Blog Reflection – Week of September 24th

This week, David Warlick once again posed a question that all of us MACers should consider as we complete our education program. With an ever-growing attention toward technology in the classroom, perhaps we should think broader about the 21st century: “But a new century, a new global economy, a new environment of personal power, and a new information and media landscape demand a new culture and even definition for education and being educated” (Warlick, 2007, paragraph 4). Recently, professional educators have been formulating a new framework to prepare future teachers, and while the framework does not, in my opinion, completely shake-up our current understanding of literacy, it does offer some tweaks. In his blog, Warlick asked his readers to address any of the three following questions:

* How would you define the 21st century teacher?
* How would you define the 21st century classroom?
* How would you define the 21st century student?

I’ll take up the first question and leave the other two to my colleagues. In defining the 21st-century teacher, I think an important characteristic to consider will be open-mindedness. Without a doubt, technology will play an integral role in the classroom of the future, and teachers must be prepared to assess these tools and incorporate them when possible. Texts will also change; in fact, some things may undergo fundamental changes, and in order to prepare for future changes, teachers must maintain an open mind.

The second part of the definition would relate to creativity. With an abundance of entertainment venues available to our students, for example, video games, the Internet, DVD players in vehicles, maintaining the focus of our students will be a difficult task. While I believe varied instructional activities and teaching methods will assist us, I think teachers will need harness their creative energies to think about how to integrate more technology into the classroom. I do not think the role of teachers should be to entertain students, but I think it is up to teachers to do whatever they can to keep the minds of their students engaged. Technology, one would think, is one tool that can help teachers succeed in this endeavor, but we must make sure not to inundate our students to the point of distraction.

Finally, teachers must remain learned in their field. Content mastery will always be, in my opinion, a prerequisite to teaching. As the field changes, I hope teachers will remain up-to-speed on what is occurring in their content area, including current research and successful teaching strategies.

Teacher: An open-minded, creative, and learned individual in charge of educating children and young adults.

Any thoughts on the classroom, student, or teacher of the 21st century?