Learning as digital natives
TODAY, much of the content we teach becomes outdated almost as soon as we teach it.
Quality education in the contemporary world is about developing our pupils to be global citizens, ready to engage in the real world in a creative, productive and positive manner.
The key in a classroom is the building of a strong and broad skill base that will enable students to find, make, critique and question their own answers rather than recite the answers when prompted.
In an age of electronic devices, Internet connectivity and Google, young people often search for answers using a keyboard rather than by applying their own skills and capabilities.
This has a few implications. The first is, information and communications technology (ICT) is no longer considered the “other”.
It is not something that needs to be added to the educational narrative, it is the narrative.
Secondly, to students, the information and figures needed are those that appear in the first three Google search results.
The third is that arguing or defending a point no longer involves an instinctually internal rational process.
Lastly, digital natives, the students we now teach, have only one thinking routine at their disposal when seeking answers to questions, and that word rhymes with frugal.
For a long while now, many educators have stuck with the notion that ICT is something that is just to be grafted into traditional education.
On the other hand, other schools have gone to the other extreme, adopting the oneto-one approach and eliminating textbooks and exercise books entirely.
At the end of the day, a balance between these two positions is likely to be the best path forward.
Access to technology opens a world of information and communication but a sole focus on it closes many other worlds of information and communication.
Furthermore, our digital natives do not need to be taught basic ICT skills as they have already been exposed and are already quite competent in it.
However, they need to be taught what a newspaper is, how it works and the type of audience each publication is targeting.
This is not because they have to become newspapers readers themselves, but rather, it is for them to better understand the conventions that have been carried over into online and television news services.
More broadly, they will be better able to recognise the inherent biases that they will encounter in those first three Google search results.
Ironically, the information revolution has moved us away from acquiring knowledge through reading and first-hand experiences. Instead, youths today resort to Google and Wikipedia to get their facts.
Our goal as educators at Marlborough College Malaysia is to teach our pupils to think and form rational conclusions themselves as well as take a critical eye to the thoughts of others and their own.
At the same time, we aim to teach them to eloquently participate in the dialogues and discourses of our societies.
Our challenge is to equip our students with Visible Thinking Routines advocated by Harvard University’s Project Zero and bring our students’ learning to life through the processes shown to be most effective by the Visible Learning approach advocated by Prof John Hattie.
This is what great education is today. This is what quality educators strive to achieve every day. – By James E.R. Unsworth, head of English at Marlborough College Malaysia
An Information Evening will be held at the Residence of the British High Commissioner, Kuala Lumpur on Jan 25.
For more information, visit www.marlboroughcollege.my.