A new age of learners

Learning is changing in the United States. There is a reason for this change and it is speed. As we look back we know that we are creating new technology and spreading information faster than ever. We are being fed information faster and faster and the human brain barely has time to accept and process all the information. The learning process has a problem. Years ago, students came to school, did their studies, went home and did chores. There was more physical activity for children that was just natural, not part of going to the gym or playing sports. The reason I bring this up is because I believe it is important to have tasks that are mundane or physical challenging if not as intellectually challenging. I was raised on a family farm and I know that those chores of feeding and caring for animals or changing irrigation pipe are not the most mentally taxing, but they offer an outlet for the brain to process. I remember how important it was for me to go outside and shoot the basketball after studying my spelling words. We are missing the physical activity that allows students to process information. Students today have turned their down time towards online activities such as social media and video games. I can relate to this problem as well, especially during a bad allergy season when it is not enjoyable to go outside because it is hard to breathe or I begin to itch all over. In that time I end up spending my free time online or playing video games. Students today run to social media, reading, posting, and chatting with friends, but never truly taking a break to process information from the day. Students play video games, complete quests, shoot bad guys, and save the world, but yet again have never given their brain a chance to wind down or at least process something in a different manner. As an educational system we need to use this knowledge of speed, technology, and processing information to our advantage. As I said in my last post, the school I teach at is moving to a mastery based model and I can see how it will truly benefit learners in America today. Lets look at Bloom's Taxonomy for a minute.

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The bottom two layers of bloom's taxonomy consist of remembering and understanding. With the speed of technology and information do we really need to focus 80% or even 50% of our time teaching to this level. No, we need to teach students how to successfully find the knowledge and then we need to engaging activities and projects that are forcing students to apply the knowledge, to analyze the information and their understanding of it, to evaluate tasks based on their understanding and remembering of the topic, and lastly we need to be have students creating. When students create they need to do it without having their hand held, without having a person their to help them every step of the way. Teachers are there to be a safety net, to encourage, and direct students, but not to give students a false sense of achievement. Schools, teachers, and parents need to allow students to fail in their creating so they are use their evaluating, analyzing, and applying skills to understand  where they went wrong and how to fix the problem. With this mastery based model, students in our system will not be able to move forward without demonstrating true knowledge. With this model, a test is not the only measure of mastery, but projects and conversations of the material and its inter-workings are important to that demonstration of mastery. Students need to have skills in which they know how to find information, understand the information they find, and then be able to apply it to their situation in the real world. Our goal at North Valley Academy is to create independent thinkers that can reason and grow on their own. Students who can on their own evaluate and make the best of any situation. That is what our goal is for this mastery based system. This new age of learners have a great opportunity to be successfully in this model.