Notes from the UOC UNESCO Chair in e-Learning VIII International Seminar: Teacher Training: Reconsidering Teachers’ Roles, held in Barcelona, Spain, on October 6-7, 2011. More notes on this event: eLChair11.
Julià Minguillón, Academic Director, UNESCO Chair in e-Learning, UOC, Spain
Conclusions of the UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning VIII International Seminar
Some selected statements made during the seminar:
- Teaching is about inspiring people. It is not only about transferring knowledge, or building skills.
- Ask yourself what your passion is, then learn.
- Playfulness is within every child and adult.
- We can all be part of the “net generation”.
- No distinction between teachers and learners, especially because of age.
- Break the teacher-student hierarchy.
- Everybody can teach and learn and enjoy it! And at the same time.
You can ask your learners what their passion is, then teach. Share part of the control on the teaching process.
- But teachers are not entertainers.
- But students are not only consumers or costumers.
- Don’t preach facts, stimulate acts.
- Promoting collaboration.
- Promoting self-directed learning.
- Promoting sharing.
- Social networks and web 2.0 tools can be a powerful tools.
- There are new opportunities brought by mobile technologies, PLEs, OERs, video…
- New literacies are needed: information seeking and filtering, content creation and curation, sharing and organizing, working in teams. And literacy is no only skills but attitudes.
- Old barriers need to be overcome: school/university structure and bureaucracy, assessment (or just scoring?), coping with fast endemic change, knowledge comes in standardized and isolated silos, low transfer from educational research into practice.
- Promote creativity in class.
- Take risks, you also learn from failure.
- Adopt perspectives from other disciplines.
- Create communities of practice.
Don’t let this seminar be another “ivory tower”: spread the word.
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