Adapting to changing learning environment is a matter of survival for students and teachers alike. As technology evolves to new heights, school is no longer the cut-and-dry institution it once was, and the classroom has shed its four walls entirely, becoming a world and a community in itself.
So forget the school bell and invest in a real education. Here are a few tips to thrive in a classroom of the 21st century.
Get a Laptop/Tablet/Computer
Or at least find access to one. Quantum leaps in technology have fed growing demand for better, faster information. A network-savvy generation now makes full use of the tools at their disposal, away from the pen and paper of old. From blackboards to tablets, even kindergarteners are dropping their colouring books to move on to digital paint.
Modern technology presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The internet is a free market of ideas, news, and information, where ideas run loose and networking allows anyone to communicate with everyone else on Earth. Nor does it discriminate: even children in far-flung rural areas now own Facebook accounts. But therein lies the risk – a constant deluge of unfiltered data can quickly lead to information overload, or worse, complete B.S for the unmindful consumer.
For now, it finds the internet the dominant domain for entertainment, illegal downloads and Facebook, and masks enormous potential as a tool to teach the world. Technology could still make headway in this regard, with new ‘e-universities’, online courses, and educational software made available to anyone with a computer. Access to these services becomes less of an issue as technology develops and gets cheaper. An initaitve by NGO One Laptop per Child (OLPC) even aims, as the name suggests, to give a heavy-duty, low-power, fully networked XO laptop to every child in the world. It began distribution among African schools and is gaining traction in other developing countries.
Far-fetched? In a country that is now the social networking capital of the world, it could find its way in the Philippines any second now.
Shuffle the chairs a bit
Boring lectures in boring subjects under boring teachers boxed in boring classrooms creates an atmosphere of perpetual boredom. It comes as no surprise then, how such an environment yields unresponsive students, a source of frustration for faculty everywhere. The call for better classroom interaction and a more open teaching atmosphere marks a transition from classrooms to learning spaces.
In an online article from 21st Century Schools.com, on the latest advances in education it is noted that “schools will go from ‘buildings’ to ‘nerve centres’, with walls that are porous and transparent, connecting teachers, students and the community to the wealth of knowledge that exists in the world.”
Some have even done away with walls, experimenting with classes held outdoors. This goes back to the teaching days of Plato, but moves away from the 70s model of uniform rooms with uniform chairs mechanically arranged in rows akin to a factory assembly line. Changing this could be as simple as rearranging chairs in a circle, so that students face one another, not a faceless blackboard.
Indeed, maybe physical classrooms themselves are quickly being becoming irrelevant in the face of new ‘social learning networks’ like ePals.com, Youtube, Skype, and much to the dismay of educators the world over: Wikipedia. There are e-courses, e-diplomas, even e-classrooms. These virtual nooks are particularly useful for distance learning, while Facebook has become indispensible for working on group projects. All are rapidly replacing more traditional teaching tools and methods , like textbooks, rooms of wood and stone … as well as teachers of flesh and blood.
Of course nothing compares to real face to face interaction between actual human beings. Creating the classroom of the future will take much more than dramatic re-engineering or high-tech software, and depends on radically redefining relationships between teachers and their students.
Instructing Students Constructing Learners
Educators have long since mourned the loss of learning for its own sake. Christopher Nelson of St. John’s College points to this lack of enthusiasm as rooted in a practical desire ‘to make the grade’ and land a job. This pragmatism, notable among younger generations, means that students tend to lie low and do whatever their teachers tell them to do without question. Keeping a low profile and submitting to authority stifles creative, out-of-the-box thinking and reduces the teacher-student relationship to little more than the need to teach or submit a requirement. While disciplined and diligent, students stay otherwise detached from their subject matter: grades outplay an honest desire to learn. The point is to do just enough – not too little, not too much – to pass an exam or turn in a sub-par project.
This calls for a redefinition of education and the student-teacher relationship.
21st Century Schools.com again indicates the transformation of the role of a teacher from “a dispenser of information to (an) orchestrator of learning…helping students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom.” Its author adds that “the 21st century will require knowledge generation, not just information delivery, and that schools will need to create a “culture of inquiry”.
Older, top-down models of teaching emphasize spoonfeeding of information, rote memorisation of facts, and cookie-cutter curriculums that do nothing to promote critical thinking or creativity.
New proactive teaching methods on the other hand, put the learner at the centre. These approaches have taken on different forms under different names, from critical pedagogy to transformative learning. Dethroning themselves as the “sage on stage” in favour of the “guide on the side”, teachers turn into facilitators or coaches, promoting learning from the grassroots. Undoubtedly, this leaves teachers with a tougher job than in the traditional setting, but the benefits are obvious.
While regular lectures have their place, new teaching tools like hands-on field trips and project-based learning spike students’ curiosity, challenging them to learn lessons for themselves. Taking their cue from social networking, more group assignments favor cooperation and teamwork over competition, ensuring better communication, initiative and problem solving skills. Motivated and self-directed, students become both independent and interdependent.
As for grades, rather than evaluating performance based on coughing up the right scores on standardized tests, students assess one another and merit is based on quality of work, rather than quantity.
Students create, innovate, imagine. Homework becomes less of a chore and research work is actively engaged in. A module on Climate Change, for instance, might involve lecture sessions, a trip to an organic farm in Bulacan, a seminar and a documentary project by the class to integrate all aspects of the issue.
Grounded in real life, an interdisciplinary, holistic curriculum enables students to see the connections between social issues in the wider community. Teaching shifts its emphasis from concrete questions (who? what? when? where?) to complex, higher order thinking (why, how, why should we care, what can we do?), enabling students to see the “big picture”.
All of these techniques foster collaboration among students, and encourage independent thinking, innovation, and lifelong learning.
