The Role of the Secondary Teacher in the Classroom

1. The Role of the Secondary Teacher in the Classroom Larry Blackmer, NAD Vice President

2. A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to School This Morning…… ……The World Changed!

4. Three Questions to be Answered: • Who are you teaching? • What are the most important things you are going to teach? • Is there a difference between teaching and learning?

5. Who are you teaching? • Are the students the same today as they were twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Five years ago? • How are they different? • Things most important • Internet world • Communication – IM, Text, Email, Social Networking • Parents – Helicopter, pressure not to do what is right but to measure up, expectations to go to Harvard from gr. 2 • Attention span • Learning difficulties • Relationships

6. If This Is Who You Are Teaching…Are You Teaching Differently? • No longer the sage on the stage, but the guide on the side • Can you teach from the front everything a student needs to know? • We are now at the point that knowledge is increasing faster than we can cope • Teach students how to learn and how to find the information • "what we learn today in school will be outdated by tomorrow, and therefore, the most successful people in the 'flat world' will be those who can adapt and learn quickly. -Freidman

7. 10 Guiding Principles for Teachers Capable of Creating a Future • Curiosity, persistence, and genuine interest are the main power sources for the future • Breadth and depth are BOTH important • There are more than two sides to most issues • Teachers help students connect the dots • Future is not necessarily a straight-line projection of the present Future-Focused Leadership

8. 10 Guiding Principles for Teachers Capable of Creating a Future -2 • Peripheral vision can help us avoid being blind-sided • Bring out the best in others is is basic • Courage and personal responsibility need to overcome fear and self-pity • A belief in synergy can spark knowledge creation and breakthrough thinking • The role of strategic futurist is part of everybody’s job (eternal and present)

9. What are the Most Important Things You are Going To Teach?

10. What is Important? • First of all we need to be faithful Adventist educators- true to our call • Know for Whom we work- have an active personal relationship with Jesus • Share Jesus in word and action • Pray with students- not only before the test • Ask each student about her/his relationship with Jesus • If you can not do this…..find something else to do

11. Secondary Subject Expertise • What is important for students to know about your subject? • Creativity, finding how to get the answer more important than solving the exact question. • Know what the questions are more important than knowing what the answers are. • Thinking globally rather than locally • Build a fire in them • Teens are in the connected generation – use that don’t run from it.

12. Is Teaching Different from Learning?

13. What is Our Job vs, What is ourRole? • Curriculum Guides • Textbooks • Standardized tests • Lecture • Subject area isolation

14. What About? • Project-based instruction -http://www.nwrel.org/request/2002aug/textonly.html • Cooperative learning • Web-directed instruction • Global instruction • Competency-based instruction • Cross-curricular instruction • Student-lead instruction

15. Flat World Curriculum • We live in a global society • Connections to other schools – even public schools http://flatworlded.wikispaces.com/Projects • http://www.iearn.org/index.html • Loosen up and give students rope- help them to use tools, don’t tie their hands…and minds

16. Flat World – Freidman’s Untouchables • great corroborators, • the great leveragers, • the great synthesizers, • the passionate personalizers, • the great localizers, • the "green ones," • the great explainers, • the great adapters

17. Resources • http://electronicportfolios.org/teachers/profdev.html • http://www.intel.com/education/teach/index.htm?cid=cim:ggl|edu_us_teach|sD883|s • www.nadeducation.org