Walking down the memory lane I distinctly remember myself seated as a student, listening to my teacher delivering her lecture. The classroom set up was strongly teacher-centered. We were supposed to be docile, obedient and punctual. Strict discipline was the motto. Computers were there , but they were supposed to be used only for completing the assigned work and loads of homework was a common routine.
When I compare my generation with the generation I started teaching then I see a clear divide. My students belonged to generation Z. As we all know, this generations is used to all sort of technological gadgets. They can't imagine their lives without mobile, smartphones, i pods, i pads, PSP s, Wii s and XBox as these things are toys for this generation. They maintain their social network via MySpace and Facebook. They are quick and eager to upload any cool stuff they feel like sharing with their cool friends.
When I used to teach grade eight students in South Carolina (some one and a half year back), my class was a mix of students having access to computer, internet and printers at home and others who lacked all these facilities. The 'have nots' used to go to the public library to use the computer and complete their school assignments. In school. the ability of almost all the students to use the internet and other technologies was at par with each other.
My learners were mostly visual and kinesthetic. The lecture and note-taking method was a sure shot way of getting them uninterested in science. So I incorporated simulations, online quizzes and 'brainpop' movies in my regular lessons. The differentiated instruction and flexible grouping was also done to ensure that the students belonging to different learning styles and levels were catered properly. The variety of 'absorb','do' and 'connect' activities (Horton,2006) helped the students to understand the scientific concepts. I see this as a stark difference compared to the way I got educated where every student was treated in the same way and it was expected that our performance on exam should be excellent.
My eight grade learners were comfortable in using variety of technology. They were able to use smart board, senteo clickers, curriculum on wheels with perfect ease. They were good enough in conducting the search for a given topic by using variety of search engines; could find nice visuals to accompany the text and could do all sort of animations. They knew about different websites to approach for uploading the music. They also knew the ways of bypassing the block created by the district on certain websites and the idea of plagiarism was not clear to them. I think that Katherine Savitt in her presentation"Gen Z: The Age of Curator" was right in calling our students as having AADD (Acquired Attention Deficit Disorder ) because they have unprecedented ability to collect and process the information from various sources.The 'research' for my students meant cut, copy and paste from different websites. The idea of giving credit to real source and contributor under reference and citations' heading seemed vague to them. Apart from this their mathematical skills were not good enough to let them understand the numerical portion of physical sciences with ease.
The methods/approaches most effective with my learners were differentiated instructions, flexible grouping and integration of variety of technology in daily lesson plans. My students used to do a lot of hands-on activities and mini-labs. The use of 'foldables' also worked very fine with my students.This allowed my students to be creative in expressing their learning. Apart from this, the group presentations made the class a vibrant learning place. The quiz questions and common assessment exam questions were uploaded and the students used 'senteo' clickers to answer the questions that appeared on the smart board. They got immediate feedback after the completion of the test. Grades were exported to the grade book in a jiffy and there was enough time to review the questions attempted by them.
The constraints if any, were felt when too much stress was laid on the performance of students on benchmarks and PACT exam (now called PASS-a state administered test). This race to score well on exam took toll on the time that could have been utilized in developing higher level of thinking among the students. Engendering the critical skills like investigation,observation, analysis, creation and evaluation require lot of class time.
The only way I could think of overcoming this constraint was the use of more hands-on activities, efficient incorporation of variety of technology and imparting precise information with the help of self-supporting visuals (Clark, Nguyen and Sweller,2005 ) so that students had ample opportunities to create, share and express their thought process with their classmates and teacher.
References:
- Horton,W.(2006). E-Learning by Design.San Francisco:Pfeiffer
- Clark R.C, Nguyen F. & Sweller,J. (2005)Efficiency in Learning-Evidence Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load.San Francisco:Pfeiffer
- O'Reilly Media (Poster):Katherine Savitt,"Gen Z:The Age of the Curator"Web 2.0 Summit 2010. [Video].Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfqF1r7LBCA
- JosePicardo (Poster):I teach,therefore you learn...or do you? [Video](Feb. 28,2009)Retrieved August 8,2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AWYIit1uNk
- Bjnesbitt (Poster): A Vision of K-12 Students Today [Video](Nov.28,2007) Retrieved August 8,2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8
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