I agree wholeheartedly with the following quote by Jim Collins in his best-selling book Good to Great - "We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools."
How do we change this? It is quite clear that NCLB will not change this. In addition the world outside of schools continues to change at a head-spinning pace while the world inside schools looks quite familiar whether you are a member of the Class of 2009 or the Class of 1949. The teacher-centered classroom is still the norm with student sitting in rows listening to the "sage on the stage."
I ran across an interesting article where a guest speaker named David Wiley told a group of professsors that college would be irrelevant by 2020. Wiley should know, he is a Professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University. I can't help wondering how many high schools will also be irrelevant by that point.
2019-2020 Burlington High School Schedules
4 years ago
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI came across this blog while randomly searching in internet. I read the article you posted, and I believe that the problem with American high schools and colleges is that many schools are unable to keep up with the growing trend of technology.
The article mentioned how some internet sources are becoming freely available to students. Those include podcasts from UC Berkeley and MIT's Open Courseware. For many teachers, what used to be a simple hand-grading now became a computerized progressbook where you can simply type in assignments and get the student's grade.
The problem is that the teachers are not able to use full of their technology to their students. A major problem is with standardized tests. Why is that students who live in bigger states like NY, NJ, CA, MA, and such states with metropolitan cities do better on standardized exams than those who don't? This is because that American high school is still relying on old-style tutoring system at homes. In order for changes to occur, American people need to realize that they have to seek online for preparing for standardized tests.
True, some institutions have removed SAT from their requirements, but at the same time, there are plenty who will ALWAYS require them. And I recall reading from admission office at Tufts University that SAT should be an opportunity for the students.
In order to prevent colleges from standing firmly, we need to give students everything they need. A good help for preparing for SAT so that their hard work in four years of high schools are not in vain.
I am administrator of Hidden Discoveries, a growing forum dedicated to answering individual student's question for college admission and SAT/ACT/etc, and I make this blog to spread the word for students to join and ask questions.