The part that stood out to me in the Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment section of Future Ready Framework dealt with the matter of personalized and relevant learning.
I have often wondered about the importance of "real world" lessons and how applicable our teaching is to what students will encounter in their lives. We live in a digital age. Employers have made it very clear they want potential employees to be tech savvy, creative thinkers. Using the resources available to us, we have made great strides in exposing our students to the possibilities of the digital world. Still, while everyone seems to agree on the necessities of technological learning, preventative factors such as cost, accessibility, professional training, etc. seem to marginalize the importance of this learning outcome. Talking about the importance of one-to-one learning and actually implementing it are two different issues. Even more so, how will we use this technology? If we were to follow societal trends, would we forgo the need to learn spelling, languages, speech, simple math, social cues, etc. Are those things still relevant in the digital world? We don't teach kids about the abacus, type writers, cursive writing, check books, etc. anymore because they aren't relevant. I'm not sure everything needs to be that "personalized." Is tech a trend? Are we pushing too hard too fast? I know we want people to take responsibility for their own learning, but what are we sacrificing to "engage" them? I don't want to throw away the importance to learning just to dangle an expensive, shiny carrot in my student's faces. I guess time will tell.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI have the same questions about technology going forward. I always question whether some of the tech we teach our kids is "relevant"? I think back a few years ago when Ipads were "all the rage" in education, now they are essentially obselete. For me, I think when we can teach kids to create and innovate that is when tech is truly effective.