Unit 1: Theories of Learning and Multiple Intelligences

I believe that Tapscott’s statement “Growing up is about learning. The Net Generation are beginning to process information and learn differently than the boomers …. The destination is different and so is the route the kids must take” (Tapscott, 1996) is very true. However, I believe that this was also true for every generation, although it is truer for the Net Generation than those previous.

As a teacher, I am prepared to assist my students on achieving a ‘different route’. Personally, I feel that the current curricular objectives are too restrictive and narrow and that high stakes testing has taken the teaching of these objectives to the extreme. Students have a multitude of different ways in which they learn, things that they are good at, and things they are interested in. Due to time constraints and mandated directives I am hoping to use technology to provide students with different ways to learn, to capitalize on their multiple intelligence and learning styles, and to provide them with greater opportunities to partake in learning activities of things they are interested in.

One way that I am trying to change to achieve this goal is to engage students in a more collaborative role in the teaching / learning process. For example, depending on the topic being covered I will allow students to use technology to find additional information and then share this with the class. In effective, I am trying to stop being the ‘fountain of knowledge’ and allow students to use technology to discovery knowledge on their own. I am trying to change my teaching style to one of facilitator rather than teacher.

Another way that I am trying to collaborate with my students in designing lessons is to encourage them to find resources that would aid in concept learning. For example, I often use a YouTube video as part of my lesson to demonstrate a concept. Before the next class students will bring me their suggestions of videos to use as a refresher of the concept with other students.

Technology has changed the way I teach. More and more I find myself taking a constructivist approach. My students and I use technology more than any other means to instruct, learn, and assess. Every day my students and I access Moodle and Google Apps for Education (Drive, gmail, YouTube, Blogger, etc.). We also have an online subscription to Raz Kids and IXL Math.

Education is all about the students. We must do what’s right by them. I must do right by them. As I have already pointed out, one of the ways that I am trying to do this is by becoming an educational leader in the integration of technology in my school. As Afshari, Bakar, Luan, Samah, & Fooi (2008) point out “educational leaders must understand, promote and implement the notion that technology integration is not about the technology; it is about focusing on the future generations and leading teachers to a change in pedagogy”. Many teachers like to say “It’s all about the students”, but how many who ‘talk the talk’ are actually ‘walking the walk’.

Tapscott (1998) highlights eight shifts of interactive learning that would aid teachers greatly in becoming technology innovators. These shifts that are a significant change away from current practice in many schools are:

1.    From linear to hypermedia learning

2.    From instruction to construction and discovery

3.    From teacher-centered to learner-centered education

4.    From absorbing material to learning how to navigate and how to learn

5.    From school to lifelong learning

6.    From one-size-fits-all to customized learning

7.    From learning as torture to learning as fun

8.    From the teacher as transmitter to the teacher as facilitator

Lehmann (2009) points out, certain technologies are transformative. I am hoping to use the transformative tools of technology and used them to empower students. If education is ‘all about the students’ then our pedagogical approaches must change to reflect this.

Afshari, M., Bakar, K. A., Luan, W. S., Samah, B. A., and Fooi, F. S. (2008). School leadership and information communication technology, The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 7(4), 82-91.

Lehmann, C. (2009). Shifting ground. Principal Leadership, 10(4), 18-21.

Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing up digital, The rise of the net generation.