For this unit, my team and I were split between
discussing Higher Education and K-12 Education technological developments. Many
of the developments are ones that we have discussed before in previous videos,
but it is always good to get as much information as possible from them. The
developments from my reading, 2014 K-12, included solvable, difficult and
wicked challenges.
The solvable challenges for this reading
included Creating Authentic Learning Opportunities and Integrating Personalized
Learning. Both of these developments are extremely important in my opinion.
Authentic learning is few and far between in today’s traditional educational
system. Many teachers, myself included, feel like because we have so many
things to teach before our students take the all-too-important STAAR test at the
end of the year, there is not enough time to fill in these opportunities for
the students. Because the standardized tests are not going anywhere in the near
or distant future, it seems like this is an uphill battle in convincing
teachers to take a leap of faith that by presenting authentic learning opportunities
students will not only learn the content they need to do well on their tests,
but also learn how to engage themselves in their own learning. This goes
hand-in-hand, I think, with the challenge of integrating personalized learning.
The idea is not a foreign one. Any teacher will tell you that no two of their
students are the same and that every student needs a different amount of guidance
for different topics. We as educators, need to see that need and teach our
students to be self-directed learners. I believe that this will not only raise
our scores, but also show our students how to be life-long learners no matter
what their future brings.
The difficult challenges this reading included
were Complex Thinking and Communication and Safety of Student Data. I agree
that both of these challenges are very difficult to combat. Complex thinking is
an important development to me because there are going to be more and more jobs
in the future that require complex thinking. Unfortunately, due to lack of
funding and strong emphasis on the standardized testing, complex thinking is
not one of the developments that is getting a lot of time of discussion. Safety
of student data is a challenge because as we transition to everything being an
online focus, private data could become something that is shared to people that
have no need to see that data. Due to cloud computing and data sharing, this is
a real concern because students, and their parents, have a right to privacy
regarding personal and school data. The only real way to combat this, in my
opinion, is by having password protection for everything regarding student
data. This way private information stays private.
The wicked challenges discussed in this reading
go together in some ways. They are Competition from New Models of Education and
Keeping Formal Education Relevant. The new models that are competing with our
current model of public schools include both charter schools and online
schools. Charter schools have more freedom of what they can do with their
funding so they are able to become more innovative with their teaching methods
and come up with new ideas. Online schools are becoming more popular especially
for parents that want to homeschool their child. Many states now have full K-12
curriculum available online. This allows homeschoolers, children with disabilities,
homebound students and many more have the opportunity to work on and finish
school without ever having stepped in a classroom. Online curriculum also tends
to have a more personalized approach to how students can learn the concepts
they need to know. Because these new models of schooling are becoming more
popular, the issue of keeping formal education relevant is arising more and
more. When there are other, and many times better, options for students than
public school, why would parents not want to explore those options? Hopefully
we can figure out a way soon to bring in the innovations and techniques that
charter and online schools are using into the public school’s traditional atmosphere
to create the best schools for our students possible.
To me it is very interesting to hear about the
trends and challenges that are going on today in our schools because it is
excited to see it happening at my own school. This program that I am starting
in just three weeks will be addressing both of the solvable challenges from
this reading. I cannot wait to see how much my students learn from authentic
learning opportunities and their personalized learning plans. Looking forward
to getting started!
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