Communication is a definite concern in providing effective education. Not only is it necessary for traditional education methods, but it becomes especially important for PBL integration. I can say that being clear with students about expectations will make or break their abilities to complete their respective projects in productive ways. Providing methods of communication between the students and the teacher can be challenging. Providing effective methods of communication between students is an even higher degree of difficulty.
Traditional teacher-student communication has taken place almost 100% in the classroom. Only in recent years has e-mail been more consistently utilized as more students gain access at home. Facebook-like pages, such as Edmodo.com have become a popular method as have moodle pages which allow blogging and email alerts. Twitter has also become a method for keeping up with daily assignments. Some teachers will distribute their personal phone number for texting purposes. Any one of these methods can be productive. The concern for many teachers becomes a concern about responsible use of these mediums. Preventing misuse with technological methods of communicating is often avoided by a lack of effort. Getting that turned around and becoming willing to utilize technology on a regular basis would be a goal in my own professional use.
Communication between students can be tricky as well. Many students are comfortable with one means of communication or another. When it comes to getting things (parties and such) organized, most students of high school age are adept at communicating via texting, facebook, and twitter. Using this as a foundation, it wouldn't hurt for the instructor to use the students' strengths.
As students begin to demonstrate their mastery of these methods with educational pursuits they can move to other methods as deemed appropriate by the instructor. As students get better at trying new means of communicating they may find these methods more efficient and freely choose to utilize them over other methods.
This is a topic worth coming back to and considering for future concerns. It can make a well-developed lesson go farther it may have otherwise.
I totally agree with that! I love the fact you put using the student's strengths via twitter and facebook. I wish we could come up with something similar to that without the fear of "bad" things occurring. However, if we teach the students how to treat technology and how to handle it appropriately...it could work. I know there will always be the kid that messes it up for others BUT it would nice to try it and see what we could do!
ReplyDeleteI agree! I am the type of student that usually doesn't like change. So for instance if I was introduced to a new way of communicating with my teacher I would probably stick to the old way versus learning how to do the new way. I won't try something unless I am confident that I know how to do it. An I know that there are Many students out there like me. If I am shown how to use a type of communication and see that it is more efficient then I do get excited that I have learned a new form and I feel more in tune with everyone else!
ReplyDeleteAaron, you made a good point. Yes, I think it can be very challenging for teachers to manage different kinds of communication media and to demonstrate responsible use of them. I think it is so true for students as well. Even though they are more adept in learning new technologies, they still lack a skill to use them in a way that promotes their learning. With regard to this issue, teachers should be able to provide a clear guideline of how students can communicate working on a project.
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