Synthesis Three

Drew Bugden

March 22, 2011

Dr. Williams

EDUC 671

Synthesis 3

In the year 2025, public schools will be vastly different from what we see today, as are schools today compared to ten years ago. The influx of information regarding creating an effective learning environment, paired with social changes including better funding with clearer goals, schools are going to serve a different purpose. There are three main changes which will revolutionize how students are educated. Students will be active learners who work on real world projects which incorporate the information they learn in school, technology will play a much bigger role, and the community will play a part in the education of their students.

Students need to be active learners. In the past, teachers simply lectured for their allotted time with the students. They were sure to touch on every theme which will be sure to show up on the high stakes tests. That is going to change. All of the subjects will no longer be learned independently. They will coincide with one another. The information learned in science class can be analyzed next block in math class. The stories you read in English class will be discussed for their historical relevance in social studies classes. The day will be much less choppy for students. I firmly believe that this will change how students feel about certain subjects. If they are all intertwined, it will school is one entity which is not chopped up into many individual segments which vary in how interesting they are.

Projects will have less to do with students bringing home random directions which they do not understand for their parents to help them with. Students will have more group oriented work. By having students work together, we better prepare them for the future workplace. Students need the skills to be able to work with one another and see things from another perspective just as badly as they need the other more defined skills such as math, science and English. In this process, students will gain skills in communication, gain real work-like experiences, and actually see the differences it makes in the community.

Students will now have the ability to create. Gardner says “In our global, wired society, creativity is sought after, cultivated, praised” (pg77). With a focus on creativity, why not let students have more freedom in what they do and accomplish in schools? Creativity is a skill which, in a way, can be trained. I am not saying public schools can create the next Mozart, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but I am saying that to be able to look at something in a different way is an ability which should be taught. Giving students problems and letting them figure out ways to fix them will give them skills which can last a lifetime.

Technology is the catalyst to all of the changes that schools will experience. Oakes and Lipton say “technology has clearly become a fundamental part of education” (pg 194). They also believe that technology plays a major role in helping ESOL students become more involved in school; “connecting students’ home culture to the academic content of the curriculum is especially important when student’s primary language is not English” (pg199).

Due to technology, the role and capabilities of the classroom will vastly change. At the push of a button or click of a mouse, students can look at and study ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or the Gettysburg address. Ten years ago, that process could have taken quite a while by making students actually use an encyclopedia. Instead of just one source of information, students have the ability to decipher between good and bad quality sources. They can find the information they want.

If a student is sick and misses a day of school; no big deal. Every single assignment, reading and worksheet will be available online. Students can miss a day due to the flu and not miss a beat. Teachers can now focus on teaching instead of playing catch-up with missing students. Students will also have the ability to participate in real time through online interactions. For some students, particularly shy ones, this revolution in technology can change how they view school. Shy students no longer have to sit in the back of the classroom and never participate. They have ample opportunity to let their voice be heard through online interactions. This can help them to get so much more out of their learning experience. It may also help them to begin to communicate in class due to past conversations with other students online.

Students will no longer have teachers simply tell them about trench warfare or the laws of physics. Students can now see these things. In seconds, teachers can pull up clips from online resources to connect the material to the students. It is one thing to be told about the pyramids, but if they can actually see them it could change how they understand the time period. These tools in technology will only strengthen student’s understanding of material.

A theoretical bridge will be built connecting the schools to the community. Schools will no longer be the place where the young people go while the community goes on with it’s day. They will be interconnected. Students will not always be cooped up in school. They will work on real world problems in the community. They can test water levels for science class, create an oral history through interviews in the community, or even paint a mural for art class. In the short film “10 Ideas for Better Classrooms,” we saw the school in New York become a community center. The community will benefit from student involvement and the students will gain experiences that will last a lifetime. Draves and Coates believe in the importance of community in the future: “neighborhoods will again regain their social vitality as places where people who work from home can establish and maintain professional and personal relationships” (pg 170). I believe this quote is important into understanding why students will no longer be completely cut off from the community for seven hours a day. Communities can directly benefit from students interacting in the community and the students will gain real work experience they can only find outside of the school.

In the film, a teacher said “students come back saying “remember that project we did” and not “remember that test we took.”” I think that really shows us something as to what students retain. Having them move around and actually see the difference they make will stay with them. Those kinds of experiences also look fantastic on college applications.

The “Times Are a Changin” and so will public schools in the United States. This reform will not be completed overnight, but as we can see from the film, some schools have begun changing how things are done. For the students who perhaps are not very good at test taking, this type of schooling can really bring out the achievement. Maybe they would score poorly on a multiple choice test, but could talk your ear off on the same subject because they actually physically did it and saw it. There is always room for improvement in schools, but the changes taking place in the near future will greatly enhance students experience in school.