Education in the 21st Century

Guest author Cathy Harper

A New Challenge!

We are in a new century so how has education changed?  Or has it? Most people today adhere to a paradigm of education that is strictly 19th century. That is how I was taught and thus they teach the way they were taught. Technically we are in the 21^st century, but many of our schools are not. That is the challenge, to make learning relevant or the 21^st century. Gone are the days of chalk and talk and rote learning.  Making the shift is not easy.

So what does the new classroom look like? How is the room set up? What does 21^st century education look like? It’s flexible, creative, interactive, challenging, uses a variety of technology and is complex.

If you want to see the future of education, don’t watch children in the average classroom. Watch children play a video game. You’ll see them engaged, excited, interacting, and learning—even if it’s only about how to get to the next level of the game. Today’s children are immersed in the computerized world; they absorb information differently from their parents. Instead of getting information passively they interact with new technologies. Here are some examples videos.

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Learning is more project-based involving problem-solving and critical thinking, encourages questioning, imagination and curiosity.  It is aimed at engaging students in addressing real-world problems and issues that affect humanity. It uses a variety of visual, oral and written communication forms e.g. podcasts, social networks, digital imaging, and combination of soft ware and hardware technologies.

Looking in on a 21^st century classroom you will see: students working in groups, sitting outside, moving around, exchanging ideas, students helping other students, getting feedback from the teacher and moving on, solving problems and is multidisciplinary. The 21^st century teacher is a learner, a leader, a visionary, a collaborator, a model and a risk taker. The teacher’s role has changed from being the repository of knowledge, to now guiding students to navigate through electronically accessible information. They now guide, direct and facilitate the learners. The teacher and the learner share the role of educating. It is based on experimentation, action and building networks with each other.

There are little or no “discipline problems” because the students are so engaged in their studies that those problems disappear.

Computers will not solve all the problems of education, different issues will remain. However, the new information technologies provide an unprecedented opportunity to re examine how we educate the learner.