I feel as though I am
still progressing toward my learning goals, but the content this week has
broaden my goals indefinitely. I feel as though I need to make them more
dynamic and open ended in order to leave room for inquiry and expanding on
thought. Often times, because I am a product of an stagnant education system,
where scores and “final answers” were the goal of education, my perception on
what makes an effective goal is tainted by that fixed nature.
The resources this week
are rooted in “The question process”.
I think back to the 90’s where a kid
asking “Why?” after everything was seen as an annoyance. We live in an age now where
we are so complacent with what is given to us and our drive for exploration is
killed by ease of access to instant information. We have to take that the same persistence
that we have for getting to the next level on Candy Crush or Flappy Birds and
apply it to learning and becoming overall better people.
Growth learning isn’t something
that is applied to specific subjects, it is a mindset that can make you an
overall better person. This information is pushing me to reorganize how I teach
video game design, instead of giving students fixed goals like “A game with
three levels” I will instead challenge them to push their skills to their
limits with goals that stimulate growth and challenge them to keep working on their
products to perfect them by challenging them to identify the reasoning behind
glitches, etc.
I feel like the only way
to verify if you have a growth mindset towards information fluency skills is if
you are constantly trying to find new ways to locate, identify, and curate quality
data from the Internet. An educator must actively stay in contact with people
and organizations who are pushing the envelope of learning development. The
community of fellow educators and educational philosophers is the most fertile
grounds for growth and thus it is essential that you stay rooted in this
community through social networking, blogs, and web 2.0 content.
I really enjoyed your post, especially the last paragraph. I am a huge advocate of lifelong learning and continual growth. The world of technology changes by the second and people have the opportunity to reach goals at an individual speed. I think an educator has a responsibility to grow and learn as the information and the students change. We are at an exciting time for education because we can collaborate with others and learn how to use technology to reach each student. I also agree with your statement about teaching students to push the skills to the limits. I think the best teachers encourage students to break self-set limits.
ReplyDeleteI had to chuckle a little while reading your blog, when you stated we needed to have the same persistence in our learning as we do in Flappy Birds. While I never played Flappy Birds, it made me think of the creator. That he decided to take it down because he preferred his simpler life to what occurred after Flappy Birds became so popular.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I totally get where you are coming from saying that if we were persistent in our learning as we are in other things that shouldn't so much matter than we would be better people. We do need to keep moving forward to learn better ways to educate others and ourselves. Education is continually changing because the way our children are learning now is definitely not the same as it was say...10-20 years ago.
I feel that children nowadays just expect the information to be given to them, handed to them, and they don't want to work for it. They seek that instant gratification. However, to me, that is not teaching them to be self-sufficient. I don't understand how a lot of the children I work with will be able to be self-reliant. It saddens me.