PBS: Is online learning beneficial for students?
Earlier this month, PBS Learning Matters sponsored a discussion about online learning for students. I was asked to contribute a short piece. Here's a paragraph from my response to the question, Is online learning beneficial for students?
As online enrollments have rapidly expanded, so too have accompanying concerns. Educators and parents worry about losing the nurturing intimacy of teachers and students who are connected with each other in face-to-face classrooms. Pundits opine that our youth are losing their ability to interact with live humans instead of screens. Journalists report that online schooling providers are raking in tens of millions of dollars while
Do students need to learn lower-level factual and procedural knowledge before they can do higher-order thinking?
There is a prevailing conception that students must learn facts and procedural knowledge BEFORE they can then engage in so-called 'higher-order' thinking skills. Educators, parents, policymakers, online commentators, and others point to Bloom's taxonomy (which typically has been portrayed as a pyramid) and say, "See? You have to do this stuff down here before you can do that stuff up top!"
But that's not how Bloom and his co-authors categorized the taxonomy:
Bloom et al. discussed at length their decision to apply an Aristotelian categorization method in
Flexible classroom furniture
Here's a short video highlighting what flexible classroom furniture might look like in schools and universities. Other than the assumption that the default setup of the classroom is students in rows facing the front, I like the ideas shown here. What do you think? Are you doing something like this in your classrooms?
Popout
Happy viewing!
Hat tip: Ashley Tan, Where to stand?
