The Role of the
st
Teacher in the 21
CenturyClassroom
Larry Blackmer,
NAD Vice President
ECD Teacher’s Convention 2008
www.larryblackmer.com
A Funny Thing Happened on
The Way to School This
Morning……
……The World Changed!
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?
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? Are they moving into a
different world?
• We must always remember we are teaching the
future, the future of the church and the future of
world in which we live!
• But…we must never forget that we are teaching
God’s children.
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
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• "what we learn today in school will be outdated by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
10 Guiding Principles for Teachers Capable of
Creating a Future
1. Curiosity, persistence, and genuine interest
are the main power sources for the future
2. Breadth and depth are BOTH important
3. There are more than two sides to most
issues
4. Teachers help students connect the dots
5. Future is not necessarily a straight-line
projection of the present
Future-Focused Leadership
10 Guiding Principles for Teachers Capable of
Creating a Future -2
6. Peripheral vision can help us avoid being
blind-sided
7. Bring out the best in others is basic
8. Courage and personal responsibility need to
overcome fear and self-pity
9. A belief in synergy can spark knowledge
creation and breakthrough thinking
10.The role of strategic futurist is part of
everybody’s job (eternal and present)
What are the Most Important
Things You are Going To Teach?
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
Subject Expertise
• What is important for students to know about
your subject?
• Creativity, finding how to get the answer is more
important than solving the exact question.
• Know what the questions are is 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.
• Schools should be accredited
Is Teaching Different from
Learning?
What is Our Job
verus,
What is OurRole?
•
•
•
•
•
Curriculum Guides
Textbooks
Standardized tests
Lecture
Subject area isolation
What About?
• Project-based instruction http://www.nwrel.org/request/2002aug/texton
ly.html
What can we do
• Cooperative learning
together,
• Web-directed instruction
NAD students
• Global instruction
NEED ECD
• Competency-based instruction students!
• Cross-curricular instruction
We have
• Student-lead instruction
resources that
you can use!
www.nadeducation.org
Flat World Curriculum
• We live in a global society
• Connections to other schools – NAD 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
Flat World – Freidman’s Untouchables
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The great collaborators,
The great leveragers,
The great synthesizers,
The passionate personalizers,
The great localizers,
The "green ones,"
The great explainers,
The great adapters
Resources
• http://electronicportfolios.org/teachers/prof
dev.html
• http://www.intel.com/education/teach/inde
x.htm?cid=cim:ggl|edu_us_teach|sD883|s
• www.nadeducation.org