Change is Good

I think the phase that we have heard from Dr. H over and over about how we cannot expect our students to do things that we aren’t willing to do really relates here. To inspire our students to become digital learners, I think we have to become one ourselves and model the learning we are doing. As teachers we are always modeling and this is something that I have always made sure I shared with my students. If I am learning something new, I share that with them. I tell them about how I am looking for new information bout the content we are learning about. By doing this I feel that we are showing them that learning doesn’t just stop when they leave the school building or when they graduate, learning is a lifelong experience and something that we continue to do. When comparing the 20th and the 21st century learning models, you can see huge differences. Teachers are shifting from the stand and lecture model to the work alongside the student model. This is a great direction to go in! After watching the video by Grant Lichtman, it gave me some hope about the future of the education system. At times it can seem to be too big of a task to take on something as big as revolutionizing the education system and it is obviously something that we can’t do by ourselves. But he spoke about how after visiting many schools, he could see how they were trying to shift their thinking for the future and what one school got stuck on, another one figured out. This gives the glimmer of hope that it is possible, but it is going to take a lot of growth-minded educators to make it happen.