21st Century Skills and Distance Learning
Having taken classes online and in the classroom and taught in the classroom both with computers and without computers I have learned a few things.
1. 21st century skills include CREATIVITY, collaboration, time management, problem solving…and a few others I can not name off the top of my head. Students need to have a very different outlook on education than the one they are currently taught in the classroom.
2. Just because you use a computer either to access the class or in the class does not mean that you are learning or teaching 21st century skills.
3. If we use technology to teach the same way we have been teaching then we are not moving forward.
4. Students and teachers must collaborate together to create the new learning environment.
I propose a new classroom and a new idea of education. I believe that computers are essential to this new learning environment only because they provide the tools for students in interact and be fully engaged in their education. I do not believe that this is happening in most classrooms today.
My new idea:
- The teacher poses a question, on a chalk board, white board, SMART board…whatever.
- The student must then creatively answer the question using proof of his or her thinking. This response must be posted online in a class blog or something like it. I believe that this could really only be possible using tablet PCs which would allow non-traditional responses, diagrams, formulas and other non-typed ideas to be expressed.
- The entire class then reads the responses of the other students in the room and must rate and respond to at least 3 different answers in that blog environment according to the rubric agreed upon and developed by the class for answers to questions.
- Students would then re-write their answers based on the ideas they gained from looking at other student work. All student answers would be posted to the blog and all students would then vote on the best solution.
- The role of the teacher in all of this is not unlike the current role of the teacher in the classroom. The teacher maintains the class’ online and physical environment, monitors participation and manages students. The teacher also acts as a coach answering procedure questions, moderating discussion, and generally facilitating the learning process. The teacher would need to control internet/intranet access (for this question do students need access to the full internet, only selected web sites, or only to be able to access the classroom blog space?). The teacher would need to have the ability to project and manipulate student answers to questions, showing mistakes in logic process or helping to lead the class in new thought directions.
This kind of learning is not that different from the current approach to teaching that we use in our classes today, except that it more freely facilitates the exchange of ideas and is truly a student-centered learning environment.
This kind of learning would require a few things not currently present in most classrooms. They include:
1. 1 to 1 student tablet PCs
2. an online intranet/internet communal classroom space like a blog
3. teacher control of the class’ access to the internet/intranet. The teacher would need to be able to limit websites the student could and could not visit.
4. a program like synchroneyes where the teacher could monitor/project student screens.
5. a creative teacher
6. students who are used to creating, re-creating and not having to always be “right” the first time
What do you think?
Filed under: Technology Literacy, Uncategorized, Web 2.0, WiFi, internet access and tagged 1 to 1 computers, 21st Century Learners, collaborative learning, creativity, tablet PC
This is an interesting twist on the classic Socratic method – I like it! I do wonder what the questions the teacher would pose would be about. I assume you are envisioning this as a tactic to use in each individual class. I have become increasingly interested in a similar method that focuses on projects instead of questions. Project Based Learning – but performed by individual students. Fellow students then get to ask questions of the student doing the project and to challenge the work they had done – or praise it. Very much like The Met school model.