quarta-feira, maio 16, 2007

Professores: de sabe-tudo a guias

Como serão cada vez mais as aulas no futuro, com a proliferação de portáteis ligados à rede? Para alguns, a simples pergunta remete para uma miragem. Para outros, que há anos andaram a esforçar-se por que cada aluno tivesse um laptop, o problema já é outro: que fazer para cativar a atenção dos alunos? Para reflectir sobre estas questões, vale a pena ler um texto ontem publicado no Christian Science Monitor, intitulado "Laptops in the classroom: Mend it, don't end it", da autoria de
"(...) To productively use laptops in the classroom, teachers need to be willing to surrender their supremacy. Students no longer need us for the facts because facts are instantly available on the Internet. Instead, they need us to help them figure out what to do with all that data. It's ironic that law school professors are leading the laptop backlash, since their discipline saw this trend coming decades ago when they stopped trying to teach the law and focused instead on teaching legal reasoning.
Teachers must step down from being the sage on the stage and learn to be the guide on the side. That change hurts for those of us who love the limelight, but it hurts less than losing out to Minesweeper. So what does a classroom look like when laptops have been successfully integrated?
Students are working individually or in small teams to solve engaging problems or answer compelling questions. They are synthesizing their own experience, ideas from the professor, and sources that they can find on the Web. They are talking with classmates, but they are also collaborating with people outside the classroom walls by e-mailing experts, posting to blogs, or editing pages on wikis (websites that allow users to add, remove, or edit content). The teacher has come down from the lectern and is moving throughout the room, watching what students are doing, asking questions, posing challenges

Sem comentários: