Students need to be engaged in what they are doing and
active learning is a great way to get them started. Active learning is engaging
the student in the class to participate in what the lesson is. When there are
math problems, have the student go up to the board and answer questions so they
are being involved. Every student can sit at their seat and pretend to be doing
work but when they are upfront, they are showing that they can do their work.
Another idea is group learning where students work in a
group with each other. There they can collaborate with each other and make the
class less teacher-centered and more student-centered. Teachers then take on a
more overview and supervise the students while the students figure out what to
do for their assignment. Students take on different rolls as leader of a group,
note taker, researcher, presenter and artist if making a drawing of sorts. This
allows students to be more open to speaking with their fellow classmates on
subjects and then working on their social skills at the same time. During group
work, this tests the student’s ability to find their strengths and weaknesses
and help them overcome them so the students have a better understanding on how
to complete their coursework.
When defining students working in groups with technology,
they have to be able to know what to look for and where to look for it online.
Online, students have a wide net of information that they can search from and
knowing where they can go is important. Everything good or bad is online and we
as educators must protect them from what could be inappropriate for them. Search
engines are set up where teachers and parents can control what the
student/child can view. Students start their search by search words and then
the internet does the rest and matches the search with the content.
Teacher Centered vs. Student Centered Learning
Great focus on the teacher- vs. student-focused learning and how that can be applied in the classroom - both the text and the comic strip! When we move from the 'sage on the stage' idea to the 'guide on the side', teachers do take on different roles - just as important, if not more so, but that change is often difficult for teachers to make. Both veteran teachers and newbies often have a mindset that education/learning happens the way it has always been done, but with the changes in our world, we need to think about how to better prepare our students for the future - active learning is definitely a valuable part of that landscape. Don't forget that you always need to have a Resource section at the end - if only for the textbook, but in this case, you would also give credit to yourself for the digital web 2.0 tool you created and where - see my 'how to' video on the digital blog assignment module page in Canvas
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