THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION

“Never memorize what you can look up in a book.” This Einstein quote has often shaped the way that I teach science. Why should I force students to memorize things that they could just look up online? Especially in the era of google. Someone asked me 2 years ago “what are you offering your students that they couldn’t get online?” and I spent a lot of time reflecting on it. Eventually it led me to trying to “flip” my classroom as a way to give more control of the content to the students.

I think this fit well with what Will Richardson is trying to get at is his TEDx talk (see below). It led me to another new question that I am trying to wrap my head around: how would I change my assessments if students had must be allowed full access to the internet?

The role of a teacher needs to change as education moves forward. I think that like Sir Ken Robinson (see below) talks about, creativity is important and as teachers we should be guides to students, giving them complex problems and guiding them to creative solutions. The questions we are asking do not need to have right or wrong answers. We are there to help them understand the concepts and apply their learning.