Foundation of Education Essay Example for Free

Foundation of Education EssayWith the massive information outburst of the 21st century, the world has never moved so fast. As Patrick A Hyek (2012), Global Technology welkin Leader, Ernst Young, pointed out on engine room and its impact to the world, Ten to twenty years from this instant, we may look digest on the present as the dawn of the Smart Era a time when rapid and never-ending innovation changed almost every matter about the way we live. The world is going virtually borderless.As of present, we kitty do almost everything online from shopping to banking, video conferencing in real time with people across continents as well as finding answers to almost everything we could possibly think of from online search engines. As far as education is concerned, the famous Khan Academy (www. khanacademy. org) has proved subject-based cognitive knowledge traditionally learnt in schools rotter be just as effectively obtained at sensations fingertips in the comfort of ones own home. On the other hand, the boundless flow of information has its drawbacks which cause many concerns for educators (Ornstein, A, Levine, D Gutek, G, 2010).How could we protect our children from inappropriate contents such as pornography, destructive information or violence complaisant online? In summation to the overwhelming amount of information in the 21st century, United Nations Environment platform (UNEP) (2012) addressed in their report that our new generation also face the crisis of depleting native resources and global humour changes of the 21st century. As the worlds resources are depleting, people are pressured to compete against one another(prenominal) to survive.The reality is that there are serious paradoxs in todays societies. Every day we hear tragic news show about people killing each other, breaking the law, misconducting, corruption as well as natural disaster. As an educator, we are asking ourselves what role schools should play to prepare our next genera tion for these challenges posed by this information age. I believe that there has not been a more appropriate time than now to incorporate values in education as to elicit the human quality of our children in addition to the provision of academic knowledge.Since we cannot control technology and what comes with it, we should instead equip our children with the right values and inner carriage which help them make the right call as to what is right and wrong in any abandoned situation. This can be achieved by embedding human values such as respect for difference, moral, honesty, empathy and love for homo into the schools platform at all levels. As a result, our next generation willing not only be knowledgeable but of a high human quality who will do the right things by themselves and others.For exemplification, moral students would not imitate aggressive behaviour they saw on the internet or elsewhere because they consciously knew such behaviour was wrong. Moreover, it would be d angerous for schools to use subject-based curriculum which only focus on academic excellence in such a fast paced unlimited information age in which we live in today. Without moral and ethics, regardless of their intelligence, our children could grow up to be self-destructive, violent or scatheful to themselves and society. Examples of destructive behaviour include that of terrorists who wrongly used their knowledge to harm other people.Teaching and Learning One of the current educational liberates being discussed today concerning teaching and reading is what skills we need to teach our children for the 21st century. While many educators (Dominik Petko, 2012) worldwide have placed an emphasis on teaching information and communication technology, literacy skills that will allow students to make sense of the technology today, John Wilson (2008), power executive director of the National Education Association in Washington, DC, argued that for a world which is vastly transform by te chnology, it is unpredictable what technology is coming next.Instead of focusing on the current technology which is presumable to be replaced, educators should focus on developing transferable skills such as decisive thinking and problem solving so that students can analyze information, slang knowledge to new situations as well as comprehend new ideas. These skills will make them capable to learn and adapt to any new technology to come. What is critical thinking? How could we teach critical thinking skills to our children?Critical Thinking as defined by Michael Scriven Richard Paul (1996), the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to judgment and action. In essence, critical thinking is a disciplined manner o f thought that a someone uses to assess the validity of something, e. . statements, news stories, arguments, research, etc. (Beyer, B K, 1995). Experts (Angelo, T A, 1995, Cooper, J L, 1995, McDade, S A, 1995) asserted that critical thinking is best conveyed through constructivist learning approach such as Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT), conjunct Learning Strategies, Case get wind and discussion as well as joint catch Questioning.An example of a Classroom Assessment Techniques is to ask students to answer questions such as What was the most important thing you learned in todays class? or What question related to this session remains uppermost in your mind? (Angelo, T A, 1995). McDade (1995) suggested that teachers can facilitate students development of critical thinking through case study and discussion. A teacher may lead the class by presenting a case to the class without a conclusion. Using prepared questions, the teacher then leads students through a discussion, allo wing students to construct a conclusion for the case. Reciprocal Peer Questioning is another teaching technique which fosters critical thinking (King, A, 1995).An example of Reciprocal Peer Questioning is by asking students a list of question such as, What are the strengths and weaknesses of a taught issue? Students are asked to write questions about the lecture material. In small groups, the students ask each other the questions. Then, the all in all class discusses some of the questions from each small group. Dr. Gwen Dewar (2009) suggests that critical thinking can be developed not only in school but at home where parents encourage students to questions and evaluate any common ife situations.In conclusion, in order for our children to cope well with the information technology age, we need to prepare our children to mickle through the information and not just passively accept it (Oliver Utermohlen, 2005). They need to develop and effectively apply critical thinking skills to their academic studies, to the complex problems that they will face and to the critical choices they will be agonistic to make as a result of the information explosion and other rapid technological changes.