SITE Conference – Day Two – 27th March 2007

The first session of the day was a welcome address by the president of SITE, Ian Gibson, Australian Centre fo Educational Studies, Macquarie University and then a Opening Keynote adress by Roger Shank, Socratic Arts, USA entitled ’Rethinking Teaching: How online Learning Can and Should Completely Alter Your View of Education’.

His address was inteded to provoke those attendeding the conference with his radical ideas and he did managed to schieve this. Some of his ideas are:

·         Schools do not teach anything that is useful in life
·         We teach what the students do not need in their everyday life
·         We teach students to memorize nonsense

· Fixing:

o Teaching the right stuff, the right way – the stuff that helps you function in todays world and taking advantage of the available technology

o How does real learning work?

§ You pursue their own goals

§ You fail

§ You try again

§ You develop of a theory of how to improve

o Learning depends upon reminding

§ We fail, We wonder, We get reminded, We wonder, We explain, We create new expectations

o Learning depends upon failure AND failure requires explanation – schools are about rewards

o Knowledge comes from questions – schools do not cater for this.

o Learning starts with true goals.

o Goals for teacher in the future:

§ Teach how to ask? Students do not ask ……because they are not taught….

o The teacher sets the tasks – the students create a plan of attack – in groups – the students deliver and the teacher provides feedback

o Teachers are not the source of information any more.

o VISTA curricula (teaching around a central REAL WORLD project/topic):

§ Scientific Reasoning

§ New Technologies

§ Health Science

o What matters is that they can Write, Speak, Reason, Interact etc

o A good teacher does not

§ Give lectures

§ Give answers to students

§ Give them answers by themselves

§ Give grades

§ Determine the curriculum

§ Have any authority over student’s achievements

§ Necessarily have in depth knowledge of subject matter

o Student’s Bill of Rights

The rest of the day was spent attending other sessions, talking to attendees from diferent parts of the world. One of the advantages of attending a conference like this is the opportunity to meet like minded people from the different parts of the world and the links and contacts made.