I am currently probing what it means to a progressive educator to teach in the 21st century where the internet offers access to more knowledge than our predecessors could imagine and where helping astudent connect and collaborate will take precendence. I know this means that I need to unlearn many things that were part of the network of assumptions that underpinned my own education. In this increasingly easy to access, quick to change world of knowledge, the ability to “unlearn” what we were taught was true and relearn it in the context of new information is a crucial skill, not only in a literacy sense but in a lifelong learning sense as well. Here are some books that I have been engaged with as I endeavor to practice this concept as an educator.
Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
Cathy N. Davidson
The major technological changes of the past decade and a half present an array of "exciting opportunities," Davidson argues -- opportunities to promote efficiency, satisfaction and success at every stage from kindergarten through career. If we are inclined to side with the Better-Nevers, worrying that our brains never evolved for shifts of such magnitude -- if kids attend to text messages and video games with alacrity, but fall behind in school, while adults feel swamped by information overload and spread too thin by multitasking -- the trouble, in Davidson's view, is not with all our new technologies, but rather with our failure thus far to adapt and restructure ourselves and our institutions.
A New Culture of Learning
Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown
By exploring play, innovation, and the cultivation of the imagination as cornerstones of learning, the authors create a vision of learning for the future that is achievable, scalable and one that grows along with the technology that fosters it and the people who engage with it. The result is a new form of culture in which knowledge is seen as fluid and evolving, the personal is both enhanced and refined in relation to the collective, and the ability to manage, negotiate and participate in the world is governed by the play of the imagination.
Switch
Chip and Dan Heath
Switch asks the following question: Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle, say the Heaths, is a conflict that's built into our brains. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.
Source: amazon.com
