Well Informed - Education

While I have found that our in-class discussions about democracy, politics, news outlets, the President, and the government are interesting, I am excited to be talking about education and learning. I do not expect us to completely deviate our class discussion from the previously mentioned topics, but bringing in teaching and education is a great idea for our class.

I was looking through some of the links found on the class blog dealing with education and learning, which was very thought provoking in regards to the future of education. The TED talk from Sugata Mitra and his experiences with children and computers was remarkable. Through my research  on education, I was brought to another TED talk by Sal Khan. Sal Khan has created an amazing opportunity for people all around the world to learn for free. He created Khan Academy, which has free resources and tutorials on a vast range of subjects that millions of people are using to further their learning and gain an education.

While Sal Khan and his Khan Academy is extraordinary, I thought the content he presented in his TED talk was fascinating. He related our current education system to a hypothetical situation about constructing a house. With the current education system, children and teenagers are tested on different subjects and they are able to pass their tests by correctly answering a majority of the tests. Regardless of whether students get 100% or 60% correct on their tests, the class continues to the next subject. The next subject usually builds upon the learning of the past tests, and students who did not completely master the information on the previous tests will have difficulty expounding upon the information that they did not get right before. This trend of incomplete learning usually makes school complicated for some students. Sal Khan related this to moving on to different parts of constructing a house before the previous foundations are not 100% completed yet. If a concrete base for a house is not properly finished and completed, it can ruin the other aspects of the house that are being built upon it.

This analogy definitely changed my perspective on how our education system is built. It is almost like our educational institutions are focused more on achieving test scores rather than the actual learning process that children and teens are going through during their time in school. To get a better understanding to what plays into the education system, I researched and found an article from NPR that discusses various questions and answers about the Common Core. I had heard of the Common Core before when dealing with learning and education, but I did not really know what it actually was. This Q&A was really helpful in learning what the Common Core is and some problems that have come about because of it.

While the Common Core might seem good on paper for legislature and government officials, I think it retracts from what educational institutions should focus on. That focus should be increasing the education and learning of each student. In reference to the Sugata Mitra TED talk, children can accomplish amazing things when it comes to learning. Children are innately curious about the world they live in and seek to reduce their uncertainties by experiencing and learning various things. Striving to allow children to learn, and let them master what they are trying to learn before moving on to newer and bigger topics, should be the pinnacle goal of our education system. Focusing on getting generally higher test scores should not be the main objective of our education system, but rather mastering information and actually increase learning should be what the students should accomplish.

I do want to address how technology and the internet can play into learning, especially since this is a social media class. I think that technology can be an amazing tool for learning and education. In fact, I almost wish that more technology would be implemented in schooling so that kids can realize that the iPads and smartphones people use can be utilized for other things besides watching movies and playing games. People using technology at their own pace for learning can be extremely beneficial for successful learning. I did a presentation in one of my previous classes where I discussed college foreign language learning. One of the studies I found was a research study about Duolingo, a free smart phone app used to learn foreign languages. The research article found that somebody who used Duolingo could learn as much as a semester of a foreign language class in college in a less amount of time. Essentially, learning the language through the free app was more effective than paying a couple hundred dollars and learning through a traditional college class. I think it is amazing that free technology and resources are available for learning, yet that learning is only recognized by paying an institution a lot of money so that a paper (diploma) can be printed which authenticates that learning. It is almost as if we are not paying money and going through school for learning, but rather we are going for diplomas that increase our credibility.