Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

What strategy has the most potential to transform classroom practices and improve teaching and learning and develop creativity here in the United States and around the ever-increasing “flat world” of today?

That’s a question parents and educators all over the world have been debating over the past few years. If you were to answer this question, which of these strategies would you choose?

1. After-school tutoring – requiring students to receive extra help
2. School choice – allowing parents to transfer their children to a school that has met its annual testing goals
3. School restructuring - hiring a new staff in schools where a certain percentage of students fail over several years to meet test standards in math and reading
4. Professional development for teachers in educational technology – training in the effective integration of technology tools to provide students access and acceleration of the curriculum and active, engaged learning opportunities

Certainly each of these strategies has its merits. The first three represent components of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) “toolkit” here in the United States. However, the last answer, professional development for teachers in educational technology, is included in the provisions of NCLB and might have the most impact on actually bringing about the much needed changes in our educational system here. It also might hold the key to transforming education in general around the world.

In some of our classrooms here and abroad, there is an emphasis on the use of conventional paper and pencil/scripted teaching strategies with a focus on worksheets and yearly testing results. While this traditional and time-honored approach of paper and pencil might work with a limited number of students, it is not the answer for all students. In fact, this approach is often a barrier to both the access to and acceleration of learning for many of our students with learning differences.

Research has shown that for students who are still working on mastering the basic skills and those students who are reading, writing and thinking several grade levels beyond their peers, technology tools can provide both access and acceleration of the curriculum that conventional methods often fail to provide.

These tools represent digital diversity and were described by Grace Rubenstein in her 2006 Edutopia article, “What’s Next: Our Look at the New (School) Year.” She talked about “universally designed technology” that is designed to meet the needs of all students and allow teachers to have the instructional flexibility to focus on student strengths.

I strongly believe, as do many of my colleagues, that helping teachers understand the need for instructional flexibility, provided by the use of digital diversity, is key to improving teaching around the world. It is also essential to improving learning and developing creativity among our students who are communicating, collaborating and competing in a new world, a “flat world,” as Thomas Friedman has written about in his book, The World Is Flat.

If you agree with this need for a focus on professional development in educational technology for teachers, then there is something that you can do. If you live here in the U.S., you can contact the U. S. House Committee on Education and Labor, listed in the blogroll on the right, and let them know what you think so they can incorporate your feedback into changes to NCLB, which is still in committee and up for reauthorization either before or after the 2008 fall election. Tell them that you feel that a continued high-stakes testing focus, a reduction in time spent on science, social studies, P.E. and the arts and the punishment of a growing number of schools for “failing” is not helping our students or our teachers.

Let the Committee on Education and Labor know that all this testing and narrow subject focus is draining the joy and enthusiasm for learning and teaching from our students and our teachers and gradually breaking their connection with each other. Tell the Committee on Education and Labor that it would be wiser to provide an increased focus on needed professional development in educational technology. With this focus, teachers would then be more equipped to transform their classroom practices and create a more playful, relaxed and engaging learning environment that would truly meet the needs of a diverse student population.

If we all speak up and let our voices be heard, I am confident that we can help our schools transform classroom practices to improve teaching and learning. With digital diversity in place and teachers adequately trained to integrate technology tools, our students will be ready to become productive and creative citizens in our “flat world” and have an equal opportunity to compete on a level playing field in a global economy.

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