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Bestselling author and educational expert Alan November's new book Who Owns the Learning?: Preparing Students for Success in the Digital Age compiles lessons learned over 30 years of educational experience. Beginning with his first teaching job, November began to realize that the most powerful education happens when students take ownership of their learning and when they feel that what they produce contributes meaningfully to a community.
Using those two principles as his guide, November's book profiles innovative teachers' efforts to make learning meaningful to their students, sharing concrete ways to transform schools. The book uses the family farm as a metaphor to explain the importance of making students central contributors to the modern education system. The excerpt below helps explain the type of work students could do in this model and how technology can help along the way.
Owning Their Learning: Student Jobs on the Digital Learning Farm
Perhaps the greatest role shift in the Digital Learning Farm model is that of the student. As we help to transform students from passive receptors of information into active drivers of their educational experiences and designers of their educational goals, we need to provide them with the incentives of meaningful work and authentic audiences. Here are the four types of jobs for students that we will discuss in this book:
1. Tutorial designers 2. Student scribes 3. Student researchers
4. Global communicators and collaborators
Tutorial Designers
Students often learn better from other students; they listen more intently, understand more completely, and participate more readily. Using webcams, video software, and other freely available recording and broadcasting tools, students can create tutorials that other students, parents, and viewers can access and use from any location. As you will learn in chapter 2 (page 25), teacher Eric Marcos and his students from Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, California, have energized their school through the use of screencasted tutorials they produce. Creating tutorials increases student engagement and provides struggling students with more opportunities for reviewing troubling concepts. As one of Eric’s students reminds us, “In order to teach it you really have to learn it” (personal communication, December 2011).
Student Scribes
Not all students take excellent notes every day, but free online collaboration tools can give any class the opportunity to collaboratively build one set of perfect notes. Using a shared blog, wiki, Google Docs, or another collaborative writing tool, students work together to create a detailed set of notes that can be used by the entire class. (Visit go.solution-tree.com/instruction for live links to the websites mentioned in this book.) Darren Kuropatwa, a high school calculus teacher, uses this student scribe technique to transform his classroom into a collaborative learning community. In chapter 3 (page 39), you will learn more about Darren’s student scribe program in which each day a new student is responsible for taking notes and collecting diagrams that become part of his class’s online calculus textbook. Using a student scribe program encourages students who don’t take notes to do so, and it helps students who struggle to take good notes improve their technique through positive feedback and advice from their teachers and peers.
Student Researchers
Many classrooms have one computer sitting in the back of the room or on the teacher’s desk that gets very little use while instruction is taking place. What if that computer became the official research station where one student each day was responsible for finding answers to all the questions in class—including the teacher’s questions? Assigning students the research job can be a very effective learning tool, and it’s an incredibly simple process: each day, assign a different student to sit by that computer. When questions come up during class, it is that student’s responsibility to search out the correct answer. In chapter 4 (page 49), you will learn details about using this student job to build a class search engine that meets course standards for curriculum content and reliability of resources. Training students in the role of researcher offers guided opportunities and teachable moments that allow them to hone their research skills.
Global Communicators and Collaborators
It wasn't that long ago when it was cost prohibitive to have your class connect with other classes and subject experts around the world. That time is gone! In an ever-shrinking world, we now have free access to make these very connections. In chapter 5 (page 65), you learn how educators are using Skype and other online tools to establish and maintain working relationships via the Internet with classrooms and topic experts from around the world. (Visit go.solution-tree.com/instruction for live links to the websites mentioned in this book.) Students can develop questions, conduct interviews, and build their skills in online learning and collaboration with people from different countries and cultures. This Digital Learning Farm job offers hundreds of opportunities for any adventurous group of students to bring the world into its classroom.
Make a difference in education: 6 ways to contribute to schools in your community
- Donate supplies.
- Volunteer in the classroom.
- Nominate schools for grants.
- Think outside the classroom.
- Attend meetings.
- Encourage participation.
- The importance of STEM education.
How can you contribute to the school as a teacher?
Every teacher should be unintentionally committed to providing their students with the highest ever possible quality education. I will rigorously focus on their classroom, academics, curriculum and other crucial factors of students education and will make personal sacrifices for the sake of my students.
How can a student contribute to the school community?
Encourage students to contribute to the development of community service provisions—for example, by encouraging markets for local food—to help disadvantaged groups. Build links with schools and communities in contrasting localities at home or abroad to raise awareness of diversity and global issues.
How can you contribute to the overall progress of the school?
Demonstrate interest in learning and those who offer it to you. Attend and contribute to class. Acknowledge your teachers among your friends and in public. “Just say, Hi!” Avoid negative conversations that have no solution. Comments such as , “I hate math!” get you nowhere.
What is the most important contribution that a teacher can make in the classroom?
What is the most important contribution that a teacher can make in the classroom? They avoid stagnation at all costs and maintain an desirable passion for children and the learning process.
Plan Thoroughly: Time, finance and resource management are essential for the smooth & efficient running of a school. Delegate your responsibilities and prioritize what is important. Invest in good school management software. Try to automate the tasks as much as possible.
How can you contribute to the state as a student?
Given below are a few simple but powerful activities you can easily integrate into your student life and make a difference in the society:
- Start with something small.
- Help your local charity raise funds.
- Encourage education.
- Volunteer.
- Join with an adult/experienced activist.
What is the importance of a teacher in students life?
Not only do they guide students in academics or extracurricular activities, but teachers are also responsible for shaping a child’s future, making him/her a better human being. A teacher imparts knowledge, good values, tradition, modern-day challenges and ways to resolve them within students.
What factors impact how successful a student will be in school?
Additional factors that influence effective schools include time to learn, teacher quality, and school and parental trust. Research supports the commonsensical view that the more time a student spends learning, and the more efficiently that time is used, the higher their achievement.
How do you explain what makes you unique?
How to answer “What makes you unique?”
- Mention skills listed in the job description.
- Provide examples from your background.
- Avoid generic phrases like “I’m a hard worker”.
- Include key personality traits that will allow you to deliver similar results in the future.
What is frustrating in teaching?
Frustration and anger arise from a number of sources related to thwarted goals including students’ misbehavior and violation of rules, factors outside the classroom that make it difficult to teach well, uncooperative colleagues, and parents who do not follow appropriate behavior norms or are perceived as uncaring and …
What can you contribute to our society?
How You Can Contribute to the Society As Students
- Be aware. Contribution does not have to mean to act, always.
- Spread awareness about things that are bothersome.
- Promote a healthy environment.
- Take part or start small activities or events that help others.