A New Pedagogy?

I do believe that a new pedagogy is trying to emerge due to the advances in technology, but as discussed in Richardson's blog, Weblogg-ed, it faces multiple roadblocks. Teachers have the potential to be strong champions of this new pedagogy or we can be its greatest detractors. Our interactions with our students, positive or negative, have the potential to affect lives because our students pay attention to what we do (even more than to what we say!). To teach is to model, and if you don't think that students aren't watching what you do and say, just come to class one day with a different haircut or attire!
Richardson believes that teachers themselves need to redefine the way we learn so that we can then model this skill for our students. He makes the point that we need to teach our students how to be more self-directed learners, that this is "THE 21st Century Skill", and to be able to teach them this skill, we ourselves must be able to learn new skills on our own or with other learners. (see "A Shifting Notion of What It Means to Teach). However, because many teachers are a product of the way they themselves were taught, many teachers do not want to teach these 21st Century skills. There is a feeling that if the way we learned was good enough for us, it should be good enough for the new generation.

We live in a world where change is taking place at an incredible pace. To be able to use the available tools to learn and adapt to this change is a critical skill which our students will be able to use "in the real world". As teachers, though, we encounter hurdles to embracing the new pedagogy. We must fulfill state standards and make sure that our students pass their standardized tests. There is talk of making a percentage of each teacher's pay be determined by the success rates of his/her students in passing these tests. These tests do not assess "self directed learning". Increasing work duties, decreasing pay (which can mean the addition of part time jobs to supplement income), and the tenuousness of job security can put demands on a teacher's learning time (which for most must be "extracurricular"). Growing class sizes, decreasing budgets, lack of administrative support and changes in education laws mean that the teacher who wants to learn and teach 21st century skills must be self-motivated and creative in finding ways to achieve the goal. This is where I can see that joining a learning community can motivate, support and inspire a teacher in his/her quest to be a participant in this new era of education!