This article examines many facts about our current state of education. It is absolutely true that we need to change the way we teach kids. As stated in the article, kids are constantly doing something related to technology and they have easy access to so much information right on their fingertips every minute of every day. Students have phones, games, and computers. They have access to the internet 24/7. Their brains are wired to work quickly and accurately with technology so well that they can actually do many things at one time (multitasking). In fact, this is the best way for them to learn.
A couple of years ago, I attended a professional development seminar for educators for the Northeast Wisconsin Area. In this seminar, the presenter showed us a video of 4 to 5 students passing a basketball. The goal was to count how many times they passed a basketball back and forth. Most of the adults at the seminar not only miscounted the passes but also completely missed (did not see at all) a person walking around in a monkey suit right in the middle of all the students. The presenter said that the majority of kids can count the passes accurately and they all see the person with the monkey suit. This was an excellent example of how much quicker the brains of young people are than adults. Young students can be texting and listening to music while they do their homework. In fact, many of them learn better if they are doing more than one thing at once.
We need to change the way we teach to keep them engaged. We have so much new technology, why not use it? Why do we keep teaching the old ways? In my Education 290 class, I did a field experience in the classroom. I saw many students who were unmotivated and bored. At Nicolet Elementary I often see students who are unmotivated and bored. Unfortunately, we sometimes do teach just for memorization and for tests and not for understanding, critical thinking and mastery. It is sad that teachers have their hands tied up and are forced to teach this way. Teachers are given a set curriculum and forced to follow it all year. Teachers are held accountable for standardized test results. Teachers are forced to teach students to memorize and reproduce, rather than thinking critically and creating. Our government needs to step in and support the teachers.
Teachers know what is best and what works for the students. If teachers were allowed to use websites with really excellent explanations of everything you could want to explain to a kid, available instantly, for free, (such as www.khanacademy.com) they would have more time to work one-on-one with each of their students and really foster creative learning and critical thinking for each student. These web resources can take the necessity off the teacher to do the lecturing, and make it possible for each student to learn at their own pace. The Khan Academy allows a teacher to sign in as the coach and provides free progress monitoring graphs for each student. A teacher who signs in as the coach for a classroom can see exactly how much progress each individual student has made, what they did well, and where they are struggling. This allows the teacher to follow the progress of each individual student, learn their strengths and weaknesses, and use class time to provide interesting and engaging real life activities and give one-on-one time to needy students. Technology is going to play a huge role for the success of our students in the future, why not embrace it now?
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