Hello fellow bloggers,
I am currently reading the end of "Digital School" (Chapter 7) in Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson. This book has brought up multiple questions but this chapter intrigued me the most. Basically, this chapter is about integrating modern technology into the classrooms to result in more effective learners. One statement made me really think. Thompson said that the classroom hasn't changed over the years and the way I see it, he's correct. We go to school and learn the same way students did hundreds of years ago. We report to class, the teacher lectures, and we're expected to display our understanding on a test. But it's much more complicated than that. This process doesn't consider the fact that not all students learn at the same pace. Thompson's resolution to this problem is the infamous Khan Academy which came out a few years ago. It helps students learn at their own rate by challenging them to different levels of math and/or science on a computer. Let me remind you, not all schools are using this tool (in fact some schools aren't making an effort to modernize at all).
So, what I'm trying to get to is why has it taken so long for us to make an effort to make learning more flexible to different types of students?
In my opinion, some teachers don't want and are afraid of change. They think the standard way is concrete and that if they change it they won't end up with better results. Like Thompson said we need to seriously train teacher and open their eyes on how technology helps students. On a side note, we also need to raise our education funds to modernize ALL of our schools and make smaller class sizes. If we do all this, I know for a fact, it would help a lot of struggling students out there and create a brighter future for us.
-Keone Nakakura
Hello Keone, I completely agree with what you are saying about chapter seven in Smarter Than You Think. After reading that chapter, I realized that while many schools are beginning to modernize, our school has remained the same. I think it would be interesting to see how the Khan Academy would work at Mayfair. I would also like to see teachers change up the way they teach. For example, Thompson talks about teachers in New Zealand who set up a blog for students so that they could be motivated to write. Apparently this experiment worked because the students began to write more effectively knowing someone was going to read their entries. This is my first time writing on a blog and I know it encouraged me to write more carefully. If more teachers like Mrs. Fletcher would assign online work I think our curriculum would slowly begin change.
ReplyDeleteWhy is Khan Academy infamous?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I meant to put "famous". I posted this from my phone and I must have misspelled the word and the autocorrect must of changed it to "infamous". I'm sorry if this caused any confusion.
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