Alright class, now take a moment to text your neighbor what you think.

Back in my days of being a student five years ago (I know, it has been a while), I was by no means a disruptive student, but sure I enjoyed talking with friends.  This obviously led to many teachers telling me to stop being social.  After hearing this from multiple teachers, I learned that learning is not when you talk, but when you listen.  This happens when there are no friends around to distract you.  Ultimately, if you are being social, then you are not learning. 

 

There is a great scientist who studied learning that presented a new concept.  In his research Lev Vygotsky pointed out that learning is a social experience.  Learning this was eye opening to me, and today when listening to Jeff Utecht he further pushed my teaching comfort limit.  He explained how kids communicate on their phones and to these kids, this social environment is important.  From this I learned how taking a kid's phone, or kicking them off of Facebook during class is pulling them from their social realm.  If Vygotsky is right about learning being social, then pushing kids away from how they are being social means we are pushing kids away from learning.  Last I checked, that isn't the direction teachers are supposed to be pushing.  This means that as a teacher we need to be sensitive of students and their devises.  We need to teach students how to be respectful when using their devices, when it is okay to be using their devices, and how to be social outside of their devices.  This is a great challenge for teachers today.  We need to be sensitive to how students function and learn how to teach them the content, but more importantly how to be social.

Reference to Vygotsky

http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/Vygotsky-Mind-in-Society.pdf