Teaching Science in The 21st Century

Teaching today requires a vastly different approach than it did just 20 or 30 years ago. No longer is the teacher the expert who tells the student what they need to know. No longer is the student the passive receptacle into which information is poured. In today’s world you get by not based on what you know but what skills you have. Thus teaching students to thrive in today’s society requires a shift in thinking and in priorities.

We as teachers have spent so much of our time debating what our students should learn that we have constantly overlooked how they learn it. With information so readily available at the click of a mouse we need to shift our paradigm. I feel almost blasphemous saying, but I am starting to care less and less about what content knowledge my students have. Five years ago I probably would have told you that it was important to me that my students be able to accurately describe the parts of a cell. Today I am less concerned about that and more concerned about their ability to successfully find that information when they need it.

When I say that successfully find the information I mean they can not only find the information, but they can critically evaluate the source and compare it with other sources and their preexisting knowledge. If we can shift our focus to this type of education we can truly help our students stay competitive in an increasingly smaller global workforce.

Here I go with my first attempt at blogging. I am hoping to promote some discussion about the field of teaching in the 21st century. Being a Science teacher I will be focusing on science but I think that much of what I talk about will be able to translate across the board to a variety of disciplines. By participating in the KMS bloggers I hope to gain a better understanding of the role of technology in modern education. I guess only time will tell how sucessful I actual am.