11-2-2016
Aprendizaje en Línea
Víctor Miguel Pasten Blancas HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY
Contenido How Has Google Affected The Way Students Learn? ......................................................................... 2 NMC Horizon Report > 2016 Higher Education Edition ...................................................................... 6 El mundo en 50 colegios innovadores ................................................................................................ 8 What is Student Centered Learning? ................................................................................................ 12
1
How Has Google Affected The Way Students Learn?
By Zhai Yun TanFEBRUARY 8, 2016
Take a look at this question: How do modern novels represent the characteristics of humanity? If you were tasked with answering it, what would your first step be? Would you scribble down your thoughts — or would you Google it? Terry Heick, a former English teacher in Kentucky, had a surprising revelation when his eighth- and ninth-grade students quickly turned to Google. “What they would do is they would start Googling the question, ‘How does a novel represent humanity?’ ” Heick says. “That was a real eye-opener to me.” For those of us who grew up with search engines, especially Google, at our fingertips — looking at all of you millennials and post-millennials — this might seem intuitive. We grew up having our questions instantly answered as long as we had access to the Internet. Now, with the advent of personal assistants like Siri and Google Now that aim to serve up information before you even know you need it, you don’t even need to type the questions. Just say the words and you’ll have your answer. But with so much information easily available, does it make us smarter? Compared to the generations before who had to adapt to the Internet, how are those who grew up using the Internet — the so-called “Google generation” — different? 2
Heick had intended for his students to take a moment to think, figure out what type of information they needed, how to evaluate the data and how to reconcile conflicting viewpoints. He did not intend for them to immediately Google the question, word by word — eliminating the process of critical thinking. More Space To Think Or Less Time To Think? There is a relative lack of research available examining the effect of search engines on our brains even as the technology is rapidly dominating our lives. Of the studies available, the answers are sometimes unclear. Some argue that with easy access to information, we have more space in our brain to engage in creative activities, as humans have in the past. Whenever new technology emerges — including newspapers and television — discussions about how it will threaten our brainpower always crops up, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker wrote in a 2010 op-ed in The New York Times. Instead of making us stupid, he wrote, the Internet and technology “are the only things that will keep us smart.” Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis. Writer Nicholas Carr contends that the Internet will take away our ability for contemplation due to the plasticity of our brains. He wrote about the subject in a 2008 article for The Atlantic titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” “… what the [Internet] seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” Carr wrote. The few studies available, however, do not seem to bode well for the Google generation. A 2008 study commissioned by the British Library found that young people go through information online very quickly without evaluating it for accuracy. A 2011 study in the journal Science showed that when people know they have future access to information, they tend to have a better memory of how and where to find the information — instead of recalling the information itself. That phenomenon is similar to not remembering your friend’s birthday because you know you can find it on Facebook. When we know that we can access this information whenever we want, we are not motivated to remember it. 3
‘I’m Always On My Computer’ Michele Nelson, an art teacher at Estes Hills Elementary School in Chapel Hill, N.C., seems to share Carr’s concerns. Nelson, who has been teaching for more than nine years, says it was obvious with her middle school students and even her 15-year-old daughter that they are unable to read long texts anymore. “They just had a really hard time comprehending if they went to a website that had a lot of information,” Nelson says. “They couldn’t grasp it, they couldn’t figure out what the important thing was.” Nelson says she struggles with the same problem. “I’m always on my computer. … I don’t read books as much as I used to,” she says. “It’s a lot harder for my brain to get to a place where I can follow and enjoy the reading, and I get distracted very easily.” The bright side lies in a 2009 study conducted by Gary Small, the director of University of California Los Angeles’ Longevity Center, that explored brain activity when older adults used search engines. He found that among older people who have experience using the Internet, their brains are two times more active than those who don’t when conducting Internet searches. Internet searching, Small says, is like a brain exercise that can be good for our mental health. “If somebody has normal memory when they’re older, I always encourage them to use the computer,” he says. “It enhances our lives.” For Small, the problem for younger people is the overuse of the technology that leads to distraction. Otherwise, he is excited for the new innovations in technology. “We tend to be economical in terms of how we use our brain, so if you know you don’t have to memorize the directions to a certain place because you have a GPS in your car, you’re not going to bother with that,” Small says. “You’re going to use your mind to remember other kinds of information.” How To Teach Digital Natives? Heick has since left teaching to start TeachThought, a company that produces content to support teachers in “innovation in teaching and learning for a 21st century audience.”
4
To him, the Internet holds great potential for education — but curriculum must change accordingly. Since content is so readily available, teachers should not merely dole out information and instead focus on cultivating critical thinking, he says. “Classroom walls and school building walls are transparent, with technology essentially bringing the outside world to the classroom and vice versa,” he says. Heick says his company recently started working with schools and organizations in a few states, including North Carolina, Texas and New York, to develop lesson plans. “Google really lubricates that access to information and while that is fantastic, it makes us have to change a bit the way we think about things,” Heick says. “Because we’re so busy, we have this false security that we understand something because we Googled it. Now we’re moving on to the next thing instead of really rolling around with this idea and trying to understand it.” One of his recommendations is to make questions “Google-proof.” “Design it so that Google is crucial to creating a response rather than finding one,” he writes in his company’s blog. “If students can Google answers — stumble on (what) you want them to remember in a few clicks — there’s a problem with the instructional design.” Meanwhile, teenagers are also aware of how the Internet is taking ahold of their lives. Caitlyn Nelson, teacher Michele Nelson’s daughter, finds it hard to focus when she is forced to do readings or even exams online. Like most teenagers, sometimes she finds herself surfing the Web when she’s supposed to be reading PowerPoint slides in class. Caitlyn talks about a video they watched in English class about the impact of technology. “We talked about how technology is changing … how most people are basically becoming zombies and slaves to the Internet because that’s all we can do,” she says. “I feel really bad that I’m connected to my phone all the time instead of talking to my mom. But she’s also addicted to her phone.”1
1
http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/02/08/how-has-google-affected-the-way-students-learn/
5
NMC Horizon Report > 2016 Higher Education Edition
The NMC Horizon Report > 2016 Higher Education Edition is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). This 13th edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are placed directly in the context of their likely impact on the core missions of universities and colleges, and detailed in succinct, non-technical, and unbiased presentations. Each has been tied to essential questions of relevance, policy, leadership, and practice. The three key sections of this report constitute a reference and straightforward technology-planning guide for educators, higher education leaders, administrators, policymakers, and technologists. It is our hope that this research will help to inform the choices that institutions are making about technology to improve, support, or extend teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in higher education across the globe. All of the topics were selected by an expert
6
panel that represented a range of backgrounds and perspectives. View the work that produced the report on the official project wiki.2
2
http://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2016-higher-education-edition/
7
El mundo en 50 colegios innovadores El psicólogo Alfredo Hernando ha viajado de España a Japón para descubrir cuáles son los mejores proyectos educativos
El niño que fue Alfredo Hernando no se parece en nada al alumno que él mismo ha encontrado, indefectiblemente, en todas las escuelas que ha visto. En su primer día de clase, con dos años, lo sacaron a un patio en el que solo vislumbraba tres grandes muros y una alcantarilla enorme sobre la que él levantaba apenas tres palmos. “¿Pero qué es esto? ¿Cómo nos pueden traer aquí?”, recuerda que pensó. Ese otro alumno, el que encuentra siempre, ni siquiera repara en el recreo. “Me ha llamado mucho la atención. En un colegio, en otro, en otro... siempre hay alumnos que se quedan en el aula y no distinguen entre el tiempo libre y el de clase”, explica.
Alfredo Hernando, investigador y creador del proyecto Escuela21. Jaime Villanueva EL PAÍS
8
Hernando, de 34 años, es un investigador que ha dado la vuelta al mundo visitando colegios con proyectos innovadores, centros donde profesores a solas, con las familias o con respaldo de sus gobiernos han conseguido enseñar y apasionar a sus alumnos. Durante casi un año —con alguna pausa— este psicólogo de Aranda de Duero (Burgos) paseó por escuelas en Estados Unidos, Colombia, Perú, Chile, Brasil, Ghana, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japón, Italia, Finlandia, España... Todo empezó, rememora, “como surgen este tipo de proyectos que unen lo vital con lo profesional”. Mientras estudiaba Psicología pensó que le interesaba más la educación que montar una clínica. También sus viajes tenían otro tono vital. En lugar de un mapa de monumentos o montañas, Hernando hizo uno de colegios innovadores a los que quería asistir. “La primera semana que pasé en Nueva York iba todas las mañanas a las ocho a ver una escuela. Y el sábado, me preguntaba: ¿Pero qué estoy haciendo?”, recuerda entre carcajadas.
Aprovechó congresos y vacaciones para visitar por su cuenta todos los seleccionados. Los llama Escuelas21 y están recopilados en un libro recién editado con la Fundación Telefónica, Viaje a la escuela del siglo XXI. Así trabajan los colegios más innovadores del mundo, que el miércoles presentó en Madrid y este jueves en Barcelona. El documento, que se puede bajar gratis en Internet y lleva ya más de 25.000 descargas, es un manual para transformar los centros y “ayudar a que todos los alumnos tengan éxito”, promete Hernando.
9
El profesor danés Morten Smith-Hanse. Jaime Villanueva
En su libro recoge la experiencia de centros españoles como el centro de formación Padre Piquer de Madrid, que utiliza aulas cooperativas en las que colaboran profesores y alumnos. O elconcertado Montserrat de Barcelona, que aplica la teoría de las inteligencias múltiples de Howard Gardner, entre otras
10
innovaciones. Es con el que Hernando se quedaría si tuviera que elegir solo uno de todos los que ha visto. Si la cuestión fuera señalar un solo docente de los cientos conocidos, elegiría a Morten Smith-Hansen, profesor de Español e Historia en Bachillerato en el centro Ørestad Gymnasium de Copenhague. Smith-Hansen, también de visita en Madrid por la presentación del libro, explica cómo trabaja. “Tengo una clase con 28 chicos, desde hijos de inmigrantes en paro a alumnos con muchos recursos por parte de la familia. Y todo lo que hay entre ambos. No tiene sentido que yo esté en mi pizarra divulgando una verdad académica que es para tres personas”. La solución que encontró fue convertirse en una especie de profesor particular de cada uno de sus estudiantes con ayuda de las nuevas tecnologías. Para enseñar gramática, por ejemplo, cada alumno debe abrir un documento en la nube (un escrito compartido en red al que pueden tener acceso distintos usuarios). Allí le cuentan lo que sabe de gramática, él les responde, se abre un diálogo y consigue que cada cual mejore sobre su propia base. ¿Es fácil cambiar una escuela? Hernando considera que sí. “Hay muchos colegios con inmensas ganas de hacer cosas que te abren sus puertas. Los profesores se sienten atraídos por otros que tienen éxito con sus alumnos… Los que están generando el cambio en España son docentes que tienen interés. Mucha gente se ha dado cuenta de que necesitamos otra escuela. Ese es el primer paso. El segundo es saber cómo la queremos y esto es imparable”, explica. Y concluye con una sonrisa: “La educación está de moda”.3
3
http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2016/02/03/actualidad/1454527093_941804.html
11
What is Student Centered Learning?
Student centered learning or learner centered learning comprises of methods and strategies that shifts the focus of instruction from teacher to student. I am sure you must’ve attended one of those classroom sessions where teacher takes the lead and guides students as what to do, how to do and keep spoonfeeding the students. Learning is about doing and if teacher is the one who is doing it all then where is the student learning? In a student centered classroom the instruction command changes from “Do-As-ISay” to “Lets See How We Can Do This” where the solutions are brought forward together and not just by the teacher. Allowing students to share and have a voice in what, how and why of the classroom activities give them a sense of responsibility and authority over their learning which again is a good thing. Student-centered classrooms include students in planning, implementation, and assessments. Involving the learners in these decisions will place more work on them, which can be a good thing. What's not student centered? If classroom activities are all about the teachers and they are the one who’s doing all the talking and basically imposing ideas on the students then it is not student centered and the role of a learner is not played by the students in such settings. They simply follow the teachers’ instruction not being able to explore their imagination and creativity. Believing in students’ capacity to lead is what drives a student-centered classroom. An educator must give students their chance to take charge of their learning, where
12
they get to decide the content, the way they want to learn and where they possess the freedom to discover things themselves. Various ways to make this happen can be in form of project-based learning, maker learning, exchanging roles with the students, and a lot that will be beneficial to students when learning is talked about. Other thing that plays a key role when we talk about student centered learning is constructivism. Constructivism is a learning theory that explains how people learn and acquire knowledge from their experiences. And therefore it is directly related to education. Constructivist view of learning points students to practice various techniques to derive their knowledge and it also encourages students to CREATE! 4
4
http://edtechreview.in/dictionary/2292-student-centered-learning
13