Online learning is not the next big thing, it is the now big thing.”
Roosty Tovar
That is what Learning is. You suddenly understand something you have understood all your life, but in a new way.
– Doris Lessing
Although my initial career was not teaching, I was passionate about teaching,
but I must admit that the way in which I learned seemed boring to me. For many years, I saw him as a provider of instruction. I remember in my country a job offer that they gave me at a university that was dedicated to training teachers, imparting knowledge on various areas, mathematics, history, science, literature and language, in this case it was English and French and their cultures, of This is where my passion was born to develop myself as a teacher and offer my students opportunities to apply what I had learned. That's what I knew, so that was the way I started teaching.
The circumstance is that I was taught to teach at a time when I used to go to the card catalog to find the call number of a book and to the Periodical Literature Reader's Guide to find magazine articles. I was a student when the first fiber optic Internet cables were laid on my college campus. The Internet was not part of our daily life. The industrial model of education was still largely exempted because it was hard to imagine students having access to the endless stream of information that the Internet now offers.
Fast forward two decades, and it's hard to imagine how we survived without the internet at our fingertips twenty-four hours a day via smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Students today learn differently than I did because the world they live in has changed so much from the world that existed when I was in high school. This current reality presents me with a challenge as a teacher:
Will I Change Roles?
Will I continue to deliver conventional or traditional learning to students within an educational box from a bygone era, or will I allow them to use the tools and opportunities at their disposal to explore the world around them?
To meet the needs of today's students, teachers must change the role they play in the learning environment. Teachers must become facilitators and coaches to guide their students as they engage in authentic learning projects for a more personalized learning experience.
Mentality Change
With this article, we can evaluate and consider the changes I'm making to my courses in an effort to develop a More Meaningful Learning Environment (CSLE) with choice, ownership, and voice, through COVA. However, nothing I propose to enhance my students' learning experiences will be effective unless both teacher and students work to develop a growth mindset.
My elementary students are growing up in a system where "learning" is like a check and check list. Once they have completed an assignment or assessment, they move on and because of their daily focus they are barely aware of their own day, but they are not learning, they are distracted and not taking the time to see how what they are learning fits into a bigger picture. Helping my students see that learning is more important than grades is a real challenge that I have addressed in my Growth Minsedt However, it is important to note that developing a growth mindset is not a simple or quick process; it requires focus and determination, and can be a long-standing endeavor for some.
Innovating
Learning must be more personalized, it must be better structured to act directly on each student and their specific learning needs. I have developed an INNOVATION PLAN that will replace whole class lectures with a version of the blended learning station rotation model, allowing students more control over their learning experiences. Providing the same instruction to all students in the same way is not as effective as providing individualized learning through classroom stations where students have some choice in the skills they practice and review based on their individual learning needs.
Construction of Connections
Interfacing and integrating learning experiences that are truly meaningful to today's learners means creating meaningful learning environments (CSLE) Implementation-outline.
This means Building meaningful connections between courses and between coursework and the world at large. Courses can no longer be independent activities or schedules. For learning environments to be effective, they must simultaneously recognize each other and embrace the breadth and connection of knowledge that digital media brings to students today.
Thinking about Learning
Now as a graduate student, one of my required focuses in my student-teaching portfolio was a teaching philosophy. I would say that the profile must change from teaching to learning. Consequently, I have modified my teaching philosophy to a LEARNING PHILOSOPHY that aligns with the learning goals that I have proposed to my students. Reflecting on how I now view learning and teaching, I have found that I have adopted and adapted elements of behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and social constructivism to create a more effective learning environment for my students.
Developing my Courses
Designing and creating meaningful learning environments for my students means working on how to rethink, plan my courses and my lessons. Meaningful learning environments do not happen by chance; they are intentional. There are numerous frameworks for curriculum and course development, but the common feature of the most effective models is planning with end goals in mind. Teachers cannot simply create and design activities and wait for students to learn. Even the most interactive activities will be ineffective if they are not designed with a totally bold goal in mind. The Thinking Behind The 3 column Table RT: is a useful tool for course design, and the Understanding By Design - process. RT The model is effective for unit design. Both require teachers and designers to plan with authentic goals in mind.
Conclusion
Designing and creating a meaningful learning environment and enhancing students' learning experiences is not a matter of simply making a few changes, it goes beyond thinking about what we can do to cause students to focus and see more than one. assignment to a different learning project in which what is learned is a bold and evolutionary art for each of them. It will be an ongoing process of working on my growth mindset, adjusting my short and long term planning and looking for authentic and engaging opportunities for my students. This process will continue for the rest of my career. However, when I look at the faces of my students, how they come to me and how they migrate to another level of learning, I consider all the potential that I have in front of me every day, I have no doubt that they are all worth this great effort.
References
Piaget, J. (1964). Part I: Cognitive development in children: Piaget. Journal of
Research in Science Teaching, 2, 176-186.
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the
imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky.: CreateSpace?
Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success (Ballantine Books
Trade Paperback edition. ed.). New York: Ballantine Books.
Fink, L. D. (2003). A self-direct guide to designing course for significant
learning [Pamphlet]. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2008). Understanding by design (2nd ed.).