Education should evolve with the times in order for the next generation to develop new skills and technologies that will enhance society in the future.
Smart tablets, ebooks and interactive white boards are gradually starting to appear in more and more classrooms, and teachers are really embracing ICT and its power to increase pupil motivation and learning.
Here are four of the key teaching trends to help encourage this process.
Genius Hour
The ‘Genius Hour’ teaching trend is an offshoot from the rising popularity of MOOCs (i.e free online university courses that are open to the public to download at any time) and the owners of google’s decision to allow their employee’s 20% of their working week to dedicate to pursuing their own interests and passions.
For pupils, this concept is exciting and prevents them from making the age-old complaint of ‘This is boring, can’t I do something more fun?’ The answer in the genius classroom is a resounding ‘yes, please do’ and the pupil can then spend an hour researching their passions or being creative. The feedback from students regarding genius hour is extremely positive, so why not give it a go in your classroom?
Creating Ebooks
Updating classroom textbooks every couple of years hits school budgets hard and although they are vital teaching aids, I’m sure most teachers would admit that keeping textbooks from getting lost damaged or graffitied takes up way more time and energy than they would like it to. Besides, carrying a pile of say twenty textbooks can get pretty heavy.
That’s why ebooks are set to replace the humble, non-interactive textbook on classroom shelves of the future. Ebooks can be self-published and edited quickly and conveniently, which means that teachers can include anything they want within the pages and play-up to their classes’ likes and dislikes, to make the information stick.
Also, there are many different ebook publishing apps that can be downloaded by pupils, allowing them to create their own texts for homework assignments, which can incorporate videos and pictures etc... and make for a more exciting and engaging learning experience.
The Flipped Classroom
The term ‘flipped’ in the flipped classroom concept refers to the teacher’s role during classroom time. In the traditional model of teaching, teachers lead from the front, lecturing pupils on a concept and then getting them to demonstrate understanding through class exercises/homework.
The flipped concept sees this model turned on its head and sees the teacher stepping back and becoming more of a tutor or guide during classroom sessions. At the start of a lesson in the flipped classroom, the teacher will ask the pupils to watch a short video lecture where the teacher explains the lesson’s content.
The teacher will allow them watch the video either in class or at home and will use the whole of the lesson time to concentrate on related learning activities and give extra help and advice to pupils on an individual basis. Here is a video of the flipped classroom in action and studies have shown that this method is highly effective in raising pupil attainment.
Gamification
Gamification is the concept of making learning more like a game, where pupils demonstrate understanding through carrying out learning ‘quests’ or missions, scoring themselves points and badges for attainment.
This concept is thought to be more engaging and motivational than the traditional A-F grading system, because under the A-F system, a pupil’s grade decided by taking points away from ‘the perfect answer’ rather than building the score up from nothing.
For example, if you assume that every pupil comes into the class with an A, they then start to get penalised for making mistakes and the level of grade starts to go down from there. With the gamification structure, which works exactly like a computer game, marks can be awarded for experience. So the more work the pupil completes, the more points they will receive, meaning that the pupil only sees their level of attainment going up and never coming down.
This makes for more resilient learners, who won’t want to ‘give up’ on something just because they received a low mark on one assignment. They will instead see their progress thus far and want to try the test again, to increase their number of ‘points’ and progress to the ‘next stage’ of the lesson.
Gamification is a concept that can be devised to work however you want it to, and it can be tailored to meet your classes’ needs, whatever their age. All you need is an easily updatable school rewards system and your creativity, and you can get started on it right away.
If you have any thoughts on teaching trends for the new school year or have experimented with any of the above in your own classroom, please share your experiences in comments below.
