What is meaningful to children, and what makes a child ask questions?
These are some questions I would push a teacher to answer when setting up a teaching environment for students of the 21st century.
Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Kansas, brings out those questions in his students by setting a learning environment where both he and the students are on a quest to discover and learn. They tackle questions that he doesn’t have the answers for, but he is willing to facilitate and join the students on their quest to find answers and meaning. He doesn’t call himself a teacher, but an “anti-teacher”. This is because he feels the traditional teaching is set up to concentrate more on the grade than the process of exploring and understanding a topic. (2008)
Following the ideas of Howard Gardner and Eric Jensen who talk about multiple learning styles and how the brain receives information, Wesch taps into his students’ various learning styles with his methods.
Welsch lays out thought provoking facts, and sets it up so students are curious to find connections with their personal world, the world around them.
In 2007 Wesch and his students produced a YouTube video called, “A Vision of Students Today”. The video targeted the absurdities and ineffectiveness of today’s teaching environments. The traditional lecture hall was featured and students sat passively without a voice, holding only note-cards stating the negatives of their learning environment.
If teachers can provoke questions and then get students to respond in a multitude of activities and ways that bring meaning and understanding to those participants, in my mind that is what a learning environment of today should look like.
In my opinion challenge based learning, problem based learning, simulations, social networking and direct instruction methods that invoke reflection, analysis and critiques, are features that would benefit today’s students. Adding music, creative writing, and the arts would be components of projects that would engage learners.
Collaborative Web documents, social networking sites as well as specific tools like Garageband, iMovie, and other presentation applications could all be present in a 21st century learning environment catering to the multiple learning styles of today’s students.
Teachers would be offered professional development opportunities. Teachers could learn the tools needed to set up course management systems as a way to communicate with students beyond the classroom and bring together student activities using the Internet.
Another aspect of a a 21st century teaching environment would have to include an ethics and humanities piece, where students have opportunities to develop empathy and understanding for others. Whether building on the project-based projects, or social networking opportunities, or community service projects, a 21st century learning environment would also include this aspect of teaching.
References.
Wesch, M. (2008). Education Canada: Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of
Significance. Retrieved October, 2009 from:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6358393/AntiTeaching-Confronting-the-Crisis-of-Significance
Wesch, M. (2007). Encyclopedia Britannica Blog: YouTube video: A Vision of Students
Today. (And What Teachers Must Do). Retrieved October, 2009 from:
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/a-vision-of-students-today-what-teachers-must-do/
"In my opinion challenge based learning, problem based learning, simulations, social networking and direct instruction methods that invoke reflection, analysis and critiques, are features that would benefit today’s students. Adding music, creative writing, and the arts would be components of projects that would engage learners." All key pieces of the puzzle. Great post, Beckie!
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