Moving Forward with Education

New year, new story

This week in lecture I saw a little bit of insight to what education is becoming- technologically based.  Instead of being asked to hand in papers weekly we are asked to blog weekly, or follow our professor on twitter and I think the curriculum needs to move into a new story to match the advances of technology.  It has become clear that test scores are dropping, students are not interested in learning nor do they want to do the work.  So how does one engage a student and motivate them to want to learn?  A teacher that can connect to students is a good start, but how does a teacher do that with the “old school” methods that the curriculum still implements?

Old to new

            The current version of school is what we consider the old story.  Student’s sit in desks that face the teacher and the teacher delivers the information.  Students are passive learners and fall victim to the hidden curriculum and top down learning.  Top down learning is when a teacher moves from topic to topic without any order which I believe is similar to a high school setting, students learn math one period then English the next without any connection to each other or a real life scenario.    

The extreme new story of education would have bottom up learning which relies on direct experience and repeated practice of the new activity in a systematic way however I feel that the story will fall in between the two and it will incorporate sideways learning which is a combination of bottom up and top down learning.  Sideways learning aims at maintaining a mindful state, which makes us receptive to openness and change in an ongoing situation.  This type of learning allows us to learn the basics that the old curriculum values while also allowing creativity and seeing that there is more than one approach to a problem.  This type of learning can be taken outside of the classroom and be used in the real world.

Incorporating technology

            It is one thing to change the content of the curriculum so that it is more applicable for students to use daily however I do not feel that is enough.  The next step would be to change how the curriculum is delivered so that students are interested in hearing and learning what the teacher is teaching.  I feel that the lecturing and memorization method of teaching is not serving students well and it needs to go.  Teachers need to “get with the times” and incorporate technology and hands on learning in the classroom.  One way to do this would be to acquire smartboards in the classroom so students can engage and actually get out of their chair to learn as opposed to sitting in one for 6 hours everyday.

            When teachers are delivering information to a student they need to replace “this is a...” to “this could be a…” to encourage creativity and allow students to take charge of their learning.  This is a shift from an unconditional form of giving information, which means the material is presented from a single perspective to conditional form, which allows for creativity and alternatives.  Mistakes should be encouraged in the classroom, as this is how we learn and grow.  Students should be allowed to question the material being delivered and perhaps investigate using trial and error to confirm the information is true.  For example, if the teacher says adding NaOH makes a solution more basic they should allow the student to try this in an experiment so they can see for themselves as opposed to just accepting the information as true.

The link to this video shows how technology in the classroom would allow such trial and error of an experiment to happen in the classroom.  The student is able to make mistakes think critically and see the results of adding NaOH. (watch 7:29-7:51) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzahyTMq8u4

            

Nearing the end

            In conclusion I feel that the new story of education will include technology to spark interest in each student.  The classroom will shift from teacher based to collaborative based so the students have a responsibility and a say in their learning which will encourage them to engage in their learning.  The new story will be full of creativity and the dark cloud stigma above making mistakes will be gone.