For Task 1A, our group has chosen to find out about the IT educational policies in China. The four categories of findings have been divided up among us. My post here is related to the teacher's role in the information age.
- The role that teachers play has been changing greatly in many areas in the information age. With the wide-spread use of IT into modern instruction, teachers are expected to be somewhat like a technician in addition to be knowledgeable in their own field. They are not only judged by how learned they are, but also how well they can integrate modern technologies into their instruction to achieve effectivemess.
- Teachers today are supposed to work better as facilitators, consultants, guides, or directors. Children prefer learner-centered classrooms instead of the old-fashioned style where teachers act as knowledge transmitters. A vivid description of the teachers' role might be the transfer from the traditional "sage on the stage" to today's "guide on the side".
- Teachers nowadays are compelled to keep up with the time and be experts not only in their own field but in the modern technology to better benefit their learners.
Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Peoples_Republic_of_China#Teachers
http://www.moe.edu.cn/english/index.htm.
3 comments:
Dear Lillian,
You said "teachers are supposed to revolutionize their roles in classroom" due to the development of IT technology. I don't think it is an overstatement. Indeed, the increasingly influential technology brings great changes to education and is bound to impact the role teachers play in classroom accordingly. However, teachers can never be replaced by computer, and the important issue for teachers is to find the appropriate position in the new circumstances.
Xiao Li,
I agree with you that teachers cannot be replaced by computers. Instead,teachers,being facilitators as Lillian has put forward, should make full use of computers to make the English teaching more efficient. With IT, teachers will play more and more dynamic roles in making the classroom dynamic.
Yes, there should be a revolutionary transformation of teachers' role in the modern society. This, as a matter of fact, poses some new tasks on the shoulders of us teachers. We need to be equipped with modern means of eduction in the first place.
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