UNESCO Pedagogical Possibilities for ICT

Back to PPD

Pedagogical Possibilities for ICT

Back to ICT in Ed

ICT In Schools - A Handbook for Teachers

TEACHERS AS: MASTER-LEARNERS

Schoolteachers must revise their positions, leaving behind the status of the omniscient one who has all the answers. Instead, genuine teachers will become advisers and learning facilitators. Influence and credibility will accrue to those who not only instruct but also construct and connect in front of the class, that is, by skillfully doing something they may really be interested in, prompting students to learn how to do it by their own minds and hands.

Possible learning projects are as diverse as assembling and operating model cars and toy trains, building and decorating puppet homes, writing and printing prose and poetry via a word processor and desktop publishing, turning out pop tunes with a synthesizer, drawing simple animated cartoons, or cracking the codes of mediocre computer games in order to make them more challenging.

The main goal of this construction and connection should be, of course, the acquisition of knowledge and skills required by the curriculum, plus the experience of being in control of one’s own process of collaborative teaching and learning.

As a matter of fact, the authority of teachers can be re-established on the basis that they possesses three interconnected kinds of mastery:

1 Mastery of Doing – one can do a lot, but not everything, and can do more in cooperation with others.

2 Mastery of Learning – one is not the only source of information but can teach how to find alternative sources.

3 Mastery of Collaboration – one can multiply results by joint work with students and other teachers.

It is worth noting parenthetically that the word mastery has the double connotation of power to control one’s surroundings, and wisdom to use it appropriately. Teachers of the 21st century are called to restore the dual meaning of mastery in its completeness.