The Modern Classroom
I've said many times that educators need to stop referring to classrooms with rich technology use, project-based learning, collaborative groupings and an inquiry-based pedagogy as 21st Century Classrooms. We live in the 21st century. All classrooms should contain the previous elements. After all, it is 2014. We are in the 21st century, right? Fifty years ago, classroom instruction comprised of lectures, dittos, the occasional filmstrip, and textbooks. Fast-forward to today. Do today's classrooms really look any different? Replace the filmstrip with a video and the word ditto with worksheet and we have a picture of what many classrooms throughout the United States still look like today. Schools today will still go through hundreds of thousands of paper copies of worksheets per year.
Classrooms are in desperate need up updates. We need to use current technology and practices. Without the four elements listed in the paragraph above, students will continue to be subjected to an educational experience from the 1950s and 1960s rather than 2014. It is the 21st century. Let’s use what we current have available to us to make the educational experience for today's student relevant and engaging.
