Learning to Unlearn

"Teaching does not make learning occur. Learners create learning. Taking on a new role, taking a posture of learning, means recreating ourselves, and rethinking how we do our jobs." (Connected Educator pg 46)
 
This statement states clearly what we need to do as educators, we not only need to be learning as we grow older and more mature in our teaching ways, but we need to be learning with every experience that we have. Whether it is from taking a bad situation and turn
ing it into a learning experience of how to handle certain situations, an example would be cyber bullying. We could take this ever rising issue, that students are probably facing in our classrooms and teach them how to handle it. As teachers, not only are we responsible for meeting the standards in the classroom, we have to prepare our students for the world outside of the school. We can only do this as teachers by constantly learning ourselves.
 
We as teachers need to reproach teaching in a new way starting with ourselves. We have to become connected learners and be participating in connected learning even though it is hard because we have to unlearn what we know and then grieve what we have left behind. Unlearning is necessary though in the ever-changing world that we live in. With new technology coming out every day, we have to be prepared for the now and the future. The way we can do that is by participating in a construction of knowledge.
 
The construction of knowledge consist of three parts, knowledge for practice, knowledge in practice, and knowledge of practice. All three of these may sound the same but they differ greatly and each is important to be successful in the ever changing world we are in where we need to unlearn what we know. Knowledge for practice is the "sit and get" experience where you are participating in a training session, reading a book, or traditional professional development activities. While the participate gets the knowledge from the activity, it is often hard to transfer what they have learned to their classrooms. Which is why knowledge in practice is important, this is the "try it out and see if it works." This is where you take what you learned in the knowledge for practice and apply it to the classroom to see what works and doesn't. This is the step where it is valuable to tap into your PLN (professional learning network) and PLC (professional learning community) and asking what has worked in other classrooms and what doesn't so that you have a base to start within your classroom. The next step in the construction of learning is knowledge of practice, which is where we shift the focus of just learning to learn, to asking deeper questions and going into research on a topic we are interested in as well as doing reflecting on what we have learned and bringing new and deeper meaning to it.
 
Technology in the classroom allows for everyone in the classroom to not only learn on their own but it allows us to cut the time in half, because we can pull information from other learners. We also find out many opposing views and experiences that allow us to validate our opinions and why we have them. Technology n the classroom allows for us to help produce a world of children that is ready for the world and not one that is used to drill and kill techniques or waiting for someone to teach them how to do it. As learners we have to be able to take a question and research it on our own to find the answers and teach ourselves.
 
Learning to unlearn is important because we have to not only be preparing ourselves for the world that is coming, we have to be preparing our students for their future. Which is much different than ours. Teachers have to be able to adjust to the new world that is evolving because we can't stay stuck in the dark ages. We do need what we have in the world today and we have to teach students how to use if efficiently. The kids we teach need to take what we teach them and be able to apply it to the real world that they will live in. If to do this, we have to unlearn our own learning styles to be able to teach every kid in the classroom efficiently and well, then that is what needs to happen. Intelligence isn't enough, we need an education. And that is our goal as educators, to give the children we teach an education.
 
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, “We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character –that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”

 

Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

The world is an every changing place where the technology and people are evolving to be the best that they can and be the most efficient as well. With new technology being introduced, whether it be from the newest Temple Run to another update of Pinterest or a Kindle Fire with a camera on it that makes it almost exactly like the I pad Mini. Unless we decide to become hermits and live in a cave, technology will be very present in our lives and those of later generations that we will be teaching.

Having grown up in a world of technology and not knowing anything else, most would assume that I am biased towards Interactive White Boards (IWB). To be quite honest, I think they will be the downfall of teaching. As well as the amount of technology that is trying to be incorporated into the classrooms. I think that a teacher should be able to teach to the kids without the IWB, if they have to rely on technology to teach the lesson then they are not efficient teachers. In my experience, the best classes that I had were where there was no smart boards at all. It was sitting down and having a group discussion or debate or moving around the room to talk to different people to get their opinion on what the topic was. A lot of teachers do not know how to efficiently use the smart board, so they use it like a PowerPoint that you can add notes to. Technology can be very beneficial in a classroom, it is just my opinion and from personal experience, that I like being taught through a teacher and not a board. I like to be able to ask questions and have a relationship with the teacher and my classmates, of more then just an online one.

I feel like the basis of the idea for the IWB's was genius. Having a board that lets the teachers interact with the students by pulling in videos and audios and many other things to help reach every student, is a good idea in theory, but if you standing up there with the board and lecturing while using the board or even showing the videos, there will still be a kid asleep in the back of the classroom and there will still be that girl on her phone texting the newest boyfriend of the week. To be able to use the IWB's efficiently and correctly in a classroom, you have be a good teacher who can adapt to the needs of the students by differentiating their needs. While you may want to run a full paper less class room, like one of community college in Iowa does, some students need that hard copy in front of them to be able to learn from it.

There are many pros to the IWB's, but at the same time there are cons to it at the same time. I feel like as teachers, we should first be taught how to teach and the effective methods that work the best and then move onto the technology part of teaching, because anybody can stand in front of a classroom and throw up a PowerPoint with information and read it to the class giving them a little bit more then is on the slide, I have been doing it for years with school projects. The articles that support the Smart Boards, mostly state that it is interactive, it makes life easier for everyone since it can be uploaded and it has outside world applications since videos can be pulled in, but there is very little research done to show that IWB impacts students learning. Why? Because it doesn't, in my opinion. The same thing can be done with a white board or a chalk board or a projection board or laptops. Wasting the money it cost to buy a IWB for a teacher who doesn't use it effectively is a waste of the taxpayers money. Instead, the money should be spend to update the curriculum and the material in the classrooms. As teachers we need to remember that we need to be teaching to the children, and not at them. They are still going to be bored through a lecture or lesson, with or without a board. The teachers have to hit the students interest by differentiating the material and the projects so that the students have the opportunity to try new learning styles.

We may live in an ever progressing world, but we need to remember sometimes the way that works the best is one that has been done for a long time. The world exist outside of technology, if one day we lost all power. What would happen? Would we stop function? No, we wouldn't. We need to not only teach our children how to survive in the world of technology but how to survive without it. We don't need to be glued to technology, the world exist without it.

Use everything you can to its fullest potential to gain the best knowledge that you can without abusing it. The world is in your hands, stop and smell the roses that are out there and see the sights in person, not through Google.


*I apologize for the odd picture placement, I had it nice and pretty and something went wrong.... And I can't figure out how to fix it! If you have any ideas feel free to share!*