TEACHING DIGITAL NATIVES

TEACHING DIGITAL NATIVES

                                           
This amazing book was created for teachers who want to understand how students learn today,  whose want to apply new strategies to teach millennials, and how can be possible to deal with this phenomenon.

In the introduction the author explains how new generation students learn, and what they are interested in.  He says in this age it is important to know a new influential word that can describe clearly how students  learn, it is: "partnering", and there is also a phrase that resume learners interests " real not just relevant".  Finally the writer use a term  to explain scholars engagement that is "technology".

CHAPTER 1

PARTNERING

In this chapter are some routes that guide the teacher to think about the learning process which has been changing in the last two decades, and how to face this situation. As mentioned above, the word "partnering" is defined as work together, in order to have a successful learning process, this way of learning is accompanied by  respect because students want to be considered as individual, and they want to be treated like that.

Moreover, students want teachers to use various strategies , because they learn in another way, because they are digital natives, and depend on technology devices that have been created lately.  Today students and teachers roles have changed because the first ones are more active in the process, and the second ones could be just a guide who helps students to find the answers. But the responsibility is on the learners, they do almost all the work, and the teacher reviews to correct and to teach them rigor and quality.

Besides, partnering can work with technology,  and it can be used by teachers but even more by students. As well as the tutor can ask students for suggestions, then they are going to be engaged with the procedure.

Another thing that involves students in this model is learning "being real not relevant". It means scholars can use what they learn immediately  to create or to change something in the world.  And teachers also have to educate schoolers to think logically and critically, that is another partnering rule.

CHAPTER 2

MOVING TO THE PARTNERING PEDAGOGY

Partnering motivates students to be more independent learners, then teachers have to give students less directions and more guidance; as a result they will change their behavior. Then teacher "less telling" is the first step to move to a partnering pedagogy.

To implement this model teacher can do verbal activities such as; moderating discussions, giving students feedback about projects they do, questioning, Etc.. And tutors also have to change old methods; one of them is classrooms always set up in rows, because this is not friendly to partnering, instead of it, they must be on horseshoe arrangements,  desks in small groups, chairs in a circle, and so on, depending on the activities. As showed in the figures:


     
Horseshoe                                      Desks in small groups




Chairs in a circle

Partnering pedagogy has some levels: basic, guided and advanced.

• Basic: give students guiding questions, and they find the answers on their own, individual or in groups, and later discuss answers in a time frame. Teacher has to vary the activities to avoid class become boring like in telling model.
• Guided: teacher can use project -based learning approach, guiding question model, and make activities where students have to answer questions.
• Advanced: Tutor can apply cased- based, project- based  or problem- based approaches  with students. 

Partnering is a collaborative learning to work together teachers and students, where both, learn, propose, and take actions to real problems.

In this book there is a comparison using the words verbs and nouns,  where verbs means skills students need to learn, practice and master. In other words how to provide students the skills they need in specific subjects, and nouns means the tools students need to learn to practice the verbs, for example, computers, Wikis, blogs, power point, mails, etc.

CHAPTER 3

THINK PEOPLE AND PASSIONS RATHER THAN CLASSES AND CONTENT

Most of the time the learning process is thinking in group, not in students as individual, with personal interests, passions, and needs. It is an enormous obstacle in education, and it can demotivate learners. In partnering this is the most important rule to motivate, and engage students.

For that reason it is important teachers know students passions because that is the clue they will be successful in life. In partnering both students and teachers can share their knowledge, and it is more efficient when the teacher becomes a coach, because trainees can feel they are interested in their individuality.    

CHAPTER 4

ALWAYS BE REAL NOT JUST RELEVANT

Difference between real and relevant is:

Relevant is when you can relate something you are studying with an item you know; and real is when you can connect things you are learning at every moment. It means, you can use what you are learning to do a thing beneficial to the world. Then,  today teachers have to find the way to teach students useful things for their lives.

In the book there are examples of how can you teach some subjects such as; Social Studies, Math, Science, and English in a real way. 

We also can group students according to their common passions, and interests to motivate and engage them into the learning process. Then the teacher role in partnering is always thinking about the future students are going to deal with, and prepare them for that challenge.

CHAPTER 5

PLANNING

To plan classes is important to translate the content into questions to guide students find the right answers themselves. Moreover, there are some guiding questions examples for different subjects, that teachers can adopt, or use to make ones.  And there are also criteria to evaluate if the guiding questions are  bad, good or better.

The author makes a metaphor between verbs and skills. They say they are synonyms, and he explains: verbs are skills, and it is essential students make the connection   between what they do, and which skills they are learning with that work. It is a teacher role: always help students to discover if they are good or not in each skill.

CHAPTER 6

USING TECHNOLOGY IN PARTNERING 

This chapter talks about technology as a noun for learning, and how it can helps teachers to focus their job in the skills learners have to improve using or not technology: but the writer is in favor of technology, because he things when learners will become adults they are going to be involved with technology everywhere.

Although technology is only a tool, is extremely necessary in todays education, and teachers do not have to know everything about it, they only have to know how technology can support students learning; then using it, is a learners´ job .

He says there are many ways teachers and students can use technology to learn, for example 

playing online games, or maybe designed them by themselves.

CHAPTER 7

UNDERSTANDING THE NOUNS, OR TOOLS

This chapter has an alphabetical list of tools which are available for students. It was written in 2010, then it must be outdated. Most of the tools are technologic, but some are books or games. 

The author recommends to share and discuss with students from the list which of them are the pupils interested in.

CHAPTER 8

LET YOUR STUDENTS CREATE

The author says " My experience is that today´s educators almost  universally underestimate  what students are capable of creating in the early 21st century".

I consider students from all ages and eras are highly creative, but nowadays with all the technology deb¡vices they handle. Then book says teachers can assign tasks, and students can choose what way they like the most to achieve their goals.

Partnering also permits to engage slackers because teacher looks for students interests and passions, and he/she can teach them that is more important quality than quantity.

In partnering model is crucial to have a balance between cooperative and competitive activities, because some students like one and dislike the other.

CHAPTER 9

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PRACTICE AND SHARING

Here says for teachers as well as pupils  need to improve partnering pedagogy constantly, and there are three routes to do it: iteration, practice and sharing.

• Iteration: practice can make things easier and permanent, and to do it well, is required iteration. Teachers have to remember is important to iterate at the beginning of a new year or class to make adjustments for the new groups they are going to teach.

• Practice: when a person practice something constantly they can learn it better, and this could be a rule for teachers and students who are implementing partnering pedagogy. For both, students and teachers, is important self-motivation, and self-discipline. And in partnering teachers need to practice coaching, guiding, goal setting, questioning, designing and assuring quality.

• Sharing: Partnering teachers not only see good practices from colleagues, they must also share their own experience. Trainees can take advantage of all the technological tools available today to share ideas one from another,  but for the author the best one is to post short videos in YouTube.

There are some partnering levels ( 1-5) for teachers and students, the suggestion is to move gradually from one level to another. The writer textually says " Partnering, especially, is a career-long skill to be learned. A partnering teacher constantly needs to try to improve - minute to minute, class to class, year to year."

CHAPTER 10

ASSESSMENT IN THE PARTNERING PEDAGOGY

There at¡re many types of assessment, but the most common are sorting and comparing, because they permit schools to rank in a high or low position, and they are more convenient for politicians and managers, but not for students at all.

Other kind of assessment are summative and formative, which are used to make comparisons between schools, but they are not beneficial for students because feedback comes too late.

In partnering there are other assessments that can be more effective than the others mentioned above. They are:

Ipsative: what matter is your result, and how to improve it, then students have to compete against themselves.

 

Peer: where students can be evaluated by their classmates or peers from different places.

Real-world: where peers from all over the world give feedback through internet.

Self: The author thinks this is the most important but least used, and it is what students need because it is going to be useful for all their lives to control their actions, so they always are asking themselves how can they get better.