Weekly Reflection 1 – Rethinking the Future of Education

Hey All!

Question

To begin my first weekly reflection, I would like to share my overarching question that I got out of this weeks meeting: How are schools evolving in response to changing social, technological, and educational needs, what approaches are proving effective, and what might these changes mean for the future of education?

What?

In class this week we explored several different ideas of technology and education. We looked at websites that could help us with blogging and overall classwork and then had valuable discussions of different kinds of emerging schools, using tools from Liberating Structures to reflect and collaborate.

So What?

We first started our discussions by reflecting about High Tech High and what we think of their schools teaching styles. This made me think differently about how students can learn and show creativity, but I still question the next steps that students may take after graduating from this school. I enjoy the key concepts of project- based, multi subject learning, but having no test for grades given to the kids does not allow them to fit, nor practice being in a University setting, which may be the next step for many of the students. I think that this whole school concept would do much better in an elementary setting, which also got questioned by my classmates in our discussion.

Our discussion then led to another school, Alpha School, where AI are the teachers. I think that the whole class was in agreement that school is more than efficient learning. It helps kids build connection, social skills, support and encouragement which AI cannot replace. This all became especially meaningful when we watched a video on What Teachers Make.

Now What?

As a future teacher, I want to use technology as a tool to support learning but never use it in a way that takes away my main jobs as a teacher. I would love to include project-based, collaboration, and opportunities for students to be creative in showing learning in my classroom. I also want to think carefully about issues such as privacy, equity, and whether a technology actually improves learning before using it.

Thanks!