One of the main challenges of the future class room will be dealing with the concept of student’s diminishing attention span due to all the capabilities of technology. This means that class rooms need to be reconstructed away from the tradition style of seating in rows while being lectured, to not only be more technology-centered but more hands on as well. Linda Watsky, a teacher from the film “10 Big Ideas for Better Classrooms” by Edutopia puts it best when she says, “I’ve had students come back to me and tell me ‘remember that project we did!?’ they have never come back and said, ‘remember that test we did?’ (6:47)
I would sell this concept to a school or a community by showing them one of the great examples of hands on projects from the video. One of the projects that stood out most was the car project that the entire middle school was working on. This project really covered an amazing amount of learning. They built cars to learn about physics, they wrote car advertisements for language arts, they used car bill payments to work on math, which in term gave them real life practical experience as well as planned road trips which would help with geography and again real life experience and more. This makes the learning experience much more memorable than totally separate exams from each class on different subjects which would be completely void of real life experience.
The issue of growing diversity is again another issue that is going to have an effect of school reform in 2025. One approach to handling diversity in schools is to approach the diversity of a community as a whole to help guide it towards a mutual desire to see improved education. Gardner defines excellent school work as, “good in the sense of being responsible- it regularly takes into account its implication for the wider community in which it is situated” (p. 128). If a school focused on the diversity of the community, every member of community could benefit from the increased focus on education.
The video again offers two great way of selling this concept to a diverse community towards the end of the clip. The first is the concept how one school in California put on a musical that was translated into multiple languages for the parents. This gives the opportunity for the parents to physically watch and understand their student’s success and have them want to see more of it- education starts at home so getting them involved in this manner will be extremely beneficial. Another crucial selling point would be the afterschool programs shown, where the school made its resources available for the whole community, so even citizens without children can benefit directly.
No conversation about the future of teaching would complete without the discussion of the internet. All students will need full and equal access to the internet to satisfy their maximum learning potential. To sell this basic concept to a school I would use directly from Draves and Coates’ Nine Shift, the “top ten reasons why cognitive learning on the Internet is BETTER than traditional in-person presentations” list on page 223. The list reads:
10. You can learn at your own peak learning time of day.
9. You can learn at your own speed.
8. You can learn faster.
7. You can interact more with the teacher.
6. There is more discussion online.
5. Participants come from around the world.
4. You can learn from the foremost authorities and experts.
3. Online learning is less expensive and thus more accessible.
2. Internet links provide more resources.
1. You can form a virtual community
This list is strengthened when one looks back on the film and sees how many parallels the film draws to this list such as forming a community, maximizing resources, accessibility, increased teacher interaction and so on. This list proves that the internet can directly help with achieving the 10 Big Ideas portrayed in the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment