What makes a teacher great is finding a route (for all students) to present difficult content, ideas, debates, issues in a lucid, compelling way, time after time. A great teacher works hard to prepare, to think freshly about the material he / she is teaching, and to find current examples that will engage student interest. A great teacher makes the classroom magic happen, regularly. She or he elicits her / his students' best efforts and captivates their minds, so that they leave class still alive with ideas and comments which continue to ripple into the playground and home.
The landscape of pedagogy is changing radically. Much of it is driven (by default) via Moore's Law.
There is an assumed correlation that it directly spills over to education. That is not possible in the current configuration of most contemporary schools. So we come to the concept of the 'virtual classroom'. For convenience, such an entity may be characterised as a classroom that allows participants to communicate with one another, view presentations or videos, interact with other participants, and engage with resources in work groups. It is accessible on demand, cost effective and opens a portal to flexible learning. Teachers should not view a virtual classroom with disdain. Imagine for a moment the exponential gains for students - no longer will there be fiefdoms where one school competes with another in order to gain kudos and assert their primacy over other schools. Think for a moment if a doctor of medicine with-held the holy grail to a cure for all cancers due to a blinded loyalty to an institution and not patients (i.e. come to hospital x or suffer the consequences). As teachers we are bound to assist every colleague and every student ; so make a New Year's resolution - lend assistance to all children by removing the firewalls to knowledge, accelerated learning and sharing. Marc As technology evolves new patterns concerning the delivery of information to students changes. For instance, it may appear subversive to suggest that disruptive innovation may lead to the end of schools as we know them today. However, consider the colossal sum to be saved if there was no need to build multi million dollar campuses with associated peripherals; no longer a need to spend staggering amounts of money on multilayers of administrative staff and managerial employees. After all, it could be validly argued that such personnel add little to student achievement levels. In other words, disruptive innovation changes the manner and processes of an entire market.
To continue with the current tradition of delivering content in a classroom does little more than to sustain an existing model of accepted value teaching (sustaining innovation). So for a moment, contemplate a learning space with no campus, no buildings and radically altered work environment for teachers. Much of the content being delivered online (e.g. virtual classrooms, Skype, live blogs, webinars and so on). The former merely survives whilst the latter seeks to thrive. Thus the paradigm of a traditional school leads to complacency, as these schools already have a dominant foothold in the marketplace. However, as time passes constructive disruptive innovation begins to gain market share leading ultimately to extinction. Take for example a car powered by petrol - it is in the stakeholder's interests to resist change to the emergence of the electric car. Petro rich nations shiver at the prospect at such development. Yet, the reality is that electric powered cars are gradually increasing their market share. Or take a moment to look at the taxi industry and the advent of Uber. I have provided a few links on the topic below. Regards, Marc http://www.christenseninstitute.org/why-disruptive-innovation-matters-to-education/ http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine http://www.amepac.org/HumanCapConfFiles/2013/Disrupting%20College%20Arizona.pptx. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPD8hfOgwPQ#t=505 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbAGRSPw8ZI Have you accumulated an abundance of some very useful websites? Be bold and share them with colleagues from around the world. You can do this through very simple online program called SYMBALOO. It's free; http://www.symbaloo.com/home/mix/13eOcK1fiV
There are numerous examples you can scroll through (eg http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/teaching5). You can also get students involved in the creation of thematic sites, which they can share with their peers. It is a great tool in allowing students to appreciate the concept surrounding research and collaborative learning. As a teacher, I have found it enormously useful in directing students towards a specific tile if some are struggling with a particular feature (e.g. spelling, note taking....) |
AuthorMarc Zaczek has a BA;Did Ed. and a Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation). Archives
July 2017
Categories |