Blog Assignment #2

What will teaching in the 21st century be like?

Mr. Dancealot
   The central message of this video is that you should always teach in a way that your students will be able to perform course goals or objectives. In this video, the class was a social dancing class. He presented his students with objectives that included them being able to actually dance the different styles he taught, and getting to know another as fellow students. When the professor began to teach, he taught in a way that was opposite of how you would expect the class to be taught. Every class meeting was a sit down lecture with powerpoints in a dimly-lit auditorium where the students appeared very disinterested and were discouraged from talking to one another. At the end of the video, the students were expected to be able to perform all of the dances he taught them in lecture as their final example. Keep in mind that never once did he have the students stand up and try these dances in class. He never gave them one-on-one personal instruction to help them during class. He taught them in a manner that made their final exam seem like an impossible challenge to complete. A classroom should never be taught in that manner. I believe that was the conclusion he was making in the video when he showed all of the students trying to use their notes and implement those notes for a final grade. The students were very confused, and appeared to not know how to perform any of the dances they were supposed to know for the final exam. I agree that the class was taught incorrectly. The students did not learn to adapt the skills they were given in the classroom lectures, and as we saw were left dumbfounded in a ballroom when the time for their final exam came. It was not fair to the students to be evaluated in that way, given the method of instruction.

Teaching in the 21st Century
Roberts in Teaching in the 21st Century thinks that teaching in the 21st century means to adapt our curriculum and teaching methods to use the technology at hand to assist in the classroom, and to use to our advantage.

Teaching in the 21st Century
I. The role of the teacher is becoming obsolete
  A. Teachers are not the main source of knowledge
  B. Students use technology as a source of information
    1.Students can find information on "anything, anytime, anywhere"
      a. Social media
      b. Google
      c. Youtube
  C. Curriculum shouldn't be focused on facts, content, or skills
II. Technology is not a distraction to the student
  A. It is a resource
  B. It is a way to solve problems
  C. It improves technology skills
  D. Teachers should teach students how to solve problems and develop technology skills in the classroom
  E. Technology is not used to entertain
    1. It is used to engage students
III. Teachers should provide meaningful and powerful engagement
  A. Teachers should encourage teh use of technology in the classroom
  B. Teachers should shape lessons and instructions to fit the new style of learning
IV. Teachers should incorporate technology into the classroom
  A. Use technology to gather and discuss data
  B. Introduce reliable resources
  C. Get studetns to establish and evaluate work
  D. Beneficial to struggling students

   I believe that Roberts views the change to teaching correctly. With the technology of today advancing more everyday, there will soon become a day where teachers are no longer needed for teaching, and will only be used for guidance. For instance, online courses in college have very little instructor interaction. All of the work is done individually online; the only thing the instructor really does is set up what assignments the students will complete, and remind the students when said assignments are due. There are homeschooling programs that are set up for K-12 students that are set up the same way. The role of the classroom teacher is becoming obsolete. As an educator, it is almost intimidating. I may finish my degree work and soon be out of a job due to places such as Khan Academy and professors on Youtube providing instructional videos on how to solve different types of math problems. You can learn an entire level of mathematics on your own if you are able to learn on your own. For the time being, it will only benefit me as an educator. With resources such as those, I will be able to refer them to my students who need additional assistance in learning subjects--especially when students are working on homework and are not in the classroom setting.

The Networked Student

   The video The Networked Student did not surprise me. The skills that the student used contained most of the skills I was required to use myself as a high school student. Some of those skills, such as networking blogs and connecting with other students by means of sharing links and skyping, were not required of me until I was in college. I wasn't aware that iTunes U was actually a way to find lectures from college professors teaching around the country. The answer to "why does the networked student need a teacher?" is that they need a teacher to teach them to become a networked student. They need someone to show them what resources are useful and reliable. The teacher's role is still important to the networked student. The teacher has to initiate the reason for a student to become networked.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts

   The thesis to Davis' video is that networking students and allowing them to use technology to learn how to complete tasks on their own is not only fulfilling and encouraging to the student, but it helps the students to learn. Not every student can learn from just paper and pencil work, as she states. Allowing students to go and find their own information and figure out how to perform tasks not only puts students ahead technologically, but also teaches them that knowledge doesn't have to be spoon fed to them. Davis reflects the same ideas as Roberts and the creator of The Networked Student. She promotes group-based learning, which we are seeing more of around South's campus, where a group of students learn one part of a lesson and come back to and teach the rest of the class that part. In some cases, as Davis stated, the students end up educating her on some of the lessons she gives them to learn. I feel it is very empowering to the student.

Who's Ahead in the Learning Race

   Dr. Strange has made it blatantly obvious in his video that elementary school students are ahead in the learning race when it comes to using technology in the classroom. The majority of college level students do not know how to perform the tasks that the elementary students were doing on their own in the video. My position in this race would probably be close to a tie with one of those third graders in the video. I have used almost all of the programs that they were using in the past before joining EDM310. I may not be 100% proficient in using every single program, but I know how to use the programs well enough to perform tasks, and to learn how to use them more proficiently. I am not completely out of the race just yet. The elementary school students just had a headstart is all.

Flipping The Classroom

Flipping a classroom is not new to me. I have discussed this idea for a math class with people who are currently teaching in another state. College math professors like to have students go home and read the lesson in the book and work problems before coming to class the next day prepared with questions the students may have. Seeing how this works in a college setting, I have become a skeptic to how this would prove resourceful in a high school setting. Many students fail to go over the material before coming to class, so the likelihood of having an entire class of students who have actually watched your video lesson, and did the assigned practice problems before coming to class would be very small, in my opinion. I believe that setting it up so that you teach your students the lesson, assign them problems to do, and then post review videos on solving the problems would be more enriching. They would be able to see the lesson taught more than once if need be. Setting up a day for peer review and learning for the more challenging part of the lessons, and individual question answering after they have a chance to learn it from you and work on it by themselves would be more realistic and helpful.