My philosophy on learning has changed and mutated over the last couple of years, as have the opportunities and resources that have become available. To this point, I think it is important for us as teachers to remain agile in our thought processes and agile in our methods.
Our job as educators both changes rapidly every year and stays the same. At the core level we will always want students to learn something new, experience something new and learn to love to learn. Encouraging exploration and play will unlock the human potential and will help us make sense of this ever changing world. While I believe that students need to form their own knowledge through relating personal experiences it is their peers and teachers that should be there to push them and challenge them to reach new heights.
Technology is all around us and so much of it can be used for educational purposes, yet we do our students a grave disservice by teaching them in classrooms built a century ago. We need to start looking at technology not only as a tool to engage our students now but as a critical tool they will use in the future.
One could differentiate between learners and teachers by the level of passion they have for the subject and their ability to inspire others to find their own passion. Each student learns differently and instead of always trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, as we have done for so long with our “one size fits all” educational system, we should be celebrating these differences and use them as a chance to learn new ways of teaching. Remaining agile will be the only way we can keep relevant.
You point out the importance of teachers remaining flexible and understanding that change is inevitable during this exciting time in technological advancement and the benefits that provides for education. Teachers who are not agile or open to innovative ideas are already struggling to keep students’ attention in order to teach them much of anything. In regards to your professor who taught with a whiteboard, I have no doubt that good teachers are capable of creating a positive learning environment and to engage students with no technology. However, even if the technology is not being used by the students or constantly throughout the class, I think many programs and tools that have been created recently provide teachers with a more efficient means of organizing and presenting information to students (when that is necessary). Especially in K-12 classrooms, the efficiency of tracking student behavior and sharing information across schools and states provides insurmountable information in a matter of no time at all.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts 🙂 Have a fabulous weekend!
-Erika
I agree with Hannah’s statement “Technology is all around us and so much of it can be used for educational purposes” – I believe she intends for pedagogy (horse) to lead the technology (cart) so that in designing the teaching material, the technology is used to push the pedagogy.
I also agree with Melissa’s comment that there are still amazing professors around who can interact with large classes of 100. However when you have 300-500 in a large class lecture, technology (backchannelling) can be used to give students a voice in the learning process.
I agree that passion is important if students are going to learn and that teachers need to inspire their students. But is technology use necessary for that? I think for some students, technology helps them learn. But I have heard several colleagues discussing the idea of “naked teaching” (see http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/). I use technology in my teaching, but we had an amazing professor in my department who could barely use email. He lectured in a large (100 students) classroom using a chalkboard. He would write out all the notes, draw amazing diagrams, and really interact with his students. His students loved him and many cried last year when he retired. He had been teaching for 40 years and his students from decades ago would still send him cards and stop by to see him. Many became health professionals in the area and he could barely walk into a hospital (or anywhere else in town) without seeing one of his former students. So, don’t get me wrong, I think that technology really helps some students and makes distribution of content easier, but some teachers can do well with “naked teaching”.