Foundation of Education Essay Example for Free

Foundation of Education Essay With the massive information explosion of the 21st century, the world has never moved so fast. As Patrick A Hyek (2012), Global Technology Sector Leader, Ernst Young, pointed out on technology and its impact to the world, â€Å"Ten to twenty years from now, we may look back on the present as the dawn of the Smart Era: a time when rapid and continuous innovation changed almost everything about the way we live†. The world is going virtually borderless. As of present, we can do almost everything online from shopping to banking, video conferencing in real time with people across continents as well as finding answers to almost everything we could possibly think of from online search engines. As far as education is concerned, the famous Khan Academy (www. khanacademy. org) has proved subject-based cognitive knowledge traditionally learnt in schools can be just as effectively obtained at one’s fingertips in the comfort of one’s own home. On the other hand, the unlimited flow of information has its drawbacks which cause many concerns for educators (Ornstein, A, Levine, D Gutek, G, 2010). How could we protect our children from inappropriate contents such as pornography, destructive information or violence accessible online? In addition to the overwhelming amount of information in the 21st century, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2012) addressed in their report that our new generation also face the crisis of depleting natural resources and global climate changes of the 21st century. As the world’s resources are depleting, people are pressured to compete against one another to survive. The reality is that there are serious problems in todays societies. Every day we hear tragic news about people killing each other, breaking the law, misconducting, corruption as well as natural disaster. As an educator, we are asking ourselves what role schools should play to prepare our next generation for these challenges posed by this information age. I believe that there has not been a more appropriate time than now to incorporate values in education as to elicit the human quality of our children in addition to the provision of academic knowledge. Since we cannot control technology and what comes with it, we should instead equip our children with the right values and inner strength which help them make the right call as to what is right and wrong in any given situation. This can be achieved by embedding human values such as respect for difference, moral, honesty, empathy and love for mankind into the school’s curriculum at all levels. As a result, our next generation will not only be knowledgeable but of a high human quality who will do the right things by themselves and others. For example, moral students would not imitate aggressive behaviour they saw on the internet or elsewhere because they consciously knew such behaviour was wrong. Moreover, it would be dangerous for schools to use subject-based curriculum which only focus on academic excellence in such a fast paced unlimited information age in which we live in today. Without moral and ethics, regardless of their intelligence, our children could grow up to be self-destructive, violent or harmful to themselves and society. Examples of destructive behaviour include that of terrorists who wrongly used their knowledge to harm other people. Teaching and Learning One of the current educational issues being discussed today concerning teaching and learning is what skills we need to teach our children for the 21st century. While many educators (Dominik Petko, 2012) worldwide have placed an emphasis on teaching information and communication technology, literacy skills that will allow students to make sense of the technology today, John Wilson (2008), former executive director of the National Education Association in Washington, DC, argued that for a world which is vastly transformed by technology, it is unpredictable what technology is coming next. Instead of focusing on the current technology which is likely to be replaced, educators should focus on developing transferable skills such as critical thinking and problem solving so that students can analyze information, apply knowledge to new situations as well as comprehend new ideas. These skills will make them capable to learn and adapt to any new technology to come. What is critical thinking? How could we teach critical thinking skills to our children? Critical Thinking as defined by Michael Scriven Richard Paul (1996), the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking is â€Å"the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action†. In essence, critical thinking is a disciplined manner of thought that a person uses to assess the validity of something, e. . statements, news stories, arguments, research, etc. (Beyer, B K, 1995). Experts (Angelo, T A, 1995, Cooper, J L, 1995, McDade, S A, 1995) asserted that critical thinking is best conveyed through constructivist learning approach such as Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT), Cooperative Learning Strategies, Case study and discussion as well as Reciprocal Peer Questioning. An example of a Classroom Assessment Techniques is to ask students to answer questions such as What was the most important thing you learned in todays class? or â€Å"What question related to this session remains uppermost in your mind? (Angelo, T A, 1995). McDade (1995) suggested that teachers can facilitate students’ development of critical thinking through case study and discussion. A teacher may lead the class by presenting a case to the class without a conclusion. Using prepared questions, the teacher then leads students through a discussion, allowing students to construct a conclusion for the case. Reciprocal Peer Questioning is another teaching technique which fosters critical thinking (King, A, 1995). An example of Reciprocal Peer Questioning is by asking students a list of question such as, What are the strengths and weaknesses of a taught issue? † Students are asked to write questions about the lecture material. In small groups, the students ask each other the questions. Then, the whole class discusses some of the questions from each small group. Dr. Gwen Dewar (2009) suggests that critical thinking can be developed not only in school but at home where parents encourage students to questions and evaluate any everyday ife situations. In conclusion, in order for our children to cope well with the information technology age, we need to prepare our children to weed through the information and not just passively accept it (Oliver Utermohlen, 2005). They need to develop and effectively apply critical thinking skills to their academic studies, to the complex problems that they will face and to the critical choices they will be forced to make as a result of the information explosion and other rapid technological changes.