Leading Change for the 21st Century

Learning occurs "most felicitously" when constructing something tangible (Papert and Harel, 1991, p. 1). Indeed, students are more engaged when they construct deliverables that can be seen, analysed, assessed and used. Thus far, the idea of constructing a piece of work in English classes is still limited to essays, presentations, forum theatres, etc. Whilst they are successful, they have limits as they are a far cry from our students’ current reality, which is shaped by social media and multimodality. If pedagogy remains detached from our students’ real life contexts (Freire, 1968), educators will experience limited success over time, and to circumvent this problem, they need to experiment with relevant educational technology. This is because technology promotes five essential dimensions to successful learning: more positive attitudes; knowledge acquisition and integration; the extension and refinement of knowledge; the meaningful use of knowledge; habits of the mind (Marzano and Pickering, 1997). Hence, on top of being English language teachers, we must become conservators and “agents of change” that facilitate “transition and re-acculturation” (Bruffee, 1986, p. 650). In other words, we need to preserve the sanctity of the formal curriculum and incorporate meaningful changes that allow our students to succeed in language assimilation and meet the demands of the 21st century. This research explores four questions: 1) How to better engage students in the 21st century?; 2) Why is technology an important aspect of the 21st century classroom?; 3) How to reconcile the demands of the formal curriculum with those of the 21st century competencies?; 4) How can technology support current assessment practices? These will be answered through a qualitative study of the application of constructionism through Problem-Based Learning (PBL), Collaborative Learning, and the construction of deliverables using online platforms, whiteboard animations and virtual reality, after which I will analyse students’ progress and the quality of their work. The paper has two main conclusions: Firstly, educational technology can enrich formal learning settings while maintaining a closer connection to the learners’ informal contemporary world. Secondly, constructionism can inform our pedagogical practice and promote self-assessment, peer-assessment and successful construct of knowledge.

Teachers are often too busy in classes and most preferred to relay as much information to the students during lessons and will usually leave the assessment portion towards the end. This usually results in a rush to cover the material by the teacher and a flurry of instructions for after school assignments or homework. Students normally have no chance to ask questions, since teachers are always on a mission to cover everything by the end of the period, and are left to grapple with their work at home. Ultimately, the joy of learning is wantingly absent and it is little wonder then that students either hate schooling or worst lose faith in their own ability.
To be fair to the teachers, some of them do implement formative assessment during their lessons. Formative assessment is an ongoing assessment during actual lessons. The clear advantage of this approach is that teachers can quickly evaluate the effectiveness of their lesson before proceeding further into the lesson. As such, through strategies such as verbal questioning or the use of response cards, teachers have a quick and easy way to decide whether they should proceed with the lesson. However, formative assessment has its own inherent flaws in that  data collected cannot be usually captured and analysed later and more importantly, students can ‘cheat’ in giving answers through delayed response.
With the use of digital formative assessment through mobile or web-based appplications such as Socrative, Nearpod and Kahoot teachers now have the ability assess their students learning at any point throughout the lesson. Even more useful would be for teachers to be able to capture the wealth information through such apps and make real time decisions in class with useful data. Students, if allowed by teachers, could also use the data and make personal decisions on what they need to do during and after lessons. Such empowerment can rarely be felt by students especially during lessons. Coupled with personal mobile devices and a good wifi in school, the learning becomes even more meaningful and purposeful.