We will need to adjust to the rapid flow of technological advances that will replace our traditional methodology in the classroom. With the aid of the world at their fingertips, adolescents will no longer tolerate a learning environment out of the last century.
-Philip (2007) pg 4
I’ve wondered a lot about teaching across generations; over the past few decades, I feel that technological advances have skyrocketed, changing the way people (especially young people, many of whom have had access to this technology from a very young age) live and learn. When holding a smartphone, a student is also holding a calculator, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, endless news articles, and so much more. Any question they have can potentially be answered within 10 seconds using a Google search. They have access to limitless information, and the way they conduct research, find solutions to problems, and communicate with each other has changed over time. So I find myself asking constantly, what does that mean for education?
I feel like this question tends to result in concerns over dependence on technology. Many feel that students still need to learn to do things (i.e. research or math problems) the “old fashioned way.” But will these actually serve as useful tools for them in the future? Will they be engaged in a lesson that they feel is not applicable to their real lives? Technology is huge part of our reality now, and while some may feel that students should know how to make do without it “just in case,” I wonder if some people are simply too stubborn to admit that as technology changes, education should too.
I’ve seen a lot of use of smart-boards, projectors, and online research and homework assignments, but what about the heart of education? What about what we value most in a curriculum? Is that ever going to change? Should that ever change?
I’ve read a little bit about 21st century learning, which emphasizes the importance of teaching skills, not just the core subjects. For example, memorizing specific facts for multiple choice tests might be outdated; after all, we can look up most of that information at any time we please with a smartphone or computer. But school can also teach us how to think critically and how to collaborate with peers, which I personally think are valuable skills that will prove useful to students throughout their lives.
Quote from Engaging ′Tweens and Teens Chapter 1: What We Know About the Brain and Learning: Integrating Neuroscience, Psychology, and Education, pg 4 – Raleigh Philip (2007)
I think this is a great point to bring up. I myself have wondered a lot about the use of technology in the classroom and to what extent it should be a presence. As a math teacher, I have watched the younger generation use technology in ways that I had never had myself (for example, while doing one math problem in a tutoring session, the student kept calling out to Siri to do her addition, multiplication, etc.). I believe a lot of discussion has to be held about this point, and among teaches of the same discipline, as the answer changes from subject to subject, from grade to grade. I’ve heard students say before “but why do I have to do this in my head, I’ll always have a calculator!” While true, it is still important, especially in the younger grades, that students learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide without a calculator to gain a conceptual understanding of the mathematics. However, as they get older, it could be used as a tool to aid them in more serious computations, where the basic operations play a minor role. It really is a nuanced and difficult question to answer, and it holds many components to it–to what extent should technology be used? How do we maintain students’ interests by adapting our education to their ever evolving technological world? How do we maintain the cognitive demand of the task by not allowing technology to do all the work, but at the same time maintain the cognitive demand of the task so that simple computations , which could be done with a calculator, don’t take time away from the real problem at hand? I think this is a question that will become more and more prevalent, but also more and more difficult to answer.