In planning a blended learning class for the upcoming school year a great deal of thoughts have been ricocheting around my headspace. Thoughts of project-based learning, inquiry in education, PLNs and other assorted acronyms having all had their exits and entrances. But recently there's been an unlikely source cropping up; a cookbook.
One needs only to scroll back throb recent posts To realize that this writer is fond of both food and hastily taken photographs of recent cooking efforts. To that end I've been reading Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio. In particular this quote stands out:
With the advent of the Internet, we have access to an ocean of recipes but relatively less information on food and cooking. Understanding ratios and technique is, for the home cook, a step toward becoming more independent in the kitchen. But ratios are just as important to chefs and other food professionals because they provide a launching point for the development of new dishes.
Technique will ultimately determine the quality of the end result. Ratios are the points from which infinite variations begin.
Isn't this what educators should be striving to do? Shouldn't education be about helping learners find their own ratios of learning and understanding? Far too often it feels as though we are more concerned with having students memorize one recipe and woe to all involved if that memory isn't accurate. I'd rather my students have more time with activities that are reflective of their learning.
In a recent session of #edchat on Twitter the discussion topic was the Flipped Classroom. Some educators expressed concern over what a "flipped" classroom might auger for a brick-and-mortar school. In light of Ruhlman's thoughts I'm going to close by standing by an earlier tweet:
#flipclass will make physical schools irrelevant the same way that personal cooking has made restaurants irrelevant #edchat
It's time to get thinking about what ratios my students will learn and which ones I'll learn from them.
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