Week+5+Journal

Week 5: Professional Development Journal

We have really started to become emerced in the process of using the CGI model and technology instruments as tools in the process. This week's readings on 21st century tools was especially interesting. This week, there were several concerns as to whether or not using technology, the CGI model, and the necessity to "prepare students for the test" can coexist. I found this to be a very critical question, as we as a team, decide how we approach teaching and learning and the desired outcome. In exploring this dicotomy, I believe the best focus or objective is in preparing students for life beyond high school, rather than preparing them for a test they take their sophomore year of high school. Furthermore, I believe that in preparing them for life, we will be preparing them for the test as well. Here is a great example of a brainstorming session: [].

Twenty-first century learning can and must coexist with the required testing. By teaching using a traditional model, I find that both students and teachers burn out as there is not the shared responsibility for learning that is so important in preparing lifelong learners. We have all had a teacher in our lives who takes on the burden of learning for the class. Often, this is the teacher who believes lecture and skill and drill activities is the best way to impart knowledge. The end result is often a disengaged class full of students struggling to understand or even care because they do not see the connection between what they are learning and how it will help them in life.

Does this mean there is no longer room in the classroom for time-tested teaching practices, lectures and lower-level Bloom's Taxonomy learning scenarios? I believe the answer is no, there needs to be a starting point in order to give students enough information to gain their attention, peak their interest and help them make connections as they further explore the more in-depth, higher-order questions posed by the teacher. In doing so, the teacher's role in accomplishing lesson objectives is a paradigm. Teachers start by providing information and then shift to more of a facilitator's role as the students make progress on their journey towards true understanding.

The situation becomes complicated when teachers are pressured to teach to the test, rather than teaching for true understanding. Until such pressures from government, administration, parents and fellow teachers goes away, teachers will not feel comfortable releasing class control into the hands and minds of their students. It will continue to be a struggle to get teachers using a CGI model until they have the freedom to do their job in the manner they know is best for their students' overall achievement, not on a test, but in life! How does technology fit into this scenario? Technology is the instrument through which the students can engage, connect and "tune in" to the world around them.