Teaching Strategies to Motivate College Students

ISBN-13: 9781508834120 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 30 str.

Neil Mars

Opis

The world is changing rapidly, as well as the way we think and live. Meanwhile, while changes occur in the way we read, communicate and interact, absolutely nothing evolved regarding the educational system. Students are showing much less interest and motivation to learn nowadays, and we tend to attribute such phenomenon to some kind of mental disorder or laziness, not realizing that both emotional and physical reactions reflect a new social tendency. Studies applied on children with Attention Deficit Disorder have shown that emotions, particularly associated with metacognitive abilities, have a very important role in helping them develop cognitive patterns and assimilate information, so why do we insist in medication? But more importantly, why doesn't the educational system changes? This system has been created to promote a governmental ideal for our society, therefore, everything that is implied for our children and young adults to learn matches this paradigm. Those that resist fitting such model will not be praised as educational movies tend to show, but rather ridiculed, discriminated and rejected. This applies to both teachers and students, in which one fears being differentiated by grades and the other fears being differentiated by pears and lose a job. Not much do we really have to say about teaching methodology and ideals, apart from the fact that, all the theories about it, are promoted but never applied, not even by those promoting them. Not many Teachers are able to recognize they are failing or acknowledge it without a high dose of frustration. More dramatic yet, is to notice the huge amount of educational professionals that actually believe they are teaching whatsoever. Schools and Universities create a vast and deep illusion in which there are those believing they are learning and those believing they are teaching. As a matter of fact, anyone can be a teacher, but not many teachers can admit such thing. If all you do is request that a student opens his book, read it and then replicate the right answer described when answering questions that the same book is already predicting, then, as a teacher, you're not more useful than a sports coach demanding twenty pushups. Nevertheless, we keep firing teachers that refuse to cooperate with the system, teachers believing that is not in the classroom that education happens, that spend time with their students, answer their emails and share their perspectives about life. On the other hand, can these teachers be respected by their own students, while demonstrating such attention and care? Experience has shown that this is not the case. Especially in modern times, is very easy to take a picture, film and record a teacher doing whatsoever, inside or outside a classroom, and then publish it on internet in just a few seconds. You may be the best teacher on earth, but if you're caught picking your nose or flirting with another teacher, and especially with a student, your career will be destroyed by rumors in less than one week, rumors that often amplify 200% more any given fact, transforming a lie into a well-accepted truth. In the academic environment, a rumor is more important than a fact and nobody cares about facts when rumors match overall believes. This said, the educational system is not only a representation of our modern society as well as it is a very bad example to that same society obeying it. This same society should be creating it. The structure of the educational system hasn't change, but people have, and with that change education lost its value and utility. In current times, if you ask a Teacher about what qualifies him to teach, the answer will very likely be: "I have a PhD/Masters degree "