The Faculty Development Cell of the College organized a session on 21st Century Learning for all faculty members on 12th October 2018 from 10.00 am to 12.45 pm. Mr. Russell D’Souza, Associate Professor at Nirmala Institute of Education, started the session by asking the teachers about their own and students’ preferences. He stated that students are inclined towards technology and are digital natives. Learning in the 21st century has to be different as per the needs of the learner. He stressed the importance of conformity and compliance which are essential for performing well in a professional or corporate environment. Teachers should instill the habit of thinking in students, because the thought process is very powerful and the application of knowledge is what employers look for at the time of recruitment.
The resource person highlighted the importance of critical thinking (finding solutions to problems), creativity (thinking outside the box), collaboration (working with others) and communication (converting ideas), all of which are essential for learning in the 21st century. The 21st century pedagogy should be to build technology fluency, develop HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills), developing problem-solving, context learning and working collaboratively. He explained the role of an educator in terms of teaching, philosophy, planning and execution. With regards to teaching philosophy, he asked the teachers to accept all those who enter the classroom late, teach and reach, be forward-looking, keep the flame burning, think different, be different and live different.
He explained the digital revolution and the progress of technology in terms of new learning platforms like SWAYAM, NROUI, DIKSHA, etc. He emphasized the two important goals of learning viz. retention and transfer of knowledge. With regard to planning, he explained Benjamin Samuel Bloom’s taxonomy, which includes a hierarchy of steps essential for learning, i.e. knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. He also explained the knowledge dimension given by Anderson and Cratward – factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge and meta cognitive knowledge. With regards to execution, he explained how the content should be presented in terms of concrete, representational and abstract form.
Mr. Russell explained the important modes of learning viz. problem-based learning, flipped classroom, ICT-enabled and cooperative learning. Further, he explained other modern and higher methods of learning like padlet (online page that students’ can use to read, analyse and understand), kahoot (free game learning platform in the form of quiz, jumbles, discussions, and survey for teachers and learners) and cooperative learning (teaching strategy of small teams).
The resource person concluded by stating that each one should think, pair and share the knowledge which will make learning more constructive.
42 teachers attended the session.
