Tag Archive for: math teacher

What Kind of Teachers will Continue to Flourish in the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

A Student is talking with the robot and at the same time entering various steps of the Math task on the robot’s keyboard. The robot is giving supportive feedback to the student all the time.

“Well done Lisa, now let’s try the next task.” The student is practicing rounding with big numbers and the robot is teaching and guiding the student.

Picture: 19 Mayıs 2018, Cumartesi Güncelleme, twitter 

One group of students is connected with students on the other corner of the world. They are telling how they have collected data of the population in near villages and cities. They are discussing what would be the best rounding accuracy for every village and city. They are debating and defending their point of view why they are rounding in different accuracy than students in the other class.

Teacher is looking from the wall monitor one group which is collecting number of cars in the near traffic roundabout. This group is doing a project work of cars and part of project is collecting data and use statistics. The group can ask help virtually from the Road Safety.

It is only couple of years ago when people were talking how artificial Intelligence is going to change the world. The use of artificial intelligence in education has become more common than we thought. We are now daily using applications of AI like:

  • grading students’ written answers
  • Bots that answer students’ questions
  • Virtual personal assistants that tutor students
  • Virtual reality and computer vision for immersive, hands-on learning
  • Simulations and gamification with rich learning analytics

We also have learned that thinking is the most important aspect of the school culture. Teachers have remained as authorities in the classroom on content, analysis and propriety. Teachers have become more vital than ever for steering students to the best, and away from the most spurious sources of information in the digital world. The 21st-century classrooms are marked by not one center of authority—the teacher as all-knowing—but by many more. The students are also authorities on technology, with the teachers as content masters and learned guides.

All this have made us to co-exist and co-create with AI and changed at last totally the Math education to the next level in the school. AI have forced teachers around the world to develop their teaching methods more versatile and students-centered.

Is the text above our future?

Every teacher today is more or less using new technology products with more or less confidence. We need to learn all the time, being life-long learners, and at the same time we think and need to be critical – what is the quality of learning?

At the same time self-driving cars have been tested, and we’ll start to take for granted disease-diagnosing algorithms. It is clear that schools will change as places and how we will teach and learn there.

We need also to be very aware that there is no way to predict exactly what students will need to know. Students are aware that they will need to be flexible, able to work collaboratively, be comfortable with experimentation and be able to embrace and embody what it means to be a lifelong learner.

Hope #AI forces us to change our Maths education

As part of the Top Global Teacher Bloggers / CMRubinWorld.com / Global Search for Education  http://www.cmrubinworld.com/TGTB,  above is my answer to question of May: What kind of teachers will continue to flourish in the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

IN A 21st CENTURY WORLD TEACHER LEARNING NEVER STOPS

As part of the Top Global Teacher Bloggers / CMRubinWorld.com / Global Search for Education  http://www.cmrubinworld.com/TGTB, this is my answer to this month’s question: In a 21 st century world teacher learning never stops.

Every time a new technical thing has come to the school, people thought that it would change the learning! And it has never done it. We need to think what learning is about, how it can happen and are all people learning in the same way?

A young teacher may get fascinated e.g. about Flipped classroom. She/he makes a video about the new lesson in advance to students who can look it at home before the actual lesson. During the lesson teacher gives tasks to students and walks around the classroom helping those who need more support. What is new? Videos I have seen are just like lessons before. Teacher is telling the new content of the subject. Now there is not even the possibility for students to make questions at that moment they come to their mind!

I am hopeful about the possibilities of new ed-tech but at the same time I am worried that it is repeating the old understanding of learning. In behavioristic learning we pour the knowledge like water to students’ heads and believe it stays there!  Latest learning theory, social constructivist theory thinks that students need to be active in their own learning and build their knowledge structure all the time connecting the new knowledge to the old ones. Of course teacher has still the most important role in the process.

So if I would have the chance to influence ongoing professional development for teachers in my community, I would take care that all courses will be done pedagogy first!

  1. Once a year teachers should have development discussions where they can set their own goals for professional development.
  2. It would not be allowed to keep courses after the school day when teachers have already done their work and may be tired.
  3. No courses to the whole staff. If we believe to personalized learning we should also keep personalized training.
  4. Try to arrange training in co-operation with other schools in your community. You don’t always need to order external trainer – you may have the best trainers in your own staff!
  5. When you send your teacher to the external course, send always at least two. Then it is more possible that new methods start to be used in your school!
  6. We need to take account that if we want change adults’ way of teaching, they also need time for their own training. Teachers need to get part of training in groups, part by Skype or webinars, part by real practice and testing!

teachers in Finland making cube model

Photo: Maarit Rossi

One teacher told me about her good training experience. Training started so that the whole group met in internet and talked about what the training could include and what they were expecting of it. Second time they met face to face and learned new things by doing (media literacy). Next time they where divided into smaller groups and they got a task to do. They had some months time to do the work in their own school. In the last meeting groups showed their work to each other. Teachers like students could learn from others’ ideas and reflect their own learning.

You can find free Math teacher training material from www.inspirationalmath.com