Collaborative Learning: A Changing World

As we head further into the 21st Century, the face of education is changing due to various factors.  A main factor is that Education Technology is constantly evolving.  A huge benefit of this is that our learning can now extend beyond the walls of our classroom.  In fact, there are no boundaries whatsoever.  This can lead to a much greater amount of collaboration.  How are we going to get to that point?  Well, it's not going to happen automatically.  Teachers are going to need to be proactive in order to make it happen.

Here are three things they can do:

1) Teachers need to have an strong understanding of 21st Century Skills and must be willing to apply them.  This includes a classroom environment that is rich in Educational Technology.  Knowing how to integrate the Educational Technology properly is crucial to teaching the class effectively.  

2) Teachers need to put a greater emphasis on Personalized Learning in order to have a greater impact on their students instead of learning according to the curriculum.  This also includes creating lessons that are engaging and interactive.  By personalizing our content and instruction according to the needs and interests of our students, we are enabling our students to connect with our content and skills at much deeper levels.  

3) After teachers have mastered the above two goals, the final goal is to inspire collaboration. Teachers can implement this goal be encouraging all students in their classes - and even other classes to contribute to something greater – the contributions of many can  ensue in something much greater than those from any individual. As we can take our learning beyond our classroom walls, this is definitely something that can be done.

See how SMART Technologies classroom technology tools in the future will take learning beyond classroom walls and add exciting new dimensions to student collaboration.