Building knowledge is endless, but building a metaphor is not.

As this metaphor comes to a close, I`d like to summarize previous posts and the metaphor itself. I chose to see a teacher as a metaphorical architect primarily because an architect is a planner and not the doer. The final product of construction (built by the students/construction team) would be the meaningful knowledge. The technological tools used…are the technological tools used. This metaphor links closely to the concept of knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter). An architect’s job also requires a great deal of team work, specialists of various types must come together to create a masterpiece. In a classroom, a teacher hopes that their students work cooperatively and build on each other’s strengths in order to create…well a masterpiece. Another similarity between architectural work and teaching is the planning, effort, structure is entails. Classroom management is an art that requires a great deal of the elements mentioned above.

When pushing the metaphor further, I looked into the duality between teacher-centered and student-centered. Architects use technological tools similarly to teachers; for organization,visuals and efficiency among other uses. The student-centered aspect of the metaphor lies in the fact that construction workers are actually making/building the product, the architect only has a hand in the planning. A teacher’s job is to set-up learning opportunities that the students can then excute, build/make meaningful.

And there you have it, a beautiful imperfect metaphor for teaching in a teachnology mediated environment!