Week 4: Twenty-First Century Teaching and Learning: The Environment, The Learner and The Teacher

I have been sick since Wednesday with food-poisoning-like symptoms, so I actually breathe a little sigh of relieve as I read this week’s class load. In last week’s blog I provided some bullet points on what learning looks like in the twenty-first century, and it was well received. I could iterate that again here, and not wanting to be at risk for not adding value in this week’s blog, I will also try to provide some elaboration based on this week’s readings and videos.

As Professor Sharma stated in the introduction to the lesson, “Web 2.0 is enabling different roles for learners and teachers/facilitators.” So, what is the role of the learner within the context of Web 2.0? And, what is the role of the teacher as learner and what are the possible challenges and opportunities?

The Environment

First of, let’s take a look at the learning environment in the twenty-first century and understand what it looks like. The availability of Web 2.0 tools provides the framework for a:

different kind of environment of learning where intrinsic, informal and formal learning are merging, working in a sustained continuum to support learning in- and outside the classrooms.

Screen Shot 2015-09-26 at 12.54.35 PMIn an article that I read for another class, Bransford et al (2006) looked at links among implicit learning and the brain, informal learning, and formal learning and their impact on effective learning (p. 210, and Figure 10.1 here). We haven’t discussed much about implicit learning in this class, but suffice to say that research has proven that it has educational impact as in language learning and learning about people that play an “important role across the life span, starting very early in life” (p. 211).

What are the other characteristics of this environment? Based on this and other class’s readings so far, I compiled much of the following in my last week’s blog:

  • An open network of people/communities and information/knowledge
  • Socially embedded with shared purpose
  • Building interactive bridges/links amongst the different learning media/infrastructures where information/knowledge and systems/communities connect and grow

The Learner

Mancabelli & Richardson (2011) said that “[l]earning in networks begins with our passion to learn” (p. 35). Warschauer & Matuchniak (2010) described that online practices are about making internal and external connections that are “friendship-driven” and “interest-driven”. Stated another way, learners:

take charge of their own learning as they make connections that are peer supported and focus on engagement and collaboration with both the physical and virtual communities.

social_technographics_ladder_ForBlog

Engagement and collaboration indicate an active engagement. Mancabelli & Richardson went further to offer a spectrum of distinction from learners who make connections as consumers to those who make connections as creators and producers in the online network. Participation in connections adds value, and the authors described the spectrum of levels of participation of learners on page 55 of their article and shown here.

 

 

The Teacher

In the twenty-first century learning environment, as the learners are shifting their role from being consumers of information/knowledge, so do the teachers in their roles in teaching in the digital, network age. The video Networked Student provided a descriptive role of the teacher as a change agent, which is to teach him how “to build this network and take advantage of learning opportunities. Offers guidance when he is stuck, [and] how to communicate properly and ask respectfully for help from experts, how to differentiate between good information and propaganda, how to vet a resource, how to turn a web search into a scavenger hunt. She helps him organize that mountain of information.” Ultimately, the teacher’s role is to help him “maintain his learning network and use it to navigate his future and creatively solve the world’s problems.”

So unlike traditional methods of teaching where the focus was on didactic instruction, the teacher of the twenty-first century is a:

facilitator of learning, using one of the active learning principles (i.e., inquiry, user-design, constructivism) to reinforce the attainment of twenty-first century skills and knowledge.

As I mentioned early on, as part of the environment was the merging of the informal (home/parents) and the formal (school) learning spaces. The challenge then as reflected by Mimi Ito, The Digital Youth Project Lead Researcher at UC Irvine in the video Rethinking Learning, is for the teacher to learn how to be more active in linking together the two environments. “Learning outside of school matters tremendously for the learning in school.” She continued to say that an incredibly important role for the teacher and school is about “giving access across the board to a baseline set of standards, literacy, expectations, about the need to participate in contemporary society, to be reflective and to also take opportunity of the fact that kids and adults share a common space.” These are all opportunities and also challenges for teachers as their roles in teaching and learning change in this new environment.

References:

Bransford, J., Vye, N., Stevens, R., Kuhl, P., Schwartz, D., Bell, P., … Sabelli, N. (2006). Learning theories and education: Toward a decade of synergy. In P. A. Alexander & P. H. Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 209–244). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Elerbaum Associates.

Mancabelli, R., Richardson, W., (2011). Becoming a networked learner, Personal learning networks: Using the power of connections to transform education. Penn State University library reserves.

Networked student. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA

Rethinking learning: The 21st Century Learner | MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xa98cy-Rw

Warschauer, M., & Matuchniak, T. (2010). New technology and digital worlds: Analyzing evidence of equity in access, use, and outcomes. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 179-225.

 

8 thoughts on “Week 4: Twenty-First Century Teaching and Learning: The Environment, The Learner and The Teacher

  1. Pingback: Connected Learning Blog Curation | EDTEC467: Emerging Web Technologies and Learning

  2. Dean

    Hi Maura, great perspective on the role of the learner in this sort of environment – “learners take charge of their own learning as they make connections that are peer supported and focus on engagement and collaboration with both the physical and virtual communities.” I like how you organized your post by creating the headers – Environment, Learner, Teacher. Traditionally the environment was the classroom. But now, everywhere can be regarded as the classroom. Likewise, a device or space could be considered as a classroom. It is cool to see how the learning landscape has changed. Now the question becomes, how will we adapt to meet the learner where (s)he is rather than forcing the learner to adapt to the educator’s context?

    Reply
  3. Rob

    The shift within 21st century teaching and learning from what we would consider “traditional” in the past is something that is starting to occur in my District, but certainly has a long way to go. There a lot of things that contribute to the distance that the teachers in the district still need to go, but I am happy to say that I have noticed a change, even in the time since I arrived a couple years ago. More and more teachers are starting to bring Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom. I, as the administrator delivering technical PD, strive to provide my teachers with trainings and information concerning the tools that are available to them. This causes me to spend a lot of time ensuring that I am staying up to date with my technologies. Many of the teachers are not yet going out on their own to find the technology, they wait for me to bring it to them still. I am hoping that this is something that will change in the future. As they continue to be exposed, I hope that teachers will go out on their own to find the tools to help them better create a 21st Century Learning Environment.

    As the teachers become more familiar and begin implementing new tools within their classroom, the learners are becoming more and more familiar, as well. I have noticed a couple of my classes at the High School work in a combined physical/virtual environment on an almost daily basis. One example that comes to mind is a 12th grade English class. When I first started at the district, the teacher who runs this class was not someone that I would have said was strong with technology. And they still may be true, but she is strong with the tools that she utilizes. On an almost daily basis students interact with other students and teachers (in the same class period, and also in different periods) via a web blog for English 12. These students work on engaging and collaborating online, but then also take back the discussion to the “traditional” classroom. In this same class there is one assignment that really stands out to me that I love. The learners are reading a novel. Throughout the novel, as mentioned above, the students interact through a web blog with other students and teachers concerning topics within the book. Once the novel is complete and the students have collaborated in the classroom and online, the units ends with a culminating video discussion with the author, and the other English 12 class.

    Now, to find a way to encourage all of my teachers to try this…

    Reply
    1. Maura Post author

      Hi Rob,

      Thank you for sharing your story about the 12th grade English class. That’s such a wonderful way to learn: collaboration, communication, connecting. I can see the process in my mind and I can see kids enjoying the process which makes the learning even more effective, right.

      Yes maybe the shift is slow, but it’s a change in the positive direction.

      maura

      Reply
  4. Priya Sharma

    Maura, thanks for bringing the Bransford, et al., piece into the discussion. Do you feel that there is any link between their characterizations of learning and the different spaces of learning that we are reading about in this course? Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Maura Post author

      Dear Professor Sharma,

      Bransford et al. anticipated the coming decade’s learning theory and education as a “decade for synergy” where they were looking at how implicit learning and the brain, informal learning and formal learning would mutually influence each other and the science of learning (interestingly they wrote the book in 2006, and it’s now 2015, so a decade has passed). Beyond indicating that informal learning is “learning that occur in homes, on playgrounds, among peers, and in other situations where a designed and planned educational agenda is not authoritatively sustained over time” (p. 216), I felt that the focus of their article was more on providing an overview on learning theories, without the spaces of learning, be it physical or virtual, being specifically considered.

      This course focuses more on how Web 2.0 tools is merging and thus providing a continuum of the learning spaces between formal and informal learning, in- and outside the classrooms, the physical learning space of the classroom and the virtual learning space of the digital world. We are looking also at the impact on how this learning environment has caused a transformation in roles of the learners and teachers, which Bransford et al. didn’t discuss. Bransford et al anticipated the merging of the learning theories, and thus I feel contributed to understanding how the brain learns in different environments, but the occurrence of the merging of the physical and virtual learning spaces and the explosion of access and availability of information/knowledge like what we have been facing especially in the past decade, I think adds a rich additional dimension to their concept of “decade for synergy.”

      Reply
  5. Maria Widmer

    Maura, feel better soon! Your left- and right-aligned images with text flow look very nice in this post. 🙂

    I was interested in the point in “Becoming a Networked Learner” that, while we can be “selfish” and participate as an information consumer for a while, ultimately we need to put in as much as we take from the network. I think that creating and sharing content in the real-world can be a daunting prospect, both for learners and for teachers. In addition to teaching “how to communicate properly and ask respectfully for help from experts”, what skills do you think we should teach about how to be an effective producer of content in a Web 2.0 world?

    Reply
    1. Maura Post author

      Hello Maria,

      Thank you. I’m recovering and feel better. Thank you also for your pointers on how to do certain interesting things on blogs. I haven’t played around with Divi yet though.

      Interestingly you brought up the part about “how to communicate properly and ask respectfully for help from experts”. I would imagine how to communicate in the connected digital world should at least reflect how we communicate face-to-face/on phone calls. Yes there is a certain level of being too haphazard or quick in responding using emails, instant messages, etc., but that quick-to-react could also be done face-to-face right. I think two key things differentiate communications when conducted digitally from face-to-face: (1) the absence of facial expression and body language; sometimes that would matter in understanding reactions, and (2) cultural differences.

      About culture, in the past like in the classroom, we see everyone around us, and there is a certain level of understanding where everyone came from. In the digital world, how do we address, for example people’s cultural differences so we can ask respectfully? Take this course for example, I’m not sure how to properly address our teacher, Professor Priya? Dr. Sharma? Or Priya, the way she signs her name on emails is that indication of how she wants to be called? (I see others call her Professor Sharma so that’s what I use too.) Personally when I went to my son’s university at Purdue, his Asian friends called me Ms. Kwik, and his Caucasian friends called me Maura. Omg!!! There was a tense moment when I was originally feeling confused (confused.. but I was wondering if I felt more like offended as calling an elder by first name is disrespectful where I come from), until my son told me that was ok in the American culture. Phew! Haha… anyway, just to give a simple example here.

      How to be an effective producer of content in a Web 2.0 world? Well, I think start with something of interest first. Connect with communities locally, and out there, in your local neighborhood and digitally, to understand what’s out there already. The key here is “effective” right? We don’t want to write what people know already. We need to add value, even if that means giving a counter opinion. The voice is important (something our professor has alluded to a few times), use lots of visuals (not dense in text, people just won’t have time to digest all that). Hmmm.. what else? Am I missing anything else here?

      maura

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *