Shifting Pedagogies and Perspectives

Mrs. Thomas, a ninth grade English teacher, asks young William to share with his classmates on the topic, “How I spent my school holidays”. William replies, “They all know what I did! They are my friends on Facebook and Twitter!”

Changing communication & learning practices

Communication and learning among peers and teachers using digital technology are instantaneous and becoming eminent. The Internet is no longer a new fad. It is widely accepted as a way of learning about the real world, especially for individual, social and cultural awareness. The proliferation and increasing availability of handheld mobile devices, electronic tablets, and a host of other technology tools has given us access, at any time, to an immense and varied source of ready formal and informal information. One might ask about the credibility of online information, “Is learning through internet sources credible?” Let us think about it, “Can you find peer-reviewed papers shared by known universities?”, “Do you have the skills to differentiate sites that are credible?” and “Knowing what you post online may be read and critiqued by other consumers who are also experts in the field, will you not post real content?” Digital technology has not only changed the way we communicate with friends and family, it has also changed the way we approach business, network, shop, read, watch movies, including choosing to read digital news over traditional printed papers!

With the prevalence of technology and children born into a digital world, do children learn the way we learn? Think about some communicative practices children use now that differ from some of us. Prensky (2001) coined the two terms “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” where most people can be broadly categorised. Many adults who are digital immigrants (born before the widespread use of digital technologies and adopters of them to some extent later in life) can cleaved their lives into two distinct eras: B.G. (before Google) and A.G. (after Google). Some of us made the transition quickly while others choose to take time. However, most of today’s young generation are digital natives (born during or after the general introduction of digital technology) where the use of technology is akin to the air they breathe!

Have we recognised the need to cater a change in our teaching and communicative practices to fit our children’s learning? How do we address and engage this audience of young learners who wield digital tools and technologies like Google, Twitter, TedTalks, and iPads as naturally as we used books, hardbound encyclopaedias and libraries? We simply need to think differently about teacher education and learning.

Shifting teaching practices

John Dewey, philosopher, psychologist and education reformer, said it best, “If we taught today, as we taught of yesterday we rob our children of tomorrow.”

The first law of the Internet is no longer where to find the answer but how to ask the right question. The role of the educator and his teaching practices, therefore, is different from his traditional counterpart. The educator guides and facilitates learners to identify and analyse reliable sources of information. By embracing the information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their systematic incorporation into the real and virtual classroom settings, we can bring about this paradigm shift of technology in education. The key therefore is how to utilise technology to make learning more fun, engaging and useful for our young inquisitive learners.

Teaching practices are shifting because communication and learning practices are changing. Are we ready for the challenge? Are schools, educators and curriculum designers equipped with the competencies and technology to cater to these needs? While we rethink about our teaching practices, let us reflect on what Igancio Estrada, an inspirational educator, said “If the child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” 

Brain development at Early Years

The inseparable relationship between cognitive development and social development.

Future Architects

Born into a world of technology, digital native children see technological devices as a natural extension of themselves. They are de facto ‘practitioners’ of real-world problem solvers – the future architects.

Source: thenextweb.com

Gross Motor Development

Think about this as a new assessment tool to measure children’s gross motor development.

Young children and technology

Young children are spending more time learning about the world through technology. They are de facto ‘practitioners’ of real-world problem solvers. As parents and/or educators, we think about how we can teach young children to use technology.

Rethink.

Maybe, the digital native children can teach the rest of us technology.

Source: thenextweb.com

 

Coaching Digital Natives

Coaching digital natives first begin with a paradigm shift.

A 3-year-old and monsters

What this 3-year-old would do about monsters demonstrates her competency as a real-world problem solver. This little one certainly has a gutsy way to solve her issue and to overcome her fear. On the same note, young children are unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. Be aware of what your child is watching over the media.

Quality makes sense

Global education was derived to improve the lives of young ones in developing and underdeveloped nations. Many ideas surfaced in the minds of people at the sight of “global education”. What is the word that comes to your mind  when you read about global education? Does your word make sense in the lives of the young and to their future?

The fundamentals of global education to improve lives through education is insufficient if the idea is only to provide education without a deeper understanding of its constitutions. Do children learn just by attending school and fulfilling attendance? According to Maastricht Global Education Declaration (2002), the definition of global education is education that opens people’s eyes and minds to the realities of the globalised world and awakens them to bring about a world of greater justice, equity and human rights for all. Global education is understood to encompass development education, human rights education, education for sustainability, education for peace and conflict prevention and intercultural education; being the global dimension of education for citizenship. Does your idea of education have a global impact?

Education without quality is simply a transfer of knowledge. The mindset of just graduating with paper qualification is most hurting to the global economy – both adults and children alike. Children can go to school the entire day with minimal understanding of what goes on in the classroom day after day. Let me rephrase – just because children go to school, do they really learn?  Global education sounds immense and incomprehensible but it is about changing our perspective of education to sustain global demand. Coming back, the essence of global education is the provision of quality in the curriculum and programme.  It is imperative to incorporate quality so that children learn effectively. With quality education, children are equipped with skills to learn and grow. It is only a matter of time for them to contribute to the economy and the improvement of economic growth is only a natural process. While global education bears a significant weight in the education industry, though it has seen some improvements, there remains a wide gap of improvements for quality education globally. If you were given a chance to input your idea about quality education to improve global education, what would your idea be?

Education then and now

Image source: site.educ.indiana.edu

For decades, the idea of education in Singapore was an ink-and-paper task. Now, young children are learning and meddling with handheld tacky gadgets in the streets. Education in the past has been mainly rote learning. Now, it is mostly replaced with more creative strides of activities and projects as performance indicators to be reflected in report cards. Is Singapore becoming globalised in its orientation in education? Here, the questions we should have are if we have moved on with the global education perspective; or are we still struggling with the ink-and-paper mentality while trying to inculcate the young with a global mentality? There is definitely a place for ink-and-paper task with the exception of it as the only benchmark for success in life and a badge to a guaranteed good future.

Global education is not just a hot topic in town but also in the other towns. Its growing significance brings a subtle yet impactful message across to public about the perspective on global education and the need for contemporary people to live and interact in this closely knitted world as globalisation has increasingly interconnected us. Learning spans across the globe, uninhibited by the vast ocean. Learning is just about a mouse-click away. In other words, learning is limitless and incomprehensible. The idea of education has gone beyond a student learning from a teacher, it has moved to learning from any one on the web. Now that education has globalised, what would you like for your children to grow in Singapore?

Global Exchange

Global Exchange

 

DO we think global?

The idea of global mindedness is essential to global living. With the advanced technology and interaction without walls, learners of the 21st century need to be globally minded. The implication of global thinking brings us into one generation after another, which we may have yet to fully comprehend. How we think is greatly dependent on our culture, upbringing and interaction with diverse people who comes along our way in our life. Beyond the traditional learning in the classroom from a tender age, the significant adults should bear in mind to converse and display the ability to embrace diversity and learn to solve life’s problems creatively in various situations with the young ones. When we demonstrate threshold for tolerance as a culture in our everyday living with diverse situations and issues, the young ones will learn to embrace diversity. This precious value will ingrain as they grow.

Embracing diversity teaches all of us to think creativity and learn to communicate creatively too. Most of us have probably learned that where there are people communicating, there will always be miscommunication. Hence, there is the need to have the skills to communicate effectively and to minimise miscommunication. Learning to handle issues and situations in life with diverse people builds the individual’s ability to manage life and learning, hence the importance of global thinking for life management.

Global mindedness is key to our lifelong learning.

A Closer Look

Do we see at a closer look? Many of us see but we do not look closely. More often than not, we missed out a lot in life. Our preconception tells us that we see when we look but it is actually not happening as  what we presume. On the contrary, some see but looked at the things they should not see. Just think about the time wasted looking at the storms in life. That makes us a gloom weather person. We should learn to look at the sunshine and the rainbow. That makes us happy. Does a closer look helps us see better? Hope it does for you just as it did for me. I see better when I take a closer look.