Looking back my first semester in my master's program last year, learning about 'a student-centered instruction' was like "WOW!!" to me.
As a person who grew up in a totally different world, my learning experience in school was to memorize a great amount of knowledge from the textbooks in a teacher-fronted classroom to prepare the multiple choice questions or sometimes short-answer questions.
My high school had a good-looking library with red bricks, where I sometimes studied for preparing tests but never borrowed books to research something.
My teachers in the subjects were only the information resources and never gave us the research assignment.
More than ten years have passed since I graduated from high school, so I believe, or hope, that teaching and learning in K-12 has changed and children in my country learn to "THINK" and "SELF-LEARN" in a student-centered classroom. (But I doubt it.)
70% or more of Korean use the Internet, which made Korea rank the 3rd place in the national information index in the world, as of 2005. So I am sure that use of the Web for teaching and learning would be prevalent, but as the author pointed out, it is important how teacher and students use the Web. Do they just surf the web without any purpose or do they use technology for authentic learning?
If teachers are not familiar with student-centered instruction, they may not be able to implement the internet-based instructional activities, such as treasure hunt, webquests, and so on. In order to incorporate this activity into the classroom, teachers' teaching philosophy should be changed at first and teachers should be willing to be a guide or a facilitator, instead of a authoritative figure.
However, we cannot blame teachers for not implementing these GREAT activities in their classrooms because education is always interwined with parents belief on education, educational systems, cultural/historical philosophy on education and so on.
How can we apply western ways of teaching and learning into my country? I don't know. I am always stuck in this question.
Considering application the Web into a language classroom, I think that the internet-based activities can be combined to task-based or content-based approaches. When teachers are implementing them in the language classroom, they should remember to set up "language objectives", such as key vocabulary, language structures, and language functions to help students accomplish the task. Without language instruction, students would be frustrated.
One more consideration for the activities is to consider learners' level of language proficiency. If students just started to learn new language, they cannot perform the task in the new language. Instead, they could use the Web resources in their first language to complete the task. In this case, teachers should know students' first language and students use the same language in one classroom.
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2 comments:
Hi, IK!
I always enjoy reading posts from you because I am able to learn of the diverse ways people learn. It is interesting to see the differences in the education systems of our two countries. Although I graduated from high school over ten years ago as well, I still remember times that I had to complete research assignments which you said you never had to do. Many of my teachers were—however—only “information sources” just like yours, but I do remember those teachers that let us find out stuff on our own and present it in some cool way, like a travel brochure or diorama. Of course, “technology” wasn’t a big buzzword at our school at the time, and so computers were almost non-existent there. It wasn’t until high school that I actually got to use them, and then the internet still hadn’t caught on big with us. Now, I obviously can’t live without it.
You posed a question about students: Do they just surf the web without any purpose or do they use technology for authentic learning? When given the opportunity to complete research on the internet, my students are automatically enthused, but if I don’t watch them closely I am afraid they will aimlessly search the web looking for the latest song download or pictures of the newest teen heartthrobs. I want them to be engaged in authentic learning from the assignment, and so I am trying very hard to find quality sites that keep my students involved in the research process. I hope it works. :)
Oliver, I also experience the same difficulties as your Korean friend told you. I very often find discussion frustrating not only because of my limited English skill but also because of a different educational background I had before. But I am trying to enjoy sharing ideas with other peers who never existed in the same place with me before so have totally different thoughts. I am learning a lot from them.
I totally agree with you that teachers world-wide have a responsiblity to educate thinkers. As far as I know, educational authorities in Korea are trying to reform education, but it will take time.
Crystal, I also enjoy learning different cultures in this country. :) Thank you for sharing your learning experience at high school and your teaching experience for my question. I agree that quality sites should be prepared by a teacher to prevent students from surfing the web around aimlessly.
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