This week’s readings provided some interesting thoughts.
The one that I really appreciated was: how is evaluating and assessing going to change with the digital age? Not the question of does it need to change, but to what depth will be required?
In the future, a teacher will need to be familiar with more areas of performance other than multiple choice items and constructed response essays in content areas. They will also need to be rather adept at technology, since chances are high that the learners will be more digitally proficient than the educator.
With so many multimodalities, how will we be able to assess performance or even know what students know?
I received a thought provoking email this week about a musician that performed in a subway station as people hurried by not recognizing the talent before them. It was an experiment on social culture regarding perception, taste, and priorities. The connection I made to our studies was: in our teaching and learning culture will we be able to recognize talent in an unexpected context or will we be too focused on grades, liking, and ranking? Here’s the link to the story http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp
Can we teach what we do not know? If we truly want to be 21st century educators, don't we need to learn design and video composition and all the areas we discussed last semester? Or, do we become the 'guide on the side' model teacher, so the students can develop their own expertise?
ReplyDeleteAre we allowing/encouraging/demanding that our students to be 21st century learners as well? Is the demand for standards resulting in such throwback standardization that we lose sight of the future? Can they 'show what they know' using 21st century tools? Will we value them?