The employment landscape is changing, and the students we teach will most likely work in a variety of fields during their lifetime. So, how do we prepare our students for change?
We can teach our students that learning is an on-going, informal process. Because our students will have to adapt to the changes that technology will bring, they will have to know where they can learn new information and skills. We cannot teach them what the information is and how to do what they need to do because those skills and information do not exist yet!
We should no longer be concerned with having our students memorize facts. Technology can store and retrieve facts for them; however, we do need our students to know how to form connections between sources of information. Our students will be in the business of making-meaning and answering the question: What is worth learning? In the real world, our students are going to have to figure that out everyday. We need to help them learn how to create their own structure and take control of their learning in a way that makes sense to them.
Only then, will we have hard-working, self-motivated, creative life-long learners and producers.
Wow, that actually kind of blew my mind. It strangely hadn't crossed my mind that not only is there technology that hasn't come out yet that we will have to eventually learn, but that we as educators need to teach our students how to be analytical and teach them how to learn new technologies as they become available. I always thought of it as the we are always going to have to essentially teach them in the moment, but if we teach them how to be learners and enrich their own learning then that will help everyone out. Cool idea, I hope I am understanding it correctly!
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