Posted on 09/17/2012 12:34:21 AM PDT by Taaleem India
Teaching is a timeless profession. It is the basis of all other professions. Good teachers plant seeds that make good doctors, good accountants, good public servants, good statesmen, good taxi drivers, and good astronauts. When former students return to see me over the years, my heart fills up in the knowledge that I have been part of a wonderful accumulation of experiences that followed them through life. - Mary Bicouvaris.
In the education sector, there has been a growing movement toward infusing 21st century skills into teaching. Driven by organizations around the world, this trend is more than a passing fad, and has caught the attention of those training and equipping teachers for the digital-age classroom. 21st century skills are what today’s students and graduates need to compete, and succeed, in today’s global workforce. There are a series of concepts and themes that go beyond the conventional to teach safe and effective technology integration and application skill sets. Whether you are a professor, an administrator, an instructor, a trainer or a future teacher, you must understand 21st century skills to be effective.
Having stated that, the entire South Asian region has severe deficit of trained teachers and also robust training infrastructure and its linkages with broader pedagogical reforms. The current system of evaluation of student learning does not allow creativity, innovation, and research, which are important tools for lifelong learning. Learning mechanisms that promote mastery or deep learning, facilitate personalized learning based on learning styles, and meta cognition can be adopted if teacher training curriculums accept new age technology tools to assess and evaluate student achievement on the basis of learning and not rote memorization. So, the need of the hour is to train teachers to encourage cooperative and team learning environments enabled by appropriate ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies).
There is widespread need to impart excitement and relevance to the teaching-learning. Rapid proliferation of ICT needs to be exploited for assisting a teacher to assimilate the art, science and technology of teaching. Simultaneously, creative teachers have to be recognized with morale-boosting rewards and awards so that they become role models.
An impending need is to emphasize on Learning over Content Delivery. The focus should be on design of multimedia modules, content reform, borderless training strategy and providing persevere and in-service ICT training for teachers with the help of ICT-based resource packages designed by teachers for teachers under professional guidance and supervision. The objective of such training programs should be to provide hands-on ICT learning opportunity for teachers to become more comfortable with technology, incorporating the Internet, Webpage design, and project-based approaches to support training. With a forward looking approach towards the gaining importance of ICT in education and for capacity building of teachers in basic pedagogy and ICT, Taaleem College of International Studies (TCIS) , Mohali in association with Asian International College (AIC), Singapore is offering a Post Graduate Certificate in Digital Pedagogy (PCEDP); a professional development program that focuses on the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for pedagogical transformation. Taking full advantage of available emergent information and communications technologies, the PCEDP represents engaging, state-of-the-art training in technology-mediated education. It will encourage innovation in both teaching strategies and curriculum design among professional educators in right through K-12 system to professional education including tertiary and vocational education.
For any suggestions, questions and feedback, kindly write to vbhan@taaleem.edu.in
Dr. Vishwakirti Bhan Chhabra Head of College Taaleem College of International Studies www.taaleem.edu.in
I read that as 'a series of whims and fancies ...', not as proved ideas or even well defined hypotheses.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.