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I believe that the biggest challenge for me right now is being in the center of the shift from lecture-based classroom models to an online, technology-based model.
For this assignment, I read the 2013 Higher Ed version of the NMC Horizon Report. I currently teach college classes, so I felt the content in that file was more relevant than the K-12 Report.
Two of the trends in that report stood out to me:
#5: The role of educators continues to change due to the vast resources that are accessible to students via the Internet.
#6: Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning, and collaborative models.
I think that these two trends move hand-in-hand: we can't have one without the other. The Internet resources that are available to students now are a form of online learning, and online learning cannot happen without these resources.
A few years ago, in an introduction that I have most students write during the first week of the quarter, one of my students said something to the effect that he did not understand what the point of school is, since everything anyone wants to know is readily available on the Internet. This statement had an effect on me because it represents the heart of how education is changing. Today's students don't need to learn facts--facts about anything they might be interested in are as close as the palm of their hand. Instead, today's students need to learn how those facts can be molded together to create new ideas--something that they won't be able to find using Google or Wikipedia.
In short, the process of education is going through an evolutionary change right now. This is not a deliberate change. No student or teacher (or even administrator) is pushing to make these changes happen. Instead, it seems to be an shift brought about by how the general populace is now exposed to a wider bank of information than they ever have been at any other point in history.
When I look at the students sitting in my classrooms today, I am truly puzzled about why many of them choose to come to class. They show no interest in participating in the activities I am leading them through, preferring instead to work more-or-less independently, and occasionally popping up their heads to make a quick comment or observation. Many of those students would be better off taking the online version of the class, so they could fit the class into their schedule, instead of trying to fit their schedule into my class. There are typically a few students who are genuinely interested in learning the material in each class, and those students do prove that the classroom environment is still a valid model for some students, but those students seem to be fewer from one quarter to the next.
About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to specialize more in developing online content that could be used in the classes we teach, so I started looking into what I could do to learn this skill. While I probably could have found online training materials to work through on my own, I also know myself well enough to know that unless there is a strong external motivation (like meeting someone else's deadlines), I would keep putting off learning the skills.
I already have one Master's degree (in French Linguistics), but I felt that a second Master's in Educational Technology would help both me and my students. It's only been a few weeks since I started this new journey, and I have already learned new skills that I can put to use immediately in my current classes. I am truly looking forward to the rest of what is to come.
Here is the video I created. I hope you enjoy it.
