Blog Post # 2: What Will Teaching in the 21st Century be Like?

1)      1) Mr. Dancealot shows what happens when teachers do not teach their students properly. He is teaching a dance class and none of his students actually practiced the dances until their final exam, that just does not work. The author makes his case for this conclusion by showing the students during their final exam. They all looked lost and like they had not learned anything from his class, because they had not. I completely agree with the conclusion, a teacher cannot half-way teach their class and expect them to excel, it takes a lot of work. Teachers should be asking questions during their lesson, not just blurting out information and having the students write it all down.

2)      Roberts seems to think that to teach in the 21^st century you need to be more than just a filter for your students. I love that he used the term “filter”, because once they have gone home and used Google or any other search engine, then it is the teachers job to make sure that they obtained accurate and useful information. I agree with Roberts that teaching is changing all of the time. Teachers should stay up to date with society and new technologies, because that is what their students will be interacting with and using. As a future educator, I will try and keep myself as relevant as possible. I do not want to be one of those teachers that do not know how to do things; if the students have to use/deal with certain technologies, then so will I.

                                I.            Information is Everywhere

·         Whatever

·         Whenever

·         Wherever

                              II.            How would your students use this information?

·         Remember, apply, understand, analyze, evaluate, create

·         Responsibility, reliability, integrity

                            III.            Reevaluate tools used in the classroom

·         Discussion

·         Reliable sources

·         Publishing and evaluating work

·         Collaborating

·         Benefits

                            IV.            Entertainment vs. Enagament

3)      I did not care for this video as much. I think that this is the exact opposite of what Roberts said about not using search engines and just letting the teacher act as the filter. The teacher is made out to only be his filter and not give him any other input. I would not be happy if I went to a class where the teacher did nothing except tell me if my information is credible or not. The 21^st century student will definitely be overwhelmed with all of the technology that is available to them, but they need to know which to use and not use. This teacher, I suppose, did help him decipher that information, but that also makes her seem like just a filter.

4)      I like that Davis is teaching her students in order to make them more confident in using technology. I think there should be a happy medium between the teacher teaching and her students leading a lesson. Having the students teach requires them to truly understand what it is they are learning about, not just memorizing. The teacher should stay involved by correcting any misleading information. Having said this, I do not think that the students teaching should outweigh the teacher’s.

5)      I believe that the first graders definitely have a leg up on the under grads and grads. The older people have grown up with the development of the technology, whereas the first graders have never lived without it. Therefore it makes sense for them to be learning more and doing more with the technology at such a young age. Society is so dependent upon technology that you almost have to know how to use it now. For example, the cell phone companies have almost completely done away with any phone that is not a smartphone.

6)      Flipping the classroom is very new to me. I really like this idea. The fact that the students would have the little bit of knowledge and questions already prepared would really save a lot of time in class and allow more time for in depth learning of the lesson. I like how she said that they could bring strategies that they used the night before and share them with the other students. Flipping could be great for other subjects besides math. Teachers could use this as a springboard for the next day’s class and just jump straight into the information.