Assignment 7

Today's student--a New Way of Thinking

It is quite easy to get anecdotal in this course--specially, as we are all educators working with students/children who periodically supersede us in the technological field. As we sweat through the most basic elements in modern technology, they—the students—breeze through like an advanced breed of animals that seem entirely foreign to us.
We are indeed in a different world. Thus, we do see students struggle in the silence of the class; their minds wonder everywhere. And the only thing that brings them back to “learning” is noise. As paradoxical as that statement sounds, it is indeed a general modern rule—the more quite the room is the tougher it is to learn. It is analogous to growing up twenty years ago and then having to deal with a classroom full of noisy kids. Nothing would have been learned, and here lies the conundrum: how is a class made interesting and thus a positive learning environment, when there is such a drastic change in the culture of learning from one generation to the other? Kids want to bring their IPods, cell phones, and then play with them as we teach class. We tend to find this as an attack on us. But in reality, we should be more progressive. After all, when they go home and study, they do so precisely in the manner they feel most comfortable—i.e. with their head phones, IPods, IM, etc… So, who are we to tell them how to best incorporate new information? The readings hint on this idea positively. Perhaps, it’s time for us to change.
My advice for educators is to relax and allow the students some level of autonomy in their learning. Experience has shown me that students want to learn, and we just have to allow them to do so.