Progressivist Educational Philosophy

Lindsay Wipf
Dr. Katherine Bartolini
Foundations of American Education
December 1, 2015

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 Progressivist Educational Philosophy
Through this class and really this whole semester, I have been able to learn more about

who I am and who I will be as a future educator. When looking at different philosophies of

education and the InTASC standards, I get very excited about what the future of teaching holds

for me and my students. I am so thankful for all of the resources available and the information

that has been published because through it I have been able to grow and develop ideas about

topics I never knew existed in the teaching world. By getting to analyze, evaluate and apply

these philosophies and InTASC standards to my life, I have been able to see myself grow.

Though this job requires lifelong growth and learning, I love seeing myself develop even one

step closer to actually putting it into practice.

After taking the educational philosophy inventory, I tallied up my score to learn that I was

a strong progressivist. The rest of my totals were almost even in the mid-twenties range, but

progressivism stood out at 41 points. As I did my research, I found that I indeed was a

progressivist not just by the score of a simple inventory but by definition as well. According to

LeoNora M. Cohen(1999), Progressivists believe that education should focus on the whole

child, rather than on the content or the teachers. And Dr. Peter A. Theodore(2015) takes that

definition even further by defining whole child when he states that, Progressivists center their

curricula on the needs, experiences, interests, and abilities of students. The more I read, the

more I agreed. I have always been a relational learner and feel that when someone can make

connections and adapts things to fit them, they truly do enjoy learning. When they enjoy

learning, they simply delve to a deeper and fuller level. This follows along perfectly with the

views of a progressivist.

To me the definition of a progressivist is a person who is focused on individuals. They

believe the best way to do something is based off of personal values and strengths, and that

adaptation and flexibility are needed if the goal is to educate everyone. My specific discipline is

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Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education. I believe that an educator in this

discipline can fit into progressivism by using the students input as the primary way of creating

the ways in which learning and teaching occur in the classroom. A specific example that comes

to mind is the Fishback Center for Early Childhood Education on campus in Pugsely Hall. Dr.

Kay Cutler, the director of the school, and her staff used the preschoolers and kindergarteners

opinions and desires to create the playground located just outside the center. Young children

learn through play, so being able to incorporate their interests into a play area and the

curriculum at the school is a perfect example of how an early childhood or elementary educator

can use progressive philosophy. Also, the idea of allowing students to read books they choose

in order to learn how to read, or having them write about topics that interest them when

practicing writing, or even preforming individual science experiments based on their personal

curiosities are all ways that I believe my specific disciple would be progressivist. I could also

have assignments that are fairly open, like allowing for a video presentation, play, drawing or

sculpturing for a book report instead of just a written paragraph or Powerpoint.

My personal favorite InTASC standards are standards three, six and seven. I believe

they also fit in very well with my philosophy, and I found many applicable ways to make them

consistent with progressivism. To start out, according to the Council of Chief State School

Officers (2011), InTASC three states, The teacher works with others to create environments

that support individual and collaborative learning, and that encourage positive social interaction,

active engagement in learning, and self motivation (Page12). InTASC six states, The teacher

understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth,

to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teachers and learners decision making (Page

15). And finally, InTASC seven states, The teacher plans instruction that supports every

student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas,

curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the

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community context (Page 16). Each of these touch on a specific part of teaching that I hope to

uses as a progressivist to create and individualized education.

When looking at InTASC standard three, I believe that I can use my progressivist

philosophy as I work with individual students to help create environments where learning and

encouragement to learn are prominent. In order to do this, I looked into many different

publications by Howard Gardner. Through years of research, Gardner changed what

intelligence and learning environments look like. Gardner (2011) defines intelligence as, a

biopsychological potential to process information in certain kinds of ways, in order to solve

problems or create products that are valued in one or more cultural settings (Page 3). Gardner

believes that the different ways of processing information spans all the way from orally to

naturalistically. According to his research, for me to accomplish InTASC standard three I believe

I would use all nine of Gardners intelligences in my classroom. I would like to use my

philosophy and apply InTASC standard three by creating environments where all nine

intelligences can be found. I believe in doing that I can allow for an individual to be personally

and collaboratively engaged and motivated. With a philosophy that focuses on the whole child, I

would have each child take a multiple intelligences inventory to get a better understanding of

how they learn best, and then, as InTASC standard 3 states, I would work with others to create

a classroom set-up where those intelligences are present. Some great ideas to have a

classroom like this come from Carol Ann Tomlinson. Tomlinson offers up having both quiet

spaces in a room as well as places for collaboration. She discusses having multicultural

materials in the classroom as well as multiple forms of homes. I would personally like to use

those guidelines when creating my classroom setting so my students can feel they are in an

environment that is pulling from their experiences, needs and interests.

Along the same lines, I would like to assess my students in multiple ways as InTASC

standard six states. Because my philosophy focuses on adapting curriculum to individual

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students, I also believe in focusing assessment on individual students. Students not only learn

in unique ways but also show their knowledge in unique ways. In my classroom I would like to

use assessment forms that individually encourage learning but also accurately assess progress

to help guide my students and me in the decisions made in the classroom. One way I can do

this is by using Blooms Taxonomy. According to Anderson and Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom

believed there were three domains in which a person learned. One of those domains was

cognitive learning, and that contained six levels. As a student develops, they should also be

able to more deeply learn information and eventually use it. They start off by just remembering,

and by the end they should be able to take what they have learned and create new or

alternative information. His taxonomy helps teachers to write lesson plans that individually

assess students. It also allows students to gain skills of inquiry. I would like to use the key words

and questions that are appropriate for the different levels of learning in my assessments of my

students. To find out individually where each student is, I would like to provide activities and

tests that require knowledge beyond just the level of remembering or reciting. I hope to assess

my students by having them show me how to prove something or construct a model to change

something. Since I am a progressivist, I would also want to provide assessments where

students recall or describe information previously learned. When a student feels encouraged by

an assessment that is accurately based on their knowledge but challenges them to take it

deeper, they are encouraged to grow, and I, as the teacher, am accurately observing their

progress. By providing a variety of assessments that use varied levels of Blooms cognitive

learning, I hope to give my students and myself a whole-child view of growth made, growth

needed and future expectations.

I would like to have a progressivist approach not only in environment and assessment

but also, as in line with InTASC 7, in instruction. I believe that when a teacher uses a variety of

ways to teach content, students are able to meet learning goals in all of the ways InTASC 7

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states. Grant Wiggins (2015) backs up that statement by saying that, Arguably, transfer can

only be caused by many interventions, a gradual release model, and lots of practice of multiple

strategies simultaneously over a long period of time as the research repeatedly says and as

common sense tell us. In order to teach to each individual student, I need to use many different

methods and strategies. To do that, I would like to apply the Understanding by Design method

created by Wiggins and his colleague Jay McTighe. Wiggins and McTighe both push backward

design as well as many other great tools. Backward design is when as an educator, I would first

identify my desired results then determine acceptable evidence, then plan learning experiences

and instruction. I would hope to design all of my lessons in this way so that I can make sure my

varied teaching methods and differentiated content always fit into a big goal or takeaway. When

teaching this way, I can make sure that I am supporting each student at his or her own level in

ways that will guide him or her toward using content, curriculum, skills and community to reach

clear, desired outcomes. After designing a lesson in that way, I would like to use some specific

strategies from Carol Ann Tomlinson and Marcia Tate to create a progressivist approach in what

my learning experiences and instruction are. To vary content so many different individuals can

learn, as described by Tomlinson, I would like to provide a wide range of reading materials that

cover different topics and allow for different ability levels. I want to present materials orally and

visually. I would also love to use the strategies of Tate. She lays out 20 different ways of

teaching that are more effective than just worksheets or lectures. When looking through her list,

I want to try to switch up the ones I use and make sure to present all or most of them during the

year. I would love to utilize strategies that normally would not be applied to certain content. For

example, I want to try to use role play and metaphors in a math lesson, or work study and music

into a history lesson. This way, from a progressivist point of view, students who have never

understood certain content because it is always taught the same way might understand it or at

least begin to.

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 Being a progressivist, I am starting to see the amount of work and dedication it takes to

truly teach. When looking over all the InTASC standards, there is a colossal amount of time that

goes into applying them not only to every classroom but also to every student. I am so thankful

to have many resources available and assignments like this to make me begin to think and

develop the mindset of a future teacher. I would love to use a whole child approach when

designing my classroom, assessments and instruction someday. I hope to truly take the ideas

from this paper and use them to grow, inspire, and develop the children I someday will get the

privilege of teaching.

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 References

Anderson, L & Krathwohl, D. (2001). A Taxonomy For Learning, Teaching, and Assessing.

Published by Allen and Bacon

Authentic Eduction - What is Ubd? (2015). Retrieved from

http://www.authenticeducation.org/ubd/ubd.lasso

Cohen, L. (1999). Philosophical Perspectives In Education. Retrieved from

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/PP3.html

Concept to Classroom: Tapping into multiple intelligences- Explanation (2004). Retrieved from

http://www.thirteen.ord/edonline/concept2class/mi/indes.html

Cutler, K(2015, November 12). Preschool to Middle Childhood. Lecture presented in Rotunda G,

Brookings.

Gardner, H. (2011, October 22). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences: As Psychology, As

Education, As Social Science Howard Gardner. Retrieved from https://

howardgardner01.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/473-madrid-oct-22-2011.pdf

Inters Model Core Teaching Standards. (2011). Retrieved from

http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/Interstate_Teacher_Assessment_Consortium

Tate, M. (2010). Worksheets dont grow dendrites: 20 instructional strategies that engage the

brain (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.

Theodore, P. (2015). Progressivism. Retrieved from

http://www.siue.edu/-ptheodo/fondations/progressivism.html

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2012). Understating By Design Framework. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312

Wiggins, G. (2015, May 25). My reply to Willingham, Part 2. Retrieved from

https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/my-reply-to-willingham-part-2/

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