Our friend, the esteemed researcher and whistleblower, Charlotte Iserbyt, corresponds with concerned educators and others from across the world. Here is an email that she received from a correspondent in Bosnia:
A little information on education reform (restructuring) in ex-Yugoslavia countries and especially in Bosnia:
OBE is being implemented here for more than 7 years now. They started to teach teacher at the master degree studies (that is opened at about the same time) how to implement it. I have been enrolled there but couldn't learn what they want because of all socialistic indoctrination taking place and all reform-things being teach... They introduce new curriculum based on achieving the predetermined outcomes which are starting to be less and less academical - just as Charlotte speaks about. When the control-staff from government come to a class to see how a teacher works, they only look if the teacher and his students achieved the predetermined outcomes for a class and does he has evidences of that achievement.
They have a whole-semester class on Backward design at mentioned master study for teacher and they use translated book called Understanding by Design (UbD) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. That is the method for implementing OBE via Skinner's Mastery Learning...
We had here a similar thing like Carnegie Units before - but now they are introducing Mastery Learning with OBE! In Serbia, a new law, starting in 2014., will force teacher to prepare students for testing and pilot testing will be introduced as well as student being recycled until passed the test or declared learning disabled and sent to be trained for whatever job working in which he will be contributing the state. That is teaching to the test!
They also introduce the backward planning of lessons, that is planning from the outcomes to the materials necessary... We also have a laptop per each child and one per teacher in almost every classroom. All teachers have been in seminars to learn how to use them. Exactly as Charlotte and others told: OBE workforce training with Mastery learning and via computers and teachers teaching to the test!
At our seminars, we are being told that books will be replaced and that subject and grades will be eliminated, or at least everyone will get an 'A' but at a different time (ML)! Also, an individualized learning plan will be created for each student... Each student now has a dossier and teachers are being told to make student portfolios as well! We have also a computer data base of their grades only - for now...
They are now developing the process of integration of subjects into different areas and they are telling us to correlate each lesson from different subjects with other subjects - holistic approach!
When I read Charlotte's book and work of other great Americans that are on this mailing list, I could not believed that everything that is happening here nowadays already happened in USA and the results are known! It has been like I was "being hit by a train". Not many parents and teachers know about this reform and its goals and when I explain in to some of them, I get only ignorant opposition.
This is just a small portion of what is happening to our education today.
A little information on education reform (restructuring) in ex-Yugoslavia countries and especially in Bosnia:
OBE is being implemented here for more than 7 years now. They started to teach teacher at the master degree studies (that is opened at about the same time) how to implement it. I have been enrolled there but couldn't learn what they want because of all socialistic indoctrination taking place and all reform-things being teach... They introduce new curriculum based on achieving the predetermined outcomes which are starting to be less and less academical - just as Charlotte speaks about. When the control-staff from government come to a class to see how a teacher works, they only look if the teacher and his students achieved the predetermined outcomes for a class and does he has evidences of that achievement.
They have a whole-semester class on Backward design at mentioned master study for teacher and they use translated book called Understanding by Design (UbD) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. That is the method for implementing OBE via Skinner's Mastery Learning...
We had here a similar thing like Carnegie Units before - but now they are introducing Mastery Learning with OBE! In Serbia, a new law, starting in 2014., will force teacher to prepare students for testing and pilot testing will be introduced as well as student being recycled until passed the test or declared learning disabled and sent to be trained for whatever job working in which he will be contributing the state. That is teaching to the test!
They also introduce the backward planning of lessons, that is planning from the outcomes to the materials necessary... We also have a laptop per each child and one per teacher in almost every classroom. All teachers have been in seminars to learn how to use them. Exactly as Charlotte and others told: OBE workforce training with Mastery learning and via computers and teachers teaching to the test!
At our seminars, we are being told that books will be replaced and that subject and grades will be eliminated, or at least everyone will get an 'A' but at a different time (ML)! Also, an individualized learning plan will be created for each student... Each student now has a dossier and teachers are being told to make student portfolios as well! We have also a computer data base of their grades only - for now...
They are now developing the process of integration of subjects into different areas and they are telling us to correlate each lesson from different subjects with other subjects - holistic approach!
When I read Charlotte's book and work of other great Americans that are on this mailing list, I could not believed that everything that is happening here nowadays already happened in USA and the results are known! It has been like I was "being hit by a train". Not many parents and teachers know about this reform and its goals and when I explain in to some of them, I get only ignorant opposition.
This is just a small portion of what is happening to our education today.
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