November 20, 2008 Class Meeting
16 years ago
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Week #3 - Learning In A Digital Age
This afternoon, during the last period of the day, a resource specialist was working with three 7th graders who needed literacy support. They were seated next to a pod of library computers and started off their session begging to use them. Instead, she had given them a writing prompt to write about 9/11 and they had to write about it on paper: what they remember had happened, their feelings about it, etc. As I walked past the group a few times, all I heard was restless and rude comments made by the students, who certainly didn't want to be there, followed by the teacher's reprimands. In the whole hour they were working, each student had probably written 2-3 not very well thought out sentences. How frustrating for both teacher AND students! Here was an instance where traditional teaching and the digital learner collided. How might the use of technology have changed the dynamics of their time together? Maybe they could have posted their writing on a web log along with some historic photos they found on the web. Or possibly work on their writing by emailing or IMing students from New York to ask them about their perspectives on that day. This year, I hope to work with our staff on ways to educate and reach out to our digital learners with methods beyond the traditional ways of teaching.
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6 comments:
I agree that the teacher missed an opportunity to provide students with an authentic learning experience which would inspire further inquiry and actively engage them in the learning process. However, I caution that engaging in this endeavor requires careful planning and implementation of scaffolded activities so that students can focus on the task at hand and organize the information in a clear and concise manner.
Lesson plan ideas for the teacher.
1. Create a list of specific websites where the students can access pictures.
2. Set up a file/folder naming and saving structure that students understand and follow.
3. Connect with NYC teachers to set up Wikis or online chats with students for the online collaboration.
4. Engage students in the writing process with an online blog where they can publish images and writing pieces.
5. Assign students a creative writing piece or reflection on the project they created.
6. Engage students in a discussion of what they can do next with their projects.
This is a very good observation of the gap that is becoming more and more apparent between the way the teachers are accustomed to teach and how digital age students prefer to learn. If the teacher was more open to it, she could have provided students with links to images, videos or news archives related to the events of 9/11 and asked students to write comments for them or in their own blogs, or alternatively created a blog entry herself first and asked to comment on it.
-- Yana
I think a good way to start is to show your students a small clip of video or photos about 9/11.The visual can be moments on 9/11, the after phase, changes,and others.
I believe that these kind of visual might help them refresh their memories about how they feel and possible help them write thoughtful sentences.
This example clearly shows the divide between traditional teaching and the new generation of digitally savvy students. I like the comment from one of the articles we read by a teacher who said that a well edited mulit-media version of his lecture would be more compelling than just him speaking (roughly something along these lines). When I was looking at the Berkeley High Wiki project I found myself getting sucked into watching a video about Conflict Diamonds and forgot the original reason I came to the site.
I agree with your idea. I think what they can do is to create a class blog or something similar for the students to write their comments instead writing on paper. It is more clean and easy for the students to write or make change. Also, they can add some images or other media, so the reader will feel more interested in reading those writing.
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