It seems the expected revolution in education didn’t turn out as thought. Maybe what we’ve had has been more of an evolution. Watch this podcast to learn how.
Video Highlights
0:00:13.0 Evolution in Education
0:00:43.9 What Does Better Mean?
Transcript: Evolution in Education
So it seems to me that there’s been a revolution promised. But maybe what we haven’t had is a revolution. Maybe what we’ve had has been more of an evolution. So there has been an evolution in education, not a revolution.
Now we want to be in the business of teaching better, okay? We want our schools to be better. We want the staff that we are helping to lead and encourage and train. We want them to teach better. We want to create better learning experiences for our students, and we want to have students to be able to learn better in schools. But I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the time to actually ask the question, what does better mean?
Now does better mean that it’s more engaging for the students? Does better mean that we get better results? Is the fact that teaching is better or that learning better is it that it’s more trendy? And if teaching with technology is a better way, why is it better?
Now when I ask teachers that question, I actually get the opportunity to see and eyeball them to look in their face to have a conversation with them. Generally what happens is, we start off with this general notion about, well, things are better, or they should be better. But when we ask for specific ways in which they can be better, sometimes we struggle. Now we’ve got to understand this because after 20 years of having a one-to-one or a technology plan in schools in Australia, you’d think that we’d be able to answer the question more succinctly about how is technology enhancing things, why is teaching better with technology, how is the learning enhanced?