As I contemplate a host of teaching strategies, tools, and endeavor, I'm thinking about what strategies, tools, and endeavor give students wings and let's them fly ahead into the potential that learning holds today.
That potential is much greater today than in the past thanks to technology. Today, to have a laptop and know how to use it, is to have tremendous opportunity to learn. Yet, there's more than the technology that matters as there are a number of other tools, strategies, and endeavor that assist student learning in ways that matter today and into the future.
Basic Skills
Reading, writing, and basic math skills are essential to learning well and using that knowledge. One might also say that coding, digital composition skills, data analysis, and environmental awareness are also critical basic skills today.
Knowledge
Knowledge begets knowledge, therefore it is important to help students develop a strong foundation of knowledge. This is where the standards create a learning path. To master the standards, is to gain a strong knowledge base.
Positive Growth Mindset
To understand that anyone is capable of learning is to certainly give students the wings to learn today and well into the future. Dispelling old myths about who can learn and who cannot, is to build greater capacity for positive learning.
Know Your Brain
To understand well how brains work in general, and how your brain works, is to direct your learning in positive brain-friendly ways.
Teamwork and Collaboration
We can't effectively learn throughout life without good teamwork and collaboration skills and experience.
Emotional Intelligence
Learning and using that knowledge will benefit from developing strong emotional intelligence to forward positive relationships and learning.
Intelligent Assistants
Learning how to maximize and personalize the use of multiple intelligent assistants will help modern day learners. Those assistants can be coaches, mentors, tech devices, robotics, and more.
How we teach today to help our students be successful today and into the future is an important consideration for educators to discuss and focus on as the school year begins. What would you add to or change in this discussion?
