“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”

– John Dewey –

     This starting quote in the documentary ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ showcases the predominant rationale for my enrollment in the Educational Technology Master’s Degree. As teachers of young learners, we are always actively and continually working to improve our own courses to better suit the needs of our students. Since my teaching journey began, roughly eight years ago, my practice has evolved substantially with the advent of new technology and the ever changing interests of students. I realized very quickly in my career that the way I thought I should teach was not the most effective for student learning. Despite incorporating project based, hands on curriculum, and group learning into my classroom I was l still missing a vital piece: student choice. 

I was, in essence, teaching the students as I was taught. I wanted the students to engage in and learn the information present in my mind, rather than allowing them to expand their own thinking. It is as Dr. Brigid Barron and Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond write in Teaching for Meaningful Learning, “Students need to take part in complex, meaningful projects.” To fully engage our students we need to shed the misconception that we as teachers know the information our students need and allow them to fully take charge and choose a project that has meaning in their lives. 

Another correlational part of student engagement, significant in my own practice, is to provide students the ability to access projects that are meaningful to them. This means, in my current shop setting, that the tools of the 1940’s through the 1990’s will not suffice to entice very many of the students to complete projects regardless of the amount of choice allotted to them. In our technology driven society many of our students grow up as tech users who are computer literate early in elementary school. To allow students to relate shop class to their personal lives and engage them in a meaningful way it is not enough to give them an open learning framework, as suggested by Lee Graham and Verena Roberts in Sharing a Pragmatic Networked Model for Open Pedagogy: The Open Hub Model of Knowledge Generation in Higher-Education Environments, but to use that framework in correlation with modern computerized shop equipment.

As a final thought, although I did not agree with the rote memorization for learning presented in Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching by Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller & Richard E. Clark the article does bring up points for consideration. Specifically, I am reminded of Bloom’s Taxonomy and the importance of ensuring students not only have a reasonable foundation of knowledge before engaging in an open project but also understand what is being asked of them. A great deal of what we have read includes the concept of scaffolding. Like any learning that increases in its complexity it is important to provide support and direct feedback for the learner lest they feel overwhelmed in this open way of learning.

In conclusion, given the opportunity to improve as a professional and teach to future generations we must look at the techniques and technologies of today and incorporate them into our classrooms. Teaching the students to learn as though they are going to work in a 1940’s factory will not benefit or engage today’s learners. We must provide open access to equipment, concepts, collaboration, and the unlimited virtual knowledge bank of the web to best prepare our students for the jobs of tomorrow.