SEASONED TEACHERS AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY
ROWENA C. SANTIAGO
Truly, the world today is computer and technology-obsessed, where instead of being the author of this technology; we now become pawns of this technology. One danger that the modern world poses is that as educators, may obscure our very purpose by those express foods, microwave ovens, swift downloads, seminars, computer-aid plans, cell phones, malls and other modern conveniences. We may fail in terms of human relations and disciplines.
The planet we are living in is a different world today. Seasoned teachers must cope with the fast changing learning trends or else we will be caught bewildered or uninformed. Our understanding as educators may become outdated if we cannot cope with the present world. Almost everything is dissimilar from the time we were born: the kinds of movies our children support and patronize the instruments they engage to, the technology that creates and produces those kinds of music, the television that our students watch, and the devices they buy and perhaps even the written words of God and beliefs they ignored.
We believe that every person is distinct and different from each other. This distinctiveness should be taken into consideration when teaching our students in the modern world. Standardized and identical teaching styles are old-fashioned and uninteresting to millennial. A new teaching model, however takes into consideration all the different learning styles of the students. The needs of the particular clientele were given due concern and importance in the classroom to make learning more attractive to students. It is now more learner centered rather than teacher centered. The Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model is a quick analysis of this breakthrough theory. Teachers who think about their students and earnestly wants to make a variation in their teaching style must throw out the outmoded teaching method and hold on to the modern learning model.
*The Dunn and Dunn Model is based on several theoretical assumptions namely:
1. Most individuals can learn.
2. Different instructional environments, resources, and approaches respond to different learning style strengths.
3. Everyone has strengths, but different people have different strengths. 4. Individual instructional preferences exist and can be measured reliably. 5. Given responsive environments, resources and approaches, students attain statistically higher achievement and attitude test scores in congruent (matched), than in incongruent (mismatched) styles. (*Henry Tenedero, Aha! I Gotcha)
As Educators, we are envisioned to fulfill our mission and vision; to make a difference in the lives of our clientele and that is to make the most of what we can do to make them learn in a friendly and positive learning atmosphere in our respective classroom.
— oOo—
The author is Teacher III (Grade 10 Mathematics) at Pampanga High School