Trends in Education: Let Me Entertain You~

As educators, we are charged with not only passing information on to our students, but encouraging them to continue learning. If we do not expand our own personal philosophies and teaching styles, we will stagnate. Students do not remember the teachers or classes that did not inspire them in some way, those memories fade. The role of educator must now include, in some part, entertainer.

So how do we keep our students interested? By integrating stories, videos, and humour into our teaching methods as well as encouraging creative expression from our students. Take this blog for example. I started it as part of a project for my Provincial Instructors Diploma; all I needed was a blog to post my journals, thoughts and articles on. What I did, was express my interests and philosophies through it with links and pictures. I will continue to use this blog and continue to learn. All because I was encouraged to do so by my instructor. This approach can be used in most disciplines, as most lessons contain not only Cognitive and Psychomotor domains, but Affective as well.

Links that I have found useful in researching this education trend:

1. For those who have not visited TED (Technology, Education, Design), it is a non-profit organization devoted to fostering ideas and intelligence. www.ted.com     
2. Ken Robinson`s TED Talk about how school kills creativity and ways to change that. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html      
3. The Potential of Digital Storytelling in Education. http://wwwhome.ctit.utwente.nl/~theune/VS/Frank_van_Gils.pdf
4. University of Western Ontario`s article on University Teaching as Entertainment. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=tips

Insights into Education

In the peer discussions between my learning partner and myself, one of the main issues that kept coming up was how to engage out disinterested, distracted and dysfunctional students; do we as educators modify our behaviors or do we try to modify theirs?

I have decided that we need to do both.

How do we do this? First, we have to address what I like to call "Technical Difficulties." Social media is both a blessing and a hindrance in the educational setting. Information and access to the world is widely available to students and educators alike in our technical age. It is also what can hold us back from learning. Facebook and Twitter have great potential, but in the classroom are a large distraction. You don't even need to be on a computer for them, they are available right on your phone. Educators need to set boundaries and take a no-nonsense approach to students who are disrupting the class in such a way. I have taken to wandering about the classroom and speaking with students using these media sites during class time; I have spoken with others who have a "Cell Jar," where the student (or teacher) must put a dollar into to jar every time their cell beeps, rings or someone sees them texting. So far, the "Cell Jar" has worked the best. I would greatly appreciate some suggestions, as most of the articles I found on social media is on how to integrate it into the classroom.

The second issue I would like to address is conflict in the classroom. As classrooms become global entities, through online courses and international students, educators need to make sure that they are prepared. Cultural differences and language barriers can cause tension between students. As an educator teaching students from other countries needs to be educated in both conflict resolution and cultures outside of their own. When international students come to our country, they receive language training and culture training on life in Canada. I believe that educators should have training, or at least access to training, on the cultures of the students they will be teaching so that we can have a better understanding of any issues that they may be having adjusting.

For excellent articles on Conflict Resolution and the Educators Role in Social Control and Culture, please see the Articles section.

Web Conference with my Learning Partner

Though finding the time to connect and working through some Skype issues delayed our first meeting, chatting with my learning partner was turned out to be even more beneficial than I thought. As we were chatting and getting to know each other, I discovered that Valerie and I shared similar teaching philosophies. During our discussion on our teaching styles and issues that we had to face within our respective classrooms, I discovered that even though I am a relatively new instructor and Valerie is a well established instructor, the issues we faced as educators remained the same. 

I was encouraged by her professionalism and no-nonsense attitude to use some of the techniques that she and I had discussed in relation to conflict resolution and student motivation. Though my first attempt to motivate my literacy students to read more failed, I kept trying. I discovered that, with my students, asking them to talk about why they were either enjoying the novel they were reading or not in a group discussion was too intimidating for them. With under 10 students in that class, I was fortunate enough to be able to sit down and have a moment to talk one on one with each student, and they started to open up. I believe that it is thanks to these peer discussions and the research we have been doing that I am starting to feel more confidant.