A New Pedagogy

A few thoughts on the future of education locally and worldwide.
Or, how do I hope my three-year old daughter will be “learning” when she starts attending school?
In my district I am part of a group of people who are also wrestling with some of the same concerns that have plagued education ever since the computer made its way into classrooms. What, I am sure some teachers wondered, am I supposed to do with that? Especially if I don’t have enough for all of the students, or I don’t get how they work either? Now in the 21st century on the cusp of WEB2.0 the questions have become more like those posed in the blog for this assignment. The questions are no longer about having enough computers but instead what are we going to do to keep up with the explosion of the web, social learning, and online learning. I, for one, love online learning. I enjoy going to classes and meeting new people as well but I tend to gravitate towards online learning because it fits my time schedule and needs. But, I have had to struggle with a different kind of learning curve due to the new learning style. I was not always a self-directed student, so asking me to change my stripes or spots to adjust to the new learning method was not an easy process. I fear the same would be true for the students of today unless they are exposed to the benefits and pitfalls of no one nagging them to get their work done except themselves. There is talk right now in my district about the seniors of 2010 being required to take an online class to graduate from high school. I would suggest that we should be starting this learning process in a different year such as the sophomore year. I believe that showing students the potential future is important but asking them to figure it out and pass a class the first time they are exposed to the new learning style may be too much to ask for this next year.

One of the other discussions that is in the front of my mind lately mirrors a question asked by the author of our book/blog. “Reporter: What have you stopped doing that you used to spend time on before you began blogging, tweeting, etc.?” I have two blogs now and this one already has three posts on it as of this post. I have time to do this now because it is the summer and I have more free time. I plan on continuing my blogs as well as inviting students to post comments etc., but I have to wonder if I am going to ever have the time to create as many different socially interactive portals as the author has produced. I will probably never tweet (although I am jokingly trying to get my wife going on it), nor am I likely to get a Face-book page or a My Space page. I am part of the generation of people who love the inter-connectedness of the Internet but I have also seen what can happen if the Internet is not used in a positive manner. So I tend to shy away from the concept of transparency. Even in the face of evidence that it could all be for the greater good I tend to be wary. I also have to wonder if my workload will already be increasing from the effort of maintaining one or more blogs that is open to my students to comment upon. But, as the author points out maybe I would finally be spending my time where it should be spent instead of on those other things that fill up my school day.

“In this article we argue that, after millennia of considering education (learning and teaching) chiefly in one way, we may well have reached a set of tipping points: Going forward, learning may be far more individualized, far more in the hands (and the minds) of the learner, and far more interactive than ever before. This constitutes a paradox: As the digital era progresses, learning may be at once more individual (contoured to a person’s own style, proclivities, and interests) yet more social (involving networking, group work, the wisdom of crowds, etc.). How these seemingly contradictory directions are addressed impacts the future complexion of learning.” This goes without saying that we are on the brink of a change in some fashion. Right now I think it may be some years away as the pendulum of change in education is a slow swing at best. I hope that the environment my daughter finds herself in a few years will not be the environment that I am currently teaching in. I don’t know if I am ready to turn over everything to the social network, “pods of learning” concept just yet, but I can see where a lot of good would come from moving towards that as an eventual goal. Change comes hard sometimes with the loss of some great things in the anticipation of some greater new things. So I will continue to look to the future while I work teach, and learn in the now. Maybe someday I will look back at this post and wonder why I was ever wary of the tipping point. I would add though that I am more afraid of tipping back into the way it has always been done rather than tipping forward into the social network web 2.0 future.