Non-negotiables in Teaching Today

Teaching to the way our students learn is a non-negotiable facet of teaching all educators and supporters of education must be willing to embrace. The way today’s students have evolved is a perfect example of this necessity. The students in classrooms today are completely different than those of decades past, with both groups being products of the time period and societies they live in. Since our society is different from the past, so too are our students, and so too must be our ways of teaching those students. Although there are facets of theories and teaching practices which will always be applicable someway in teaching any group, to blindly follow past theories is like trying to fit a square block in a round hole. Bearing this in mind, educators must be willing to adapt and change with their students to stay relevant and affective in the learning journey of the students.

Having said this, the inclusion of educational technology into the learning process and the adoption of newer learning theories such as connectivism must be accepted by teachers and educational supporters. Today’s students are constantly connected to information and often rarely seen without some type of web based device in their presence. As teachers we have to use this fixation with technology to our advantage instead of fighting it because, both society, and today’s students now learn with this constant access to information. Teachers and administrators need to look at these devices, not from the lens of them being a distraction, but as a valuable learning tool which can engage and excite today’s learners. Once again I am reminded of an old teaching adage which applies nicely to this idea. “If you cannot learn from how I teach, then I will teach in a way you can learn.” Education and its members have to adhere to this saying and change with the times or risk wasting a perfect opportunity to reach today’s students and those of the future.

Obviously the use of technology within a class can be very overwhelming for anyone who is not comfortable with technology. However, if this generation of students are in fact the digital age, then the use of technology to teach and motivate them is almost a necessity. I have had numerous opportunities when it comes to technology in my classroom (iPads in the classroom, first in my school to get a Smartboard, etc.) and have benefited greatly from these opportunities. Like most situations with these opportunities came the responsibilities of sharing my experiences and knowledge which I enjoyed. Although most of those experience have been very rewarding I do remember an incident where I felt I lost the focus of my fellow colleagues. I was teaching during a professional development about numerous technologies able to implement in the classroom and I quickly learned I had probably overwhelmed my group. Many of them were not comfortable with technology and that discomfort combined with too much information proved disastrous. Pertaining to the ARCS model I had left out a crucial piece of information: confidence. I was moving at a speed to advance for my group of learners which could have been easily avoided had I simply polled their experience/comfort level with technology prior to the development beginning. One I realized I had a group of learners not as comfortable with technology I could have adjusted accordingly and went a slower speed to ensure they did not check out due to a lack of confidence. Had I done this I probably would have created a positive experience with technology in their classroom which could have served as motivation for them to continue their learning about technology’s use the classroom.