Week 9-New Times Demand New Ways of Learning

Recent research on technology and learning is revealing a great deal on the effectiveness of the traditional learning model. For example, traditional learning models are, for the most part no longer effective in meeting the needs of today's students. Furthermore, the traditional mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of technology in the classroom do not work. Effective learning takes place when children are engaged in authentic and multidisciplinary tasks, participate in interactive modes of instruction, collaborate with one another and are grouped heterogeneously with the teacher as the facilitator of learning.
Unfortunately, this is a difficult task to accomplish. Many school districts maintain teacher centered classrooms that focus on rote memorization and often leave little room for cooperative learning through technology. However, as new research reveals the benefits of collaboration and the successful use of technology as a tool for learning, more and more school district will be compelled to use such teaching methods. As a new teacher, I have found it relatively easy to focus my instruction on student centered activities that promotes collaboration instead of the “Sage on the stage” lecturer. At the beginning of this school year I found that many of my students were very hesitant to work together because they were so used to working by themselves in al of their previous years of schooling. So it’s not only the teachers and administrators that must decentralize themselves from individualized instruction and learning, but students must learn to work together to critically analyze and solve problems.