eMBEDDED LEARNING

Bob Dylan and I never embraced similar politics, but I can’t argue the succinctness of his observation: “The times, they are a changin’.” Like it or not, in the near future public education will be conducted far less in wholly autonomous classrooms than it is now. Coping with NCLB compliance, the realities of job market trends and the state of technological sophistication of our clientele are making teaching the way I taught ten years ago, the way you may still be teaching, a way of the past. The consequences of being behind in the use of best practices are already evident in our students. Any guess as to who next will feel some consequences? You can embrace the needed adjustments to guide learners and fair well. Or, you may be run over from behind; left to eat the dust off the wheels of progress. An overly graphic analogy perhaps, but consider that the Department of Education is solidly supporting the economics of increased employability of highly trained high school graduates, the School Board Association is advocating all students need to be exposed to Web 2.0 tools, industry is stressing collaborative skills and continuous learning, and the average student of today will hold on average 15 different jobs, several of which may not yet exist. Relevant, to the point teaching practices that embrace how individuals learn best, and provide access to and practice of the higher learning skills that prepare students to be life-long learns are becoming the benchmarks of teacher competence right alongside content mastery. You then need to consider just how much ‘the times are a changin’’; just how many jobs will be in your resume.
These changes we as teachers must face comprise a great opportunity. The time is right to embrace what will be tomorrow’s standard of pedagogical behavior. In the process we have the occasion to refresh why we became teachers and to access new challenges. Take it from someone who is refreshing a commitment to teaching for a third time in his career; things that seem impossible become reasonable and interesting challenges. It’s like getting an unobstructed view from the top of a hill. Ready for a challenge?