Learning for 2020

My journey to understand what life will be in year 2020 and how we should prepare our next generation to cope with life at 2020.

Name:
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Insights from a Techie

by David Warlick via OLDaily

What would it mean for a teacher to be clickable.


This is a question I am most interested in, especially if we want to have an answer which is appropriate in 10 to 15 years.

David continues to outlines three roles a teacher need to become:

First of all, the teacher has to create and persuasively describe the place that the students will want to go, a student-centered outcome that is compelling to young learners. Then the teacher must construct a context within which the students will work with relevant/authentic limitations, and appropriate tools to accomplish the goal. Finally, the teacher becomes a consultant, or strategy guide.


YES! Teacher is NOT the authorative content of a subject matter, but a convincing evangelist of an area of study that demonstrates relevancy to the curiosity of the young and inquiring minds. Teacher contructs challenging and stimulating problems to help the students to continue the scope of inquiry and further the depth of the study. Teacher is a guide, someone who is willing to travel the learning journey with the students helping in every way AND enjoying the discovery and excitement together.

In The Zen Of Being An Effective 'Mod' In Online Role-Play Simulations [see my other papers on role play simulation in http://www.roleplaysim.org/papers], I wrote, the roles of moderator in role play simulation, which is akin to teacher, are

Guardian angel: ...maintain an overview of the general direction of the game progression. As a subject 'content expert' the role of the guardian angel is to help participants with the content, if and only if, help is requested, ... While guardian angels should communicate a sense of support to the roles, it is important that roles do not become over dependent on them ...

Manipulative devil: Given that roles are trying to achieve goals, one tactic to create learning opportunities is to set up obstacles [or new challenging problem in the current context of a new role of a teacher] on the path to these goals.
Resident Teaching/Learning Resource: Perhaps the most crucial of the MOD various dimensions is the need to recognise learning opportunities and transform them into potential learning. Thus when help is sought or a request for a specific action is made, a learning opportunity opens. ... A Resource should promote reflection and consideration of alternatives. When suggesting alternatives (always plural!), it is important to ensure that participants take responsibility for the role's action - participants should own the actions they take. ... On the other hand offering relevant facts for consideration that seem to be unknown to the participant is also useful.
Improvising story teller: .... The MOD becomes a story teller and creates extension to the original design to cater for the situation.

An administrator: ...


While Dave continues with the focus on the role of content, the conclusion is very interesting:
Quoting: ... Content today is the dominant thing. I think we will start to see people who can aggregate audiences in interesting ways.

Woooow! Ok, so it isn’t the textbook? It’s the audience? The class? What is the power of the audience? What is the power of the class? How might we turn the class audience into an engine for learning? What does it look like? Is this where we need to be thinking, in order to drive a bottom-up revolution in education?




Published simultaneously on Random Walk in E-Learning