are entrenched in it. I wish I could access some "higher order thinking skills" to be able to assess this better from a big-systems perspective.