Digital Blog Post #C- Chapter 3

   

       Overall so far this is by far one of the most interesting chapters I have read. I love how much teaching has changed throughout time and continues to evolve more and more. Most educators don’t realize how far teaching methods have evolved but for me personally once I started reading the chapter and from my personal experience in working with children I have been given the opportunity to see these practices in action. At the same time while reading I realized the difference in how teachers educate nowadays as the comparison to how I was taught and although it may not seem that far back it sure has changed.
    One of the topics that were a real eye opener to me was teacher-centered and student-centered approaches. In this section, it mainly refers to as how before teachers title was basically what one would do. In other words,  a teacher's job was to “teach”, stand in front of a classroom and lecture student about certain subjects and a student’s job was to sit and listen and eventually understand the material. However in this method all children were taught in the same manner without realizing that not all children have the same mindset and each requires a different type of learning method. Thus, leading us to the evolution of teaching in which teachers now try to engage students in learning rather than just teach.  By engaging the student in learning, teachers us an array of teaching methods to capture the students attentions using the material in and outside of the classroom. For instance in class teacher now use grouping methods so this way children learn from one another and interact more with their classmates instead of just listening to the teacher.
    With this being said, it brings us to the second concept in which technology has changed the way children now do research. When I was in school when a research needed to be done we would rely on textbooks for information’s. It probably wasn’t until high school that I used mainly digital literacy to do research on certain topics and even then there wasn’t as many digital literacy as there is now.  With technology evolving, there are endless amounts of information from digital literacy. The student now has digital literacy to find the information needed, for instance, they can use WebQuest, an online newspaper, digital dictionaries and so forth.  This allows students to learn in more efficient ways that work best for them, such as those students who are more visual learners can use videos to learn about a topic.
     All in all, the section that captivated me the most was the expressing creativity.  Throughout time children who were more artistic in drawing, sculpting, and knitting or intellectual capacity to invent something new were the children who were most praised as being creative. While those children who weren’t artistic were just regular ordinary kids but just as technology has evolved so has the term of creativity.  Now in order for a child to be referred to as creative they no longer must have some sort of artistic skill or high intellectual capability but rather be able to express themselves in different forms not just by artistic skill. For instance a creative child might express their creativity on a bicycle, in order for them to be creative they must be able to do something they have never done before or if done before to find  a ways to do it better than the previous time. This way any child can be referred to as creative.

Instructional methods to engage students | Piktochart Infographic Editor

Resources:

 Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education In

You Can Learn Anything. (2014, August 19). Retrieved September 20, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC82Il2cjqA