Putting Teachers at the Center of Education Technology

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/07/mit_blossoms_educational_tech_needs_nothing_but_a_tv_and_vcr.html


This article is very interesting.  Oftentimes we are hearing that teaching should move to more student centered and led, rather than teacher led.  Blossoms from MIT is a teaching model where technology is integrated and used by the teacher, but with the teacher as the one who leads and guides the instruction (the name stands for Blended Learning Open Source Science Or Math Studies).

The model for this came when the author visited a very poor area in China and saw how a teacher was using technology to show some things then leading a discussion about what was viewed.  Yes, the technology used was nothing more than a TV and VCR, but to that particular school, it could have been YouTube.

Mr. Larson, the creator of Blossoms found that using psychology of teaching and learning could be used to better design lessons.  He created many digital lessons where after a chunk of video the teacher would stop it and lead a discussion to bring out the most important and necessary tasks and information.  Also, knowing how humans learn, using group dynamics, and teaching how to work together in a team is very important because that is how most businesses work currently.  This is ironic, because in the current trends of educational technology, we are told the exact opposite.  Kids should work independently, at their own skill level and pace, and have completely different goals for each individual student.  This is not how learning happens for most, at least according to education psychologists.

I think this article is interesting simply because it shows how minimal technology can be slowly integrated into lessons with positive results.  As we have discussed often, there are many teachers who are hesitant or resistant to using technology. I believe if these types of lessons were shown to them, with teachers being reassured that they do have value still in the classroom, more teachers would morph into using at least some kind of technology. Most teachers went to school to help students learn.  By telling teachers that the students are the one to lead the discussions, to decide how things are done, it points out that teachers just aren't valuable.  Frankly I disagree.  Teachers are the ones who know the standards needed to be taught.  Teachers are already adults and know the things they learned which have been necessary for adulthood.  I believe most students are too immature or focused on their WANTS rather than the NEEDS that many subjects and lessons would be minimized if there were no teachers to guide and teach.