I’m sure that most teachers are fed up with constantly hearing about the future of education, with promising technologies that will help solve all your problems. So in this post, I want to review the technologies that exist today to help teachers prepare their students for the future.
Today’s students live in a very uncertain environment and situations, in which the education they receive prepares them for an obsolete world. Out of all the students who enter school now, 65% will end up in jobs that have not even been invented yet! So, what can teachers do now to prepare their students today, facing the technological future with which they will find themselves in a few years? Here are 5 tips that can be implemented immediately:
1) Use videos in your classes
Somehow we all know that video is a great way to communicate content but when it comes to teaching, some people are still determined to communicate content in one medium at a time. The great thing about the videos is that it is a fusion of several media, so it can be attractive for students who have different ways of learning.
We only retain 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see, but if we unite these three senses, as videos do, we retain 50% of the information we receive. It seems a good reason to prove it, right? In the past the videos were scarce but nowadays 48 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute! So why not start incorporating videos to your classes.
2) Incorporate video games to your classes
It incorporates computer games in the classroom. Students for the future if there is an even more captivating medium than videos, those are video games. We retain 80% of the personal experiences we experience and video games can provide us with those experiences.
Studies show that teachers agree that games can teach teamwork and acquire life skills such as problem-solving, communication and negotiation, as well as increasing student motivation. Video games stimulate the brain and produce dopamine, which helps guide attention and encourages the creation of connections between neurons; these connections are the physical basis for learning.
Depending on the age your group of students is in, the type of games you can use will vary. There are also a series of mental agility games for more adult students but you could also use free online virtual environments like second life.
3) Design the agenda to encourage learning through mobile supports
A teacher can encourage students to study through mobile media (such as a smartphone or tablet) or in small doses by assigning suitable content such as chips, definitions or formulas, or by dividing large contents into more manageable parts. For example, instead of assigning entire chapters, divide it into sections. In this way, you make it easier for students who use mobile media (also known as mobile students) to access them.
52% of mobile students study in bed after waking up, 46% study in bed before going to sleep, 55% when waiting in a queue and 74% while traveling. In total, mobile students study an average of 40 minutes more thanks to studying on mobile media. Mobile students are not going to read a gigantic volume on the bus on the way to school but nevertheless, they can carry out simple tasks and take advantage of this time if you provide it.
4) Promote literacy and digital citizenship among your students
The evolution of man accompanies a lot of meanings. Students for the future digital literacy refers to how we understand technology around us, while digital citizenship talks about how we see ourselves and react to it. Every time we watch a video or play a video game we cannot forget this reality; that what we do on the internet has real-time repercussions in the “real” world.
Many online activities that you can find today for teenagers can have harmful effects on them. 42% of teens acknowledge having put their personal information on the network. Students should know that whatever we do online, good or bad, leaves a fingerprint. 89% of companies use some form of social network for recruitment, so not being aware of the fingerprint they leave can cost today’s students their future jobs! Promoting digital literacy and teaching digital citizenship helps students to be aware of these facts.
5) Put your class upside down
Put your class upside down. Students for the future an upside-down class (or flipped classroom as it is known in the Anglo-Saxon world) is an inverted teaching model that provides instruction at home through interactive videos, created by the teacher or shared so that “homework” can be discussed in class.
This allows the teacher to spend more time with each of their students and, in turn, devote this time to discuss any area that the students have found more complicated while studying the night before. All of this helps to build a closer student/teacher relationship, which helps students master a subject when they study on their own.
Author Bio
Lara Hawkins is a well-qualified, experienced and well-acclaimed expert for professional career counseling services and online education management. After starting her profession from an assignment writing service company, she emerged as top-ranked guest speaker, blogger and industry analysts within a few years.