In 21st century education, teachers try to prepare students for a world with technology, hands-on work, and the unknown. Most teachers know about the importance of equipping students with the hard and soft skills they will need in the “real world” and it’s usually their lack of strong resources—not their quality of instruction—that interferes with this challenging process.
It’s time to replace pencils and notebooks with programmable robots and problem-solving courses that focus on interactively developing an unrelenting desire to improve creativity and inquiry-based knowhow. Strategies tend to differ as there are lots of different considerations to take into account, like grade level, affordability and other things.
Classroom design is one of those things we never really give our teachers enough credit for working on but there certainly is some strategy that goes into planning out all aspects of the school day and teachers certainly don’t overlook the value of creating these welcoming, accommodating, and even aesthetically pleasing classroom environments.
If you haven’t given much thought to trying Open Educational Resources in education or maybe aren’t quite sure what exactly they are, the time is now for you to explore some basics of them! OERs are freely accessible, openly licensed documents and media for teaching, learning, and assessing your students as well as for research—and they’re all available for download.
Project-based learning, interactive engagement, and real-life relevance are among some of the most important characteristics that today’s instruction should contain. Teachers know that they need to update their pedagogical styles and approaches to better relate to students and facilitate a true 21st century education. So, here’s how you can do just that.
If students and teachers are not developing intellectually every single day, how are they going to succeed in today’s hands-on, project-based world? The importance of the constant presence of growth mindset in education is more important now than perhaps it ever has been—whether students realize it or not—and that’s why it’s our focus topic for this week’s post.
Without moms, there wouldn’t be any future-ready kids poised to take on the world thanks to an all-encompassing STEM education. Just like how mothers help them in life, EdTech helps kids grow in school and shapes them to be the learners that mom knows they can. And, believe it or not, there are some connections between robots and the things moms do.
Could you type an essay blindfolded? Maybe, but even with all the hours you spend sitting on a swivel chair and punching keys, there’s almost no chance you could get through, say, a two-page paper scot free if you’re not looking at the text. What if you were asked to type the same two-page essay on your mobile phone? Could you do that?
For many teachers, using educational technology in the classroom is the norm. For the vast majority of today’s educators, however, it’s a headache-inducing afterthought. The fact is, however, that using technology to teach necessary concepts in a modern fashion has its advantages. The issue isn’t really with what teachers teach, but more with how they teach.
Whether it’s blended learning, project-based learning or hands-on tinkering in a STEM-centered Fab Lab, modern educational tools have made it easier than ever for kids to become future ready. The goal of learning with technology is as simple as many top classroom products: prepare kids for a tech-filled work while honing key hard and soft skills.
