Documentation Tool- Week 1 Reflection

 

Documentation tool

 

Who is the contemporary learner?

How will the characteristics of our Gen Z learners depicted in the Meet GenZ video define their engagement in the traditional classroom snippet?

The Gen Z clearly showed my interest within the video which is described as BORED OUT OF THEIR BRAINS!  The Gen Z learning experiences were so monotoned, dull, chalkboard diagram, you get the idea. Comparing their learning strategies to now how the Gen Y students laughing. Gen Y has grown up with technologies so they are used to seeing a classroom with iPads, laptops, smart boards (touch screen whiteboard) for them to watch videos, draw pictures etc. The Gen Z generations learning experiences were so boring that is probably the reason why hardly any of them studied further on a university compared to today. Their learning outlook would look different to the experiences today. Gen Z would hardly remember any information the teacher was talking about as they all look zoned out thinking about other things and trying not to fall asleep. 

Referring to the ideas presented by Willis and Robinson, is this level of creativity in evidence in the schools you have attended, both as a student, and as a preservice teacher? Furthermore, is this level of creativity in evidence in your University units? As secondary pre-service teaching students, you will experience a variety of approaches to teaching, learning and course design in your discipline studies. Why were your previous studies presented in that particular way? How could they have been presented?

Within the video we saw the learning technique of teacher talking directly to the students, not using the chalkboard, low creativity. I think different types of learning styles are used to accomodate for the different types of learners that we have today. We have university students who learn visually, auditory or reading textbooks sometimes through all three techniques. The lectures sometimes combine all of these and some lectures only provide one or two. I think lectures should provide content in a range of ways so they university students are above to interpret the content in different ways of depth.  Sometimes if there is too much chapter textbook reading, I take one look at the reading and only read a couple of paragraphs as my brain switches off. I can take this into account for my further teaching of lessons, I will design my lessons with each type of learning type for my students to be able to engage and understand content on a deeper meaning.  Depending on the unit that the lecture is presenting for is to which way is the "best way" to present the content. 

What do you think the implications are of a curriculum that is linear, progressive, aimed at a single learning outcome for the development of both individuals and the society we live in?

Each and every learner/ student learns differently at different stages. If the students are in year 7 there would be students that are academically smart like year 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 or lower. For teachers they have to be able to progress or regress the learning content into so many different ways to accommodate for all (comes back to the not one size fits all approach).  As educators, we need to apply stretch goals for each individual as students and then accomodate a class whole goal. For these goals as a class they need to determine the average end term goal and they cannot depend on if Johnny doesn't accomplish his particular goal. The class goal needs to be a goal they can reach regardless of the individual.  I think the curriculum in such a linear approach which is a positive for grading but isn't a positive for the individual learning. We cannot base the grades of students towards how "smart" they are, as it is only one grading system. I also think of situations like this quote when it comes to grading and curriculum "you cannot expect a goal fish to fly but you would praise the bird that excels". So why do we grade and value the students to the curriculum who may only take into account some learning styles?

How can ICTs help you in the development of a professional learning network? How are you feeling about this?

ICTs can help me develop into a great teacher by simply teaching me new ways of learning for me to maintain engaging lessons. It can help me stay in contact with teachers to work together with how we will display content/ assessments. I can gain feedback from other teachers or distant teachers from other schools on my teaching methods and other practices.  I feel positive about being able to use ICTs when I become a teacher as there are so many benefits for my professional learning network.