Future for Ed - Final

In the first week, I noticed some aspects about my own learning that I hadn't really thought about before (learning better when I'm strongly motivated by the subject area, needing alone and quiet in order to focus on the material and process it, 'outputting' aka writing papers or completing projects better under the pressure of a deadline).  In the week about intelligence, I found myself honing my thinking about intelligence and potential.  While IQ might have some biological basis to it, there is still a lot of potential that goes unfulfilled for many learners because there's a mismatch between their environment and their learning.  In the week about teachers, my general image of a good teacher stayed fairly similar, but I gained new perspective on different types of learners may need different types of teaching.  Someone who is a good teacher for one person may not be a good teacher for someone else.

Thinking about the learning approach for this course, some aspects resonated more with me than others.  I'm fairly introverted and find that I often learn better through having time to myself to process my thoughts.  The reflections and padlet walls were interesting to briefly skim, and to get me to briefly engage more with the learning.  But I found the real learning and discovery for me came from my own introspection and research, not through the group work.  Although I liked having the variety of ways to learn, and I think that different learners probably found different aspects more helpful than I did.

My preferred future for education starts young!  Learning begins at (or even before) birth.  Not that we should have a curriculum or standardized tests for young children, but we can realize that their early experiences in play and interaction are building their neurons and laying the foundation for later learning.  By helping parents and early childhood educators to interact with young children, we may be able to close a bit of the school readiness achievement gap.  And then once the children are in school, my vision is for them to have choice and personalized learning.  With the resources we have from technology and other means, children (or any learners) don't need to sit in a classroom learning all exactly the same thing at the same pace.  Children can work on their skills through real projects, and connect with community members to see how their learning is used in the real world.