A personal experience about trying to go a bit beyond the limit

My friends and I started a book club when I was in school no less than ten years ago. It didn't last long. Many girls could buy the book from the bookstore on time. The discussion felt pointless at some points and many couldn't make it to the discussion day.

A year ago I joined another bookclub. This January  we celebrate its anniversary actually. Although I am working 8 hours a day, doing my master and caring for a baby, I still push myself because it is such a rich experience that could be easily adapted in formal education. Each two weeks one of us choose a book after a long background check. Thanks to many book reviewers on things such as Good Reads and Amazon, these choices are rarely regretted. We communicate throughout the reading via What's App and motivating each other the finish the book. Even if one missed the day, she's involved through what's app.  The meetings are very inspired because we find videos, questions, related songs and so on from the Internet. Each discussion is different as it is directed by the one who chose the book. We communicate through What's App, Good Reads, Facebook and Twitter. Because of this, we were joined by people we never knew and they have great interest in reading. They add a lot to the club and expand our social circle. Via Twitter actually we reached one of the author of the books. 

Glances at the Teachers' Role in Modern Literature

The teacher role is no longer clearly defined. Each scholar would express this role in a different way, and this may be frustrating for learners and teachers as well.

Picture source: http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/9-roles-teacher-leads/

Such an illustration explains the diversity of the roles expected from today's teacher such as technical support, social empowerment and finding resource.

Picture source: http://e-portfolio-53867572.weebly.com/my-best-discussion.html

This other illustration goes beyond the diversity element of the role of the teacher to embody the potentially overwhelming multitasking nature of the teacher's job today. Teachers must juggle being a planner, a role model, a coach to a resourcer. This brings our attention to the serious training and facilities needed for teachers to be able to fulfill such roles successfully.

Mcloughlin and Lee (2010) take on this is that the teacher is a '' consultant, guide, resources provider.'' This may sound clear, but their paper stresses that teachers must not over-interfere, so that the process remains students centered. Teachers are entitled to finding the degree of interference vague and hard to determine.

Going trough papers like Prensky (2001) may be a real displeasing experience for teachers who are presented as heavily accented old fellows. What accent do they have? They print some emails and check personally if they were received sometimes. This may sound relatable, and one can think of many people around who would do that, but her approach calls for game based learning where the teacher is marginalized. Such drastic demands require further reach and plenty of evidence.

Where is the teacher according to Deutschmann and Panichi (2009), he is hiding behind a computer screen in an isolated room playing Second Life and initiating conversations with strangers on behalf of his students. This is definitely not our typical image of the focal of the class and the knowledge transferor. How effective is this approach and how frustrated is the teacher? Only further research can tell.

This later approach highlights a statement in Bennett & Maton (2010):

The past becomes a 'foreign country' and the young and old are considered to inhabit different worlds.

This is an indication that teachers should be young to relate and connect with their students. Therefore, is modern literature calling are young teachers who would promote games and similar trends? What is the theory behind such big claims? What other skills and training must they undertake to handle their responsibility in such new environments? What is the expiry date for teachers? Such questions point to the huge gap in those papers and the call for further serious studies in this matter.

Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuYWUPirkqQ

This video explains this change in the teachers' role very clearly. The speaker includes great examples such as involving the learners in the course design, an area that was exclusive for teachers. Another change is when having learners act as co-teachers and teach classmates. Both of these examples are considered common practices today. 

References:

"9 Roles For The Teacher That Leads." TeachThought. 25 July 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.
http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/9-roles-teacher-leads/
Beets, Tanya. "Roles and Responsibilities of a Teacher." Tanya Beets53867572. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.
http://e-portfolio-53867572.weebly.com/my-best-discussion.html Bennett, S., and K. Maton. "Beyond the ‘digital Natives’ Debate: Towards a More Nuanced Understanding of Students' Technology Experiences."Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (2010): 321-31. Print.
Deutschmann, Mats, and Luisa Panichi. "Talking into Empty Space? Signalling Involvement in a Virtual Language Classroom in Second Life."Language Awareness (2009): 310-28. Print.
McLoughlin C. & Lee M. ''Personalized and self regulated learning in the Web 2.0 era: International exemplars of innovative pedagogy using social software'' (2010). Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(1), 28-43. 
Prensky, Mark. ''Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.'' 2001. On the Horizon 9, 5, MCB University Press.

Helpful Videos for Citation

Here are some helpful videos for MLA citation:

Another great tool for citation is this amazing site that generate citation easily:

http://www.citationmachine.net/

more about learning through reflecting

I at some point in my MA journey stopped and felt like I am not doing reflective learning the way it should be done. I came across a lot of materials in that area. This following video is one my favorite resources of explaining it.

This video is short, animated and fun.
It explains the idea by linking it to the learner behavior in which reflective learning turns merely passive students to fully active and engaged ones who are contributors in their own learning journey. This mode helps students remember things better and grow individually and socially.


Having a Skype one to one meeting with my teacher enlightened me to ways where I can improve my learning through reflecting habits:

1- Engage more with the author in a debate like nature. Quote him. Agree. Disagree. Compare with others' arguments.

2- Reflect on a personal level and a non personal.

3- Narrow down everything especially titles.

This video gives suggestions to start applying this learning method with learners:

Video source: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reflection+in+learning

It gives great times management tips and helpful instructions when applying reflective learning with students.

As I personally struggled in the beginning to grasp this idea and make the most out of it, I felt the need for further investigating it before adapting my teaching to this method.

Did the We Learn Changed??

Did the We Learn Changed??

Keep Up with the World's expectations 

With the prosperous success of the Internet to provide knowledge about any topic at any time to anybody, the world starts to expect more from individuals! Orders like look up this or investigate that would face individuals very often. Also, as people need to retain their jobs and learn to evolve, they must learn solo at some point in their life. I feel like the ability to learn on one's own self is a criterion many successful people seem to master! Steve jobs, the man behind the iPad I am still fascinated with had no college degree! Going back to our main point here, is our education system serving this need and preparing people for that? No, not at all! Many people came to believe that, so they changed their perspective completely! They way our brain works may still be the same, but we want to change the way we are being schooled to turn learning into a lifelong process of personified situation or interest based improvement.

The Need to Stand Out

A while back blending in was the dream! Everyone wanted the same thing! Now people like to stand out. If you browse Instagram for an hour, you will see individuality celebrated there. People dye their hair blue, come up with new kind of food or dress up differently! By many standards, many of those are considered successful! Individuality should be watered at a very young age. Schools with their same uniform, same schedule and setting every single day, same text book to all, same test regardless of ones skills or interests seem to crush people's need to stand out. Many people rebel against formal education. Many highly successful Youtupers are college dropouts, and some of them chose to be homeschooled for high school. I know that for being personally a big believer in learning from peers! I learn a lot by seeing others’ actions and reflecting upon them. Again the change may not be in our biology, but it is in our will! Rigid factory- like - as Seth Godin would say- look at formal education does not sound appealing anymore.  

The Abundance of Mediums and Personal Preferences

Today's Leaners

Picture source: http://resources.xyleme.com/h/i/122633507-how-can-l-d-engage-the-modern-learner

Today schools may still want one single textbook to be the core knowledge provider and paper assessment as the scaffolding method. In our pocket as the picture illustrates, we have access to millions of sources of information, and we can extend the conversation across countries and involve experts, yet we expect students to be satisfied with this obligatory unexplainable desire to go small. Some of those students do all their writing on their laptops, others on their iPads, others learn by mind mapping or sketching, and some need no more than their mobile devices to complete an assignment. Therefore, what's the next teachers' choice in terms of pedagogy? It is a difficult question for teachers because students should have a say in what would make them give their best. They answers will vary and all different mediums could be embraced in a new frame of education. The one size fit all over and over again, education system needs to be tailored to satisfy and go a long with the era today’s students happen to be in.

References( Only to gain knowledge used my own words):

Godin, Seth, and Jessica Hagy. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? 2011. Print.
Prensky, Mark. ''Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.'' 2001. On the Horizon 9, 5, MCB University Press.
McLoughlin C. & Lee M. ''Personalized and self regulated learning in the Web 2.0 era: International exemplars of innovative pedagogy using social software'' (2010). Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(1), 28-43. 


Further readings on today's learner:

How can L&D Engage the Modern Learner?

http://resources.xyleme.com/h/i/122633507-how-can-l-d-engage-the-modern-learner

Understanding Today's Learner

http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/80/