Reflection I

The video Learning to Change-Changing to Learn discussed the future of education in a manor I have never been exposed to before. From my field experiences, I have seen how students tend to zone out because they are usually being instructed to memorize facts that will not help them when they are out in the real world. This became evident after I heard many students ask the seemingly universal question, “Why do I need to know this?” These comments demonstrate that our students are not connecting with what we are teaching them, so they are less likely to actually be learning skills that will help them when they are out in our technologically creative driven world.   

The video helped me realize that our students are not learning because we are attempting to teach our students by disconnecting them from technology as if they were still in the industrial era. Many of the speakers in the video discuss how in order for our students to be able to compete in the future job market, they need to know how to research, verify answers, be multi-disciplinary, amongst many other skills. However, in our schools we simply focus on feeding students information and having them memorize it so they can regurgitate it on tests. We are essentially setting up our children for failure.

In her article Real-Life Math and Teacher Training: Cures for “Innumeracy”, Liana Heitin explains how our dependency on the use of memorization in regards to math is crippling our students. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/07/real-life_math_and_teacher_tra.html?qs=innumeracy “Teachers should move from encouraging “answer – getting” – memorizing procedures and algorithms – to focusing on “sense - making” – letting students struggle through problems and make mistakes, so that they’ll come to understand the “whys” of math on their own” (Liana Heitin). Liana Heitin’s theory on how math should be taught can be applied to all areas of education. Our children will have to learn how to be innovative and uncover information in order to excel in the world, so we should stop feeding them definitions and one answer questions. I have seen it with my own eyes; children thrive on having the opportunity to discover answers and come up with hypotheses on their own.

Charts such as this one

 (http://teachers.cie.org.uk/gp/21st-century-skills.html) found on Cambridge International Examinations demonstrates the 21st Century skills students need to succeed our progressive world. Students need to be information literate, cultural aware, and critical thinkers amongst possessing other skills. We cannot assume that students will attain these skills before they enter the professional world if we do not teach them these essential skills. The more I see what our students will need to succeed in the future, the more I agree with the views of those presented in the Learning to Change-Changing to Learn. As the times change so must the world of education. If we do not get on board with this change, our students will suffer.