Blog post 10

Covering Semester

                    In my third year, first semester I learned many things from my CTE 380 course. In this course, I learned how to approach education and its systems. I learned how to behave through students and how to survive in school environment. I learned how to motivate students and how to make them active participation that cares their education.  Actually, the most important thing is that I learned which education type is my favourite and suitable according to my worldview.

Actually, I have never seen teacher in the center of education so far. I am one of the people who cannot learn better in the class. In my life, I have learned many things from internet. Before internet enters my life, I was learning from books. There are many people like me who learn from internet. This is our reality. The world is changing. Before the time that people learn in a class, people were learning where information is. I call this as natural education. For us the important thing is that how information is shown and well prepared in internet.  Actually, this is the thing which teachers have to be in the center.  Looking to the internet to learn something is easy. However, who will prepare instruction for learner in internet. This is definitely work of teacher to prepare learning materials. The education system is going to our old education model which people don’t need any fix place to learn something. Also, the technology is one of the things which attract people in the way of learning anywhere. I mean that we don’t do anything to pass our old and natural education style. This century requires us to make these changes. Actually, when we look to the world, the educators from all countries agree that there is a problem in the education systems which effect people’s education in a bad way. Some of them realised this earlier, and they did something to change their education type. They realised that the education system which direct education is used is not enough anymore. People started memorizing the words which comes from the mouth of teacher but they become unsuccessful when practicing their knowledge in real life. Turkey is one of the countries which still use teacher centered education with direct education model and when we look turkey’s score in the world average, we face with very bad results. I am definitely sure that if the knowledge had been asked in the Pisa examination, turkey would take high scores in the average. However, they asked students how to use their knowledge when thinking. This shows that we are memorizing knowledge and we cannot use it. This shows that the term understanding is different from the term identifying. This is why I definitely support student centered approach in education. Actually, students don’t need teacher to learn knowledge. However, they need teacher to be able to think better. From our childhood we are put in front of a teacher and we think that we cannot learn knowledge by our self. Actually, every people have the ability to memorize. However, they may not know how to practice the knowledge they memorize and their knowledge may not come to the stage of identifying.

If we understand that the teacher centred approach with direct education does not work anymore, let’s focus the approach which students are in the center. According to student center approach, practicing in class is very important. Especially, the Flipt classroom model is my favourite. Students will learn all knowledge wherever they want. They will come to class only for practicing. If teacher realises that students are not developed in the subject in terms of knowledge. This time, teacher can hand learning of students in terms of knowledge. In this way, student will ask question and teacher will guide without directing. Student centred approach follow problem based learning. Students learn from problems. This is our natural learning method. So far, people have invented everything by their problems. For example, Edison found bulb because he had a light problem.  Grahambell found telephone because reaching people who is far away was hard. Problem based learning help students develop their critical thinking. In this method, teacher offer problems to the students and guide them about how to solve problems and which technique they can use to solve them. In problem based learning method, students do not focus problems only from one dimension. I mean they can hand problems both math formulas and social sciences.  For example, when they are working on traffic problem, they can both calculate the speed of cars in term of time and search for the behaviours of drivers. On the other hand, choosing correct questions for students is very important. If teacher chose a question which is over the capacity of the students, this cannot be helpful for student learning. Also, this may decrease motivation of students because they cannot see themselves as qualitative to reach solution. Motivation is very important because it is the tool let people take an action. Also, teacher generally should choose question from real life because real life examples are concrete. When learning subject, students should not ask question by themselves like what is the aim of this problem. How can it be helpful for me and e.g. Also, abstract things is better in learning logically. However, teacher may offer abstract problems for students who achieved basic learning process.  In addition, all students are special. Teacher should not offer limited problems for special students. Problems should be able to being approached from different dimensions. Also, all learning activities should be prepared in terms of respect to the ethnic, cultural, religious worth of the students. For example, teacher should not offer students any problem like ignorance of African socials, when there is an African student in the class.

Finally, student centred education is our reality and natural education type. It makes students free and more responsible people who care their education. However, it is not easy to apply. Both teacher and students should be conscious when applying this method to the education.