A COLLABORATIVE,PROBLEM-CENTERED APPROACH
 
This was a very interesting article on many accounts. I
am fascinated with the concept of simulation and with
the exception of video games have less than an accurate
idea of what is involved in setting them up and how they
can be used. In my mind's eye, I see being able to
create a culture and have the student suddenly find him
or herself in the midst of an environment that was so
foreign, they would have to start having to learn
everything anew. This is quite similar to what Denny
and Catie were doing in their separate classrooms.
 
To summarize, Mushroom Management requires that the
teacher 1) Put students in the Dark; 2)Feed Them Manure;
3)Stand Back and Let Them Grow and 4) Chop Off Their
Heads and Ship Them. Very creative and good descriptive
terms used! The idea behind Mushroom Management is
almost the opposite of Direct Teaching. Mushroom
Management gives the student the problem, the
information to begin to solve the problem, the time to
solve the problem and then sends them off to the next
learning activity. It is authentic learning and allows
students to feel that they are completing tasks that
will really make a difference and make sense. It also
allows them to grow, feed and produce their own learning
and take responsibility for the outcome.
 
Only one small portion of the First Intergalactic
Congress Simulation was bothersome to me. In the final
stage of the Chop Off Their Heads and Ship them stage,
students were asked to write to a pen pal living in a
country with either a communist or dictatorship form of
government and explain to them how laws are made in
America. This was seen as an evaluative tool and to
bring the simulation to a close with the American
students describing their system of government to
someone with a different experience. I use the term
different because to say that one's own governmental
policies are better than another's is ethnocentric. I
hope that the penpals that received these letters from
the American Government class had an opportunity to talk
about their government and the negative and positive
qualities.
 
Otherwise, the Problem-Simulated Teaching Method
continued to gain momentum and became more effective
with the added use of technology. It also caused more
teachers to become more involved with the restructuring
of this particular school and take an active role in the
decision making process. A magnet school was the
eventual outcome of Bob and Catie's simulation. What a
wonderful example of a school,its administrators,
teachers and the community coming together to make
learning authentic!