WI:Learning and Thinking

Education is a very important topic in the world today. How are we educating our children from the time they are very young to going through college? There have been many changes in the way that we are teachers and professors are educating. In the YouTube video "The Future of Learning, Networked Society" made by Ericsson there are several participants who point out different ideas some of which I would like to point out. Seth Godin who is an American Author, entrepreneur, marketer and public speaker said that schools have become like training a factory worker. The school trains them on how they want them to be and if they fail you punish them and make them go through it again. If the kid doesn't conform to the school then he is punished. He states that some kids are able to be engaged and take notes and then 2 weeks later regurgitate the material back but other kids can be engaged but not learn like this (1).

I believe that he is correct in some of his thinking. I believe that students learn differently and teachers and schools must conform to students to help them learn. They need to help cater to other needs that their students may have but if a teacher has a class size of 25 or more is there really enough time to cater to each student, when does it fall on the parents of a child to help him understand a math assignment? Being married to a teacher I see how my wife tries to teach in different styles depending on the students she has and tries to help each student. Schools are trying to provide interventionists to help those students that struggle in a certain area and try to help them learn in the way that is best for them.

During the video Sugata Mitra a professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University in England says that teachers need to point students in the direction of asking the right question instead of finding answers (1). I completely agree, answers are easy to find if you have a good question. Albert Einstein said "If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions (2)." If we spend our time with frivolous problems then the answers we find wont have any meaning. Teachers need to point students in the right direction and help them think critically. I believe that some teachers are doing this but even more need to start. In one course I have this semester the professor will present the class will give a situation and then say you have been in school and learned how to critically think, how do you solve it. We then as a class must come up with different questions that will then lead to finding ways to effectively solve the problem.

Later on in the video it is mentioned that education use to be limited to only the teachers knowledge of the subject and the small textbook for the class. But now with group working and technology students can learn so much more (1). Each student has a smartphone, tablet or laptop and essentially have information on just about anything at our fingertips. We need to be able to be able to actively use that technology in class to not waste time on finding answers that we can easily find and learn more to critically think and think of bigger and more important problems we can solve.


1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quYDkuD4dMU
2. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/60780-if-i-had-an-hour-to-solve-a-problem-i-d