I think the teacher of the future will be more of a team leader, rather than a traditional instructor. Resources that help students along, with feedback and helpful communities are more responsive than a teacher with multiple classes. Yet, if the teacher is there to organize and facilitate the learning process, rather than "skill and drill", students have more assistance than orders. That means they are thinking for themselves more than just following what they were told.
As I thought about it, I realized that teacher doesn't really fit this direction for teaching. They wouldn't be educating as much as sharing what they have learned. So, I called it being an "Open Learner". Combining the ideas of open education with how the best teachers encourage creativity and are themselves learners.
A learner teaching less accomplished learners is the model that I see, and am reminded of Grockit. Maybe that is a good thing, maybe not. Either way this is not true peer tutoring. Instead it is Somebody who has become accomplished at helping people learn, doing just that while continuing to expand their own horizons.
There is a distinct different between an open educator and an open learner to me. The educator presents curriculum, while offering some help. The learner is there to help the student understand what they come to know through study. While this may not seem like much, it's a big deal to me.
When you are educated, people tell you how things work, tell you to memorize facts and processes and follow up with a test to see how much you retained. It's like programming a faulty computer. You get students who can learn and duplicate, but lack creativity for innovation.
When you learn, and understand what you learned, the result is totally different. The material isn't just what you were told, but also the interactions with real life. Rates of change, geometry and other things can be easy to link to real life, because we learned them outside of the classroom. However, most students will attest to forgetting material that they don't normally use. What is retained is the fundamental understanding of the concepts, their understanding of how the world works.
Yet, this still seems dry and uninteresting, so how about a more colorful example. For years adults have asked why children can remember thousands of details about a game and forget about their school work. The answers are level of interest, level of interaction and level of assistance. (Okay, yes, I know there are more, but these are the ones I'm focusing on.) In school the motivation is a collection letters, used to create a number, used to show how diligent, talented and many other things you are. In a game, the motivation is the task itself. In fact learning, mastery and accomplishment are listed as motivating factors in gameplay.
Observation, trial and error are natural parts of games that have been stripped from the current school model, for the most part. Why say observation has bee removed? That's due to observing too many things. Instead you have to remember the lecture to replay in your head while going through your homework, possibly hours or days later. That's not observation for learning, that's observation for memorizing.
So, in a way the point is to restore the fun of learning to learning. With the open resources, it is likely games will become a means for practicing skills, problem solving and critical thinking. Contrary to what some may think, many gamers enjoy the mental challenges they face in games. Realism is commonly celebrated if done in creative and fun ways. Maybe we aren't talking formula in gameplay, but realistic physics and behavior models are right up there on the lists of things gamers like, when used correctly. Then there are the brain twisting games like portal. Make two holes, go through one and you come out the other. In the new Star Wars game the ability to merge, combine and creatively use skills is amazing when you consider the modeling and consumer reactions. This complex gameplay is what many seek, even if it is in a slower paced game.
Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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