Online English Conversation Course for PhD Students
Friday, 23 November 2012
XXI century education
As I am a lecturer, as well as some of you, I have been wondering for some time what makes students learn? Are these new technologies that help them acquire new skills and knowledge or maybe some other factors like more experiential learning instead of learning by heart, so popular in Polish schools.
Additionally, you can read some chapters of the book Educating the Net Generation: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7101.pdf .
Discuss the ideas presented in the articles and the presentation.Write about your experiences.
There's still time, the deadline was set to Tuesday.
The article makes some good points but I think the author is taking the language learning metaphor a bit too far. The limitations in adopting new technologies arise mostly from old habits and lack of understanding rather than insufficient mental capacity. There's no one way to use any given technology, different things may be more or less efficient for different people. I like the ideas of teaching with the help of technology presented here.
As for creativity, the question of creativity and education solves itself by the time you reach higher education. Because then you're able to choose for yourself what you want to study and how. The problem is, by that time your natural creativity may have already suffered during the years spent in school and that influences all later choices. If you take education out of the equation it's all about what skills and knowledge are useful to advance yourself in the society you're living in. It is a moving target highly dependent on the state of the economy, competition from other people and many other factors. No top down approach can predict all that, so we're relying on what worked in the past and current trends for the future. Is creativity what's missing today? If it's defined as "original ideas that have value" then yes we need more of it, but those ideas still have to based on an understanding of the world which is growing more and more complex. That is not something we're born with.
The topic (and the article itself) is very interesting. However I am not sure whether the distinction between "digital natives" and "digital imigrants" is really that obvious. The checklist of typical behaviours from the text places me among the natives, while I consider myself more a digital imigrant (or at least someone standing in the middle). I do believe, there is a lot to do, to make education more attractive to students but the changes have to be well-fitted to the specific domain. What is sufficient for language learning may not be good for biochemistry. There is also another problem with such changes - when teachers change the way they teach sometimes it may be difficult for the rating system to catch up. Do we evaluate the knowledge or the creativity and ability to think fast under pressure? How do we define the rules and minimal requirements? I am definitely not against the changes (for instance this form of english classes suits me perfectly :) ). However I also think, that the results of the changes are unpredictable. For instance I recently heard a "scary story" about the kids in Sweden being surprised, that you can make calculations on a sheet of paper. They have tablets instead of books (which is good, because their backpacks are not as heavy as mine used to be ;) ), but they are also entirely dependent on this tool to solve certain problems. It makes me wonder, if this is the direction, we want to take...
As my colleagues, I believe that this topic is interesting but I don’t see anything new here :( Disputes about changing education in this direction take place for years, but no one did introduce anything special in this area, unfortunately.
Idea is quite right - you can see it perfectly on our new high school leaving exam. Things that are now mostly require on exams - finding expected patterns. Moreover, also can be shocking to say that today more people graduate than the previous time of the whole humanity. In the other hand, understanding the subject such as mathematic or physic is required to describe the world later in every area (for example painting). The most important thing is to center the necessary knowledge and creativity. Great example is teaching the English language - you may well know the grammar and vocabulary, but still be wrong received, because your pronunciation will be really poor (not taught in schools very intensive). Key is the focus on the market and adjusts your interest to real market needs.
Btw: If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman is around to hear it: is he still wrong? :)
I must say that the video was quite entertaining... as I was watching it I thought about another problem with the current education system that in my opinion limits the amount of knowledge that we get from attending classes - it's the way information is being presented to students.
Which teachers do you remember most from your high school? I personally remember those who presented their topics in a similar style to the man in the video - facts, jokes, questions and interaction. In my opinion the atmosphere is a key element which encourages people to speak freely and think creatively.
I am all for the idea of incorporating such subject as 'Creative Thinking' into classrooms. I really appreciate working with people that tend to think in an 'out of the box' manner. From my experience, in numerous occasions I've managed to do my work faster, more cost-effectively or just omit it entirely thanks to creative ideas.
When I think about teaching I see two sides of knowledge: the first contains skills needed for making particular good defined activities (as using CAD software or writing comments in web browser) and the second contains skills not defined as good as the first side. I think that using these modern experimental technologies may be quite good for teaching the first side when often after a course we return to work and spend thousands hours on practicing learnt skill. In this case our goal is making the learning curve as steep as possible. But for second we need more complicated approach (in my opinion still with Euclidean geometry and reading books). Of course when I write “reading books” I would like to emphasize the word “reading” not “books”.
Old saying. "Schools teach you what to think, and when to think it. But they don't teach you how to think." Sum up this talk, lets teach people how to think.
It's not the problem that students can't learn it or something like that. The fact is that they don't see absolutely no reason, at the time, of why should they be learning this.
I if could understand you I'm pretty sure I would disagree. You need creativity to develop anything new. If we knew exactly what we wanted people to do and how to do it they would be replaced by machines. The only way people are still beating machines is using creativity, so to remove that is to remove your usefulness to society.
I agree that young people treat technology tools that accompany us in our lives differently than those a little bit older. Digital Natives spend most of their time using net. They do not fear to give private information about themselves into the wild net. Why is that they do not fear to do so? Did they analyze in details what potential danger this might bring into their future? I doubt. They simply skipped the hard part of gathering the knowledge of how things are build concentrating rather on how to use things to increase the comfort of their living. I do not know if its wrong. Young people are attracted by the world to consume more and more. This obviously lead to increased consumption without giving much thought to create. No hunger results in lack of creative ideas.
BTW. I really enjoyed the TED video despite having trouble in full understanding at some points.
My guru for teaching the Digital Natives is Professor Walter Lewin from MIT. Just look at how he explains physics in the following YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY1eyLEo8_A
I'm in complete awe of his ability to sell (yes, SELL) his passion to students. His viewers don't need gamification techniques, because they are interested in "how the world works", and that is essentially, what physics does. It explains stuff to them. Life is not a video game. The copy-paste generation is definitely different than Digital Immigrants described by Marc Prensky, but it doesn't mean that everything old should be forgotten.
For example: law. Look at traffic rules. You don't get a "second life" if you crash your car on a highway. Life is not a game, and part of teaching is showing students that it takes hard work and deep understanding of the past to be able to create future.
At the end people want to interact with people. What good will it do them if they know another program? They want to connect with others, and this is in part why e-learnings don't work as well as in-class meetings. It’s insane how technology stripped away the mystery of getting to know another human being. If we can teach the Digital Natives something than lets concentrate on that. Soft skills are more and more in demand now.
It is quite an interesting lecture. Ken Robinson presentation I watched earlier.
ReplyDeleteI think the current education system is bad, but no one can change that system because it is a good "machine" to make money.
Hmmm, second post - 5 min to deadline :P
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNo other way to edit a comment :)
ReplyDeleteThere's still time, the deadline was set to Tuesday.
The article makes some good points but I think the author is taking the language learning metaphor a bit too far. The limitations in adopting new technologies arise mostly from old habits and lack of understanding rather than insufficient mental capacity. There's no one way to use any given technology, different things may be more or less efficient for different people. I like the ideas of teaching with the help of technology presented here.
As for creativity, the question of creativity and education solves itself by the time you reach higher education. Because then you're able to choose for yourself what you want to study and how. The problem is, by that time your natural creativity may have already suffered during the years spent in school and that influences all later choices. If you take education out of the equation it's all about what skills and knowledge are useful to advance yourself in the society you're living in. It is a moving target highly dependent on the state of the economy, competition from other people and many other factors. No top down approach can predict all that, so we're relying on what worked in the past and current trends for the future. Is creativity what's missing today? If it's defined as "original ideas that have value" then yes we need more of it, but those ideas still have to based on an understanding of the world which is growing more and more complex. That is not something we're born with.
The topic (and the article itself) is very interesting. However I am not sure whether the distinction between "digital natives" and "digital imigrants" is really that obvious. The checklist of typical behaviours from the text places me among the natives, while I consider myself more a digital imigrant (or at least someone standing in the middle). I do believe, there is a lot to do, to make education more attractive to students but the changes have to be well-fitted to the specific domain. What is sufficient for language learning may not be good for biochemistry. There is also another problem with such changes - when teachers change the way they teach sometimes it may be difficult for the rating system to catch up. Do we evaluate the knowledge or the creativity and ability to think fast under pressure? How do we define the rules and minimal requirements? I am definitely not against the changes (for instance this form of english classes suits me perfectly :) ). However I also think, that the results of the changes are unpredictable. For instance I recently heard a "scary story" about the kids in Sweden being surprised, that you can make calculations on a sheet of paper. They have tablets instead of books (which is good, because their backpacks are not as heavy as mine used to be ;) ), but they are also entirely dependent on this tool to solve certain problems. It makes me wonder, if this is the direction, we want to take...
ReplyDeleteAs my colleagues, I believe that this topic is interesting but I don’t see anything new here :( Disputes about changing education in this direction take place for years, but no one did introduce anything special in this area, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteIdea is quite right - you can see it perfectly on our new high school leaving exam. Things that are now mostly require on exams - finding expected patterns. Moreover, also can be shocking to say that today more people graduate than the previous time of the whole humanity. In the other hand, understanding the subject such as mathematic or physic is required to describe the world later in every area (for example painting). The most important thing is to center the necessary knowledge and creativity. Great example is teaching the English language - you may well know the grammar and vocabulary, but still be wrong received, because your pronunciation will be really poor (not taught in schools very intensive). Key is the focus on the market and adjusts your interest to real market needs.
ReplyDeleteBtw: If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman is around to hear it: is he still wrong? :)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI must say that the video was quite entertaining... as I was watching it I thought about another problem with the current education system that in my opinion limits the amount of knowledge that we get from attending classes - it's the way information is being presented to students.
ReplyDeleteWhich teachers do you remember most from your high school? I personally remember those who presented their topics in a similar style to the man in the video - facts, jokes, questions and interaction. In my opinion the atmosphere is a key element which encourages people to speak freely and think creatively.
I am all for the idea of incorporating such subject as 'Creative Thinking' into classrooms. I really appreciate working with people that tend to think in an 'out of the box' manner. From my experience, in numerous occasions I've managed to do my work faster, more cost-effectively or just omit it entirely thanks to creative ideas.
When I think about teaching I see two sides of knowledge: the first contains skills needed for making particular good defined activities (as using CAD software or writing comments in web browser) and the second contains skills not defined as good as the first side. I think that using these modern experimental technologies may be quite good for teaching the first side when often after a course we return to work and spend thousands hours on practicing learnt skill. In this case our goal is making the learning curve as steep as possible. But for second we need more complicated approach (in my opinion still with Euclidean geometry and reading books).
ReplyDeleteOf course when I write “reading books” I would like to emphasize the word “reading” not “books”.
Old saying.
ReplyDelete"Schools teach you what to think, and when to think it. But they don't teach you how to think." Sum up this talk, lets teach people how to think.
It's not the problem that students can't learn it or something like that. The fact is that they don't see absolutely no reason, at the time, of why should they be learning this.
I if could understand you I'm pretty sure I would disagree. You need creativity to develop anything new. If we knew exactly what we wanted people to do and how to do it they would be replaced by machines. The only way people are still beating machines is using creativity, so to remove that is to remove your usefulness to society.
I agree that young people treat technology tools that accompany us in our lives differently than those a little bit older.
ReplyDeleteDigital Natives spend most of their time using net.
They do not fear to give private information about themselves into the wild net.
Why is that they do not fear to do so?
Did they analyze in details what potential danger this might bring into their future? I doubt.
They simply skipped the hard part of gathering the knowledge of how things are build concentrating rather on how to use things to increase the comfort of their living.
I do not know if its wrong.
Young people are attracted by the world to consume more and more. This obviously lead to increased consumption without giving much thought to create. No hunger results in lack of creative ideas.
BTW. I really enjoyed the TED video despite having trouble in full understanding at some points.
My guru for teaching the Digital Natives is Professor Walter Lewin from MIT. Just look at how he explains physics in the following YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY1eyLEo8_A
ReplyDeleteI'm in complete awe of his ability to sell (yes, SELL) his passion to students. His viewers don't need gamification techniques, because they are interested in "how the world works", and that is essentially, what physics does. It explains stuff to them.
Life is not a video game. The copy-paste generation is definitely different than Digital Immigrants described by Marc Prensky, but it doesn't mean that everything old should be forgotten.
For example: law. Look at traffic rules. You don't get a "second life" if you crash your car on a highway. Life is not a game, and part of teaching is showing students that it takes hard work and deep understanding of the past to be able to create future.
At the end people want to interact with people. What good will it do them if they know another program? They want to connect with others, and this is in part why e-learnings don't work as well as in-class meetings. It’s insane how technology stripped away the mystery of getting to know another human being. If we can teach the Digital Natives something than lets concentrate on that. Soft skills are more and more in demand now.