Group items tagged

The problem with focusing on the role of the teacher, from my perspective, is that it misses the point.

We continue to expect educators to play an active role in learning, but it has become more difficult to characterize exactly what that role may be.

students need prototypes on which to model their own work

Perhaps the biggest example of that that I think lectures suck. In fact, I have a dislike for most face-to-face teaching practices in a University context. I have – what Bali and Meier describe as – an affinity for asynchronous learning.

rown to like the McWilliam’s (2009) idea of the “meddler in the middle” which is described a

teachers who are more inclined and better prepared for what are known as student-oriented teaching practices, such as group work, individualized learning, and project work, are more likely to use digital resources. But in many cases, teachers were not adequately prepared to use the kind of teaching methods that make the most of technology

Overall, the most successful plans were incremental and built on lessons learned from previous plans.

There is increasing recognition of the important role of teachers in education. But we need to go beyond the idea that teaching is an art that requires exceptional talent. There are exceptional teachers, but we need to support the professional development of all teachers, and we can do so if we invest in the scientific base of the teaching profession and empower those very exceptional teachers to become leaders who inspire other teachers.Technology offers great tools in this respect. I'm thinking of platforms for collaboration in knowledge creation, where teachers can share and enrich teaching materials; of the amount of data that can be collected to measure students' learning; or of the increasing use of blended learning models in teachers' training, in which online lectures are combined with individualized expert support and feedback from peers. Because they enable feedback loops between theory and everyday classroom practice and are supported by a network of like-minded peers, these models have been found to be much more effective than the traditional model of courses, workshops, conferences and seminars

In 2020, people won’t be talking about online learning as such. It will be so integrated with teaching and learning that it will be like talking today about whether we should use classrooms.

Because academic content is almost all open, free and easily accessible over the Internet, students will not pay tuition fees for content delivery, but for services such as academic guidance and learning support, and these fees will vary depending on the level of service required.

Lastly, and most significantly, the priority for teaching will have changed from information transmission and organization to knowledge management, where students have the responsibility for finding, analyzing, evaluating, sharing and applying knowledge, under the direction of a skilled subject expert. Project-based learning, collaborative learning and situated or experiential learning will become much more widely prevalent. Also many instructors will prefer to use the time they would have spent on a series of  lectures in providing more direct, individual and group learner support, thus bringing them into closer contact with learners.

People will not continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars for what technology allows them to get for free.

Power is shifting away from selective university admissions officers into the hands of educational consumers, who will soon have their choice of attending virtually any university in the world online.

Now anyone in the world with an internet connection can access the kind of high-level teaching and scholarship previously available only to a select group of the best and most privileged students.