Education for Everyone - Essay Example

One of the most exciting trends in education that promises to help with the emergency in funding is the increased access to free online educational resources. While there are those who decry increased online learning as being corrosive to the social benefits that accrue from time spent in face-to-face instruction, the fact is that the online opportunities for education represent an important chance for school administrators at every level – from elementary to the university – to augment their current course offerings with a wealth of robust resources that will help their students succeed – for nothing.

One important trend in education that seeks to capitalize on the benefits of free online resources is the “flipped classroom.” The traditional learning model involves the teacher delivering information through lectures, presentations, or other media, while students respond with some practice in the classroom, followed by the completion of assignments outside school. The “flipped classroom” is the reverse: instead, students access pre-recorded lectures or readings that teachers have posted online for them.

With this information in hand, students are expected to come to class prepared for the activity that awaits them. If they have not listened to the assigned lecture or accessed the required information, they will not be prepared for class that day. There are several benefits of the “flipped classroom.” The most obvious is that students who miss classes for activities or illness no longer miss out on vital information. All they have to do is access the websites for their classes and view or listen to the materials that have been posted.

Also, the role of the teacher has been transformed. Instead of lecturing to whole groups, the teachers instead become learning coaches, moving from small group to small group, or even from individual to individual, making sure that each student has gained mastery over the content and is generating a valid product (Bergmann and Sams). Finally, the students are readier for in-class instruction when it does come. Instead of yawning through a lecture of thirty or forty-five minutes, the students stop working on their projects when they need instruction – because they need the information to complete that specific task, the missing information can be delivered more quickly, and the audience will be more receptive to it.

One might point out several drawbacks to this approach. What, for example, about students who do not have Internet access at home? Is it reasonable for a student living at that socioeconomic level to be expected to go to a public library to get online for class materials, or to come to school early to access the teacher websites, particularly when that student is likely to depend on school bus transportation and to have a job after school to help the family make ends meet? Some districts around the country have tried to answer this question by sending home laptops or computers with each student to help bridge the financial gap to computer literacy, but it is still an unanswered question.

If the “flipped classroom” is to succeed for every student, then at some point, there must be a universal wireless Internet network available to every home, so that students can access the information they need while at home – even a free laptop cannot access the World Wide Web without a subscription, the way things currently