Teaching Methodology: The Chalk, Walk, Talk’ Days Are Gone

 Researches in education equate schools, academia and our present educational system as a byproduct of the industrial revolution offshoot of the 20^th century. They critique such institutions not very different from a ‘factory’, which goes through three phases of processing.  Input (admissions), throughput (teaching-learning), and output (student pass out’s). They account the 20^th century pedagogy as mere transmission of‘facts and procedures’; with the teacher being hired for ‘chalk, walk and talk’or retelling; and our student’s merit being tested through examinations of memorisation and recollection (read, remember, recollect and reproduce). This forces us to pause, ponder and pose a series of questions. The question pertinent here is: will such a teaching-learning methodology cope with the demands of the 21^st century? More importantly, will the 21^stcentury teacher create an impact and gain the same reverence continuing with conventional modes of teaching?

Today, what we learn, how we learn, from whom and where we learn is changing. Learning today is not just confined to the four walls of our classrooms, textbooks or the syllabus framed.  Diana Oblinger, Vice President of EDUCAUSE summarises her research that those born after 1982 have a different relationship with information and learning than their previous generations due to their access to internet and computer aided technologies. Her description of such students are known variously as ‘Net generation’ learners,  ‘Millenial students’, ‘Generation Y’ and ‘Digital Natives’.  These ‘Screenagers’ are undeniably different.  The bottom line is that these students learn and comprehend in a way that is foreign to many of us, and, as a result, they often feel disconnected from traditional teachers and schools of yesteryears. 

In today’s world, the multimedia pervades almost every part of our life.  Students live in a world of digital, audio and text.  Marc Prensky also describes the array of media the students are exposed to in his paper ‘Digital Natives’.  By the age 21, our students will have spend 10000 hours playing video games, send 200000 emails, watch 20000 hours of television, spend 10000 hours on cell phone, but less than 5000 hours reading.  It’s all electronic and digital information mediums with instant gratification. The 21^st century learner is also a multi-tasker swayed by the electronic gadgets. The youth of today can instant message on their laptop, talk on a cell phone, play a video game wirelessly with a friend down the street and chew bubble gum – all at the same time. He also has multiple options of learning and looks at internet as the global source of information, especially with ‘google’ adding up a new era called the ‘AG’ – After Google! Mobile, Ipod, Social networking sites, blogs… further adds to this knowledge pool. Thus a 21^st century learner has many possibilities and learning traits that conventional educators may not be familiar or comfortable with. We live in a fast-changing world wherein producing more of the same knowledge and skills will not suffice to address the challenges of our future.  The hyper-text mind of the 21^st century learner faces the conventional 20^th century teachers with a wealth of information and traits, mostly technological and digital.  

Though the criticism that expresses dismay on the nature of today’s student attitude towards learning stands partly valid, we cannot ignore the fact that the students of every generation sought change or maturity – intellectual, social and physical. Now, technical and technological as well. Here again, the question is, how can a teacher adapt to cope with these changes?  John Dewey, a well-known educational reformer, says it best, ‘If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.’

Educational success today is no longer about reproducing content knowledge, but about extrapolating from what we know and applying that knowledge to novel situations.  With the rate of information growth continuously accelerating, we must discard the notion that a student is dependent solely on the teacher; and that the schools can teach everything every student need to know to be successful in their field of choice. Learning today must therefore play less emphasis on the amount of material memorized, but synthesize knowledge with leverage on research, questioning, making connections, thinking through issues and solving problems through collaborations with an integration of technology.  Moreover, ‘Anywhere, anytime’ learning is another catchphrase we hear often. To have anywhere anytime learning, the teacher too must be available anywhere and anytime. Its here technology yet again comes handy.

Learning is now a lifelong process of coping with change; and teaching is no longer that of dispensing facts and theories. Educational institutions of the present day have to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, using technologies that have not yet been invented and problems that we don’t yet know will arise. How does a teacher foster our motivated, well informed, techno savvy learners and prepare them to overcome the unforeseen challenges of tomorrow? How in this 21^st century can teaching-learning be bettered? How can one be a better teacher?  I believe the ‘Learnability’ (openness and willingness to change) of both students and teachers must become the hallmark of the 21^st century teaching-learning. To survive in the present environment of change, ‘learn to learn’ must become the core content of learning; wherein everyone must become partners and facilitators in the learning process.  Let each one teach one.  But a lot would depend on how a teacher generates curiosity in the minds of a learner and make the learning process more engaging and enduring. Be a transformational teacher from an instructional / informational teacher. Explore and exploit the possibilities of learning using technology. Change the ‘Chalk, Walk, Talk’ to guide our students to ‘Learn to Learn’. Change from a ‘Sage on Stage’ to a ‘Guide on Side’ – be a facilitator, a learning enabler. Redesign our ‘Marks driven’ curriculum to ‘Research driven’. Appreciate the novel 3 R’s of learning: Rigor, Relevance and Relationships with the conventional 3 R’s: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic; and above all, groom our students for their life than grooming for examinations. Let’s make our learning ‘learner centric’. Let’s forget not the life beyond the campus.  As Fredrick W Robertson observes, “Instruction ends in the school room.  Education ends only with life”. 

Today, knowledge, understanding and technology are fluid and dynamic. They evolve and change; which brings with it both challenges and opportunities. To be a better teacher, we must change and learn as our learning horizons and landscape changes. To navigate these changes and transitions, the teacher should be no different from a learner. It’s said, the highest quality of knowledge comes from teaching. I add, the highest quality of being a quality teacher is that of being a quality learner – a lifelong learner.  To quote Alvin Toffler, ‘The illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn’.  
© RISHIKESH KB