Monday, November 18, 2013

Module 6, Learning in a Digital Age: My Philosophy of Education

It is inevitable that technology will one day rule the world.  We will all be subjects of a mechanical regime and forced to be subjects to the machinery we created.  Some would say that we are already ruled by the technology we have created.  I wish I could disagree, but sit down to dinner one night in a public place and count the number of people engaged in technology.  In fact, it would be hard not to access your own technology as you absent-mindedly counted the “others” that are so digitally connected yet personally disconnected.

While I am a bit cynical of technology use in such settings, I am however avid about the use of technology in the classroom.  Technology holds such wild implications for the teaching and learning process.  First, students enjoy the journey away from traditional methods, and secondly they are participating in something that they feel they know something about.  If teachers can harness this excitement and ride the wave, then student motivation will increase and teacher design and instruction can have the maximum effect.

My philosophy has evolved every year and as my knowledge of teaching and learning has deepened, my philosophy on education has become much simpler.  Education is tailoring activities and instruction to the specific needs of the students.  Whether it be by means of likes and dislikes, or whether it be through their preferential way of learning.  Education is not a one-size fits all business.

Within my philosophy, there exists constructs that I feel are essential to the process.  First of all I am a huge supporter of the social constructivist theory in which students use interactions with others as a means of developing an understanding of their environment.  Although students learn in different ways, I feel that students, when given the opportunity, flourish in this environment where they can constantly assess their own learning against the learning of others.  Because of this there has to be interactions in education.  This can be face-to-face, it can be held in the classroom or on the Internet.  In my classroom, social interaction is a must.


In our lives we hold certain pieces of information as truths based on our life up until that point.  However, when that truth is challenged or criticized, we are forced to examine our set of ideas and adjust our thinking according to the information that we find to support or invalidate what we thought was the truth.  To me, this is learning.  Technology has afforded teachers the opportunity to give students access to social environments that would normally be inaccessible.  Because of this, technology plays a huge part of my teaching and learning philosophy. 

3 comments:

  1. Great post John. Sounds like you were describing the Terminator movie series or the Matrix. The statements you made in reference to human connectivity to technology and the disconnect between human and human is right on. My wife and I often sit down and discuss the same points you raised about all of the people on their smart phones ignoring there human counterparts. I too am a fan of Constructivism but I have reservations about how effective it can be in an educational climate where so many students are fall behind. Great thought provoking commentary.

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    1. Troy,
      I teach 8th grade and I see the effects that technology has had on the social lives of my students, to the point that face-to-face interaction is almost awkward for these students. I have also seen a drop in my students writing skills. My class was working on their Wiki, and they had to respond to another classmates Timeline, and I had a student ask me if they could use abbreviations and text language. That bothers me a lot.

      I agree with you about students falling behind, and in certain circumstances it has its limitations. As a whole, I find that activities that employ instructional design based on social constructivism works best for my students. It is behaviorism that I find the most difficult to wrap my head around when it comes to instruction and student achievement.

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  2. Hello John,
    I loved your description of how technology will rule the world and we will be its subjects. Your blog post underscores how right you are. Technology has changed the world, changed us, and changed the way learn. I think it has taken learning and education out of the classroom and put it at our fingertips. It has taken instruction out of the hands of the teacher and placed it in the hands of the learner. We literally can and do learn anytime and anywhere. Through the Internet, Web 2.0 technologies, and social media we also now, can learn from anyone. I am amazed at how many times a day I go on the Internet to learn something and that this learning is ultimately from other people through blogs, wikis, websites, emails, and forums. Thanks for this very thought-provoking post.

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