Recently, I completed a very interesting book by Marc Prensky. The book, Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning, is basically an instruction manual that describes how a teacher can move from a traditional class environment to a partnering classroom. The partnering pedagogy encourages teachers to look at their students not as subordinates, but as "partners". The classroom is collaborative in every sense of the word: teacher and student work together to establish classroom standards, to choose the avenues that will be used to teach the curriculum, to assess one another and to work together.
I believe that this book and the described partnering pedagogy appealed to me so much because I have always been more attracted to John Dewey's progressive pedagogy. Partnering classrooms have many similariteis with the progressive classroom. These similarities include collaboration, student choice, alternative assessment methods, learning by doing and having real world experience to make lessons more memorable.
There are a couple of ways that I think that partnering expands on progressive pedagogy in great ways. First, there is more emphasis in the partnering classrooms to use any and every technology available to the student. Second, the biggest push in the partnering classroom is to teach and prepare students for the future. The digital divide and future technologies get heavy consideration in the partnering classroom. The goal is to give students tools that they can use today and well into their futures, which can help them succeed in a rapidly changing world. The tools include self-assessment, independence, fact-checking, collaboration and problem-solving.
I look forward to using the methods that I learned about in Prensky's book in my own classroom. As an art teacher, I plan to move towards a partnering classroom by first getting to know about my student's passions and working alongside my students to choose how we will tackle the curriculum. It will be interesting to see what options students choose for themselves. Marc Prensky's book is a great read and I believe that it will be a valuable reference in the future.
I believe that this book and the described partnering pedagogy appealed to me so much because I have always been more attracted to John Dewey's progressive pedagogy. Partnering classrooms have many similariteis with the progressive classroom. These similarities include collaboration, student choice, alternative assessment methods, learning by doing and having real world experience to make lessons more memorable.
There are a couple of ways that I think that partnering expands on progressive pedagogy in great ways. First, there is more emphasis in the partnering classrooms to use any and every technology available to the student. Second, the biggest push in the partnering classroom is to teach and prepare students for the future. The digital divide and future technologies get heavy consideration in the partnering classroom. The goal is to give students tools that they can use today and well into their futures, which can help them succeed in a rapidly changing world. The tools include self-assessment, independence, fact-checking, collaboration and problem-solving.
I look forward to using the methods that I learned about in Prensky's book in my own classroom. As an art teacher, I plan to move towards a partnering classroom by first getting to know about my student's passions and working alongside my students to choose how we will tackle the curriculum. It will be interesting to see what options students choose for themselves. Marc Prensky's book is a great read and I believe that it will be a valuable reference in the future.