Reshaping the Paradigms of Teaching and Learning by Wimberley Alan;

Author:Wimberley, Alan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Once, while walking down a hallway of a middle school, a building administrator passed an open classroom door and as he passed by, he noticed a very quiet, orderly room full of tenth-grade students. No one was up participating in any tenth-grade shenanigans. In fact, no one was doing anything.

The students were quietly talking to each other, but there was a feeling that something just wasn’t quite right. He stepped just inside the door and realized that the teacher was not present at the moment. He asked the students what they were doing. They responded they were in American history. He said he knew they were in American history class, but the question was what were they doing?

Again, American history. No, he replied, what are you doing right now? They then realized what he meant and explained that the teacher had gone to the office to take a quick phone call. They were waiting for her to return so they could begin class. No teacher, no learning. Sure, the teacher could have given them a quick exercise from the unit to work on until she returned. However, that’s not the point.

Content is content. Information is information. That’s not teaching. Delivering the content to learners can be accomplished in myriad ways, digital technology being the latest. Paper-based curriculum designed for today’s learner can be delivered to students in very creative ways.

Peer and social learning networks, even beyond the walls of a classroom, can happen now. Good educators will know how to be creative in delivering content to students. And then there’s the obvious. Technology, and specifically digital technology, has opened doors of opportunity for content to be delivered more than ever, better than ever. And the advantage of a technology-based delivery system almost demands that it be considered as the only option in today’s environment.

If a student is being taught through direct lecture styles only from a designated teacher in the classroom, the design is not creative. No educator admits to lecture teacher-driven instruction any longer. However, there is need for some of this in the teaching learning equation. The problem is that we now have access to teachers, professors, tutors, and even digital instructors worldwide, yet we don’t use them very often.

When a student needs to hear a lecture or be taught directly how to solve a problem or learn new material, that student has the capability of learning from someone better than you, me, or that teacher in the classroom. At its purest, the teacher in the classroom should be involved in the most minimal way in offering direct content instruction. However, the primary goal of that classroom adult should be to mentor kids and change lives, increasing student motivation and engagement so learners can learn.

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