Classroom of the future - Essay Example

 Classroom of the future I imagine the classroom of the future will rely upon technology while offering instruction in the traditional core curriculum. Based on school is as a second home for student to acquire the knowledge and aware of the world around her/him. As a result, the school must be physically formatted to encourage the student to love this place and raise the academic level. The school is a significant institution needs to be high quality of physical and social environment to give a positive impact on student’s academic and social performance (Syakima, Sapri, and Shahril, 2011) Classroom is an important environment affecting students in many fields. Studies have proved that the there is a relationship between the student performance and the classroom facilities. Classroom facilities affect students’ attendance and academic performance, so taking care of classroom facilities improve the level of student performance in the classroom. Additionally, the classroom often reflects the correlation between the students and their teacher (Syakima, Sapri, and Shahril, 2011) It’s important to understand not only what’s coming next but also where it all started (Dunn, 2011). Classrooms throughout history have passed much of the technological changes. So, the purpose of this paper is to describe those changes and then visualize the future changes of the classroom. The classroom has changed a lot since the past. There are three main periods from the early days that helped build the education system we have now. The colonial period was first from the 1600’s to the 1700’s, the next period would be from the American Revolution to the civil war which was approximately a 70 year period from 1791-1861.(Anderson, 1962).The Information age came next from mid 1900's to the very early 2000's. (Tanner and Lackney, 2006) In the colonial period the classroom was very minimal only consisting of a one room building most likely with log walls, a dirt floor and wax windows. For chairs they would split a log in half and attach branches to the bottom to create a chair. Educational supplies were very scarce and expensive, most were homemade consisting of quill pens and boil down bark to make ink. (Anderson, 1962). Between the American Revolution and the civil war the classroom experience got a lot better because classrooms had blackboards, slates and maps. The furniture and architecture was also greatly improved even though at first during this period many communities didn’t have school buildings because if the revolutionary war, instead they had large rooms until building were able to be rebuilt. When schools began popping up again they had 5-6 windows to light the building and were often painted red or yellow. A lot of schools even had a fireplace or a wood burning stove in the middle. (Anderson, 1962). During the Information age the American population experienced a period of great transformation. (Tanner and Lackney, 2006) This transformation includes brick multi room school buildings with metal framed glass windows, Insulated walls and even air conditioning in some school buildings. (Tanner and Lackney, 2006) At the current time, studies focus on student movement, student communication and teamwork. As a result, the classroom was divided into groups with fewer students taught in smaller classrooms, which made the classroom more attractive to learners. The classroom has been designed with design that enhances creativity and the ability to cooperate and there was a great interest to providing the classroom with terms of lighting and temperature telecommunications plugs which gives the teachers maximum of flexibility in the style of teaching and room layout (Sheerin & Burke, 2004). In the contemporary classroom, the aim is to deliver information in the best ways and to make information easier to understand. To this end, many classrooms now have projectors, smart boards, iPad and computers in the classroom. That explains what Thomas Edison said from 1925 “books will soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye.” (Dunn, 2011) In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there are fast direction for the development of education in Saudi Arabia in all fields, in terms of curriculums and school designs. King Abdullah set up a good project which named development project for the development of the public education system and a world-class learning to keep up of the modern educational for environment changes. I believe in the future the aim will be to deliver information in a fun, interactive way, a far cry from the boring setting of the traditional classroom. The teachers will make things interesting in the classroom by focusing on the students’ learning capacity and the method of learning. The educators will use well-designed scientific studies to determine the most effective ways for teaching students as individuals in the classroom (Willis, 2007). I imagine the classroom of the future will be driven by technology, including smart boards, interactive computing screens and special links between the teacher’s station and the students’ desks. The most prominent tool in the classroom will be an interactive digital screen connected to a multi-lens projector. The digital wall will function much like a traditional chalkboard with a couple of distinct advantages. The digital classroom wall in the future will be lit by projector and controlled by the teacher, who might use different colors in order to project a desired mood. Additionally, the teacher will be able to project different pictures or videos from the web or other media onto the digital wall. Students’ desks will be configured in a traditional classroom arrangement in that there will be chairs with the tables. The classroom of the future will have desks with electronic screens connected to the armrests. When it is time for group work, the students can go to and draw on the big smart boards available around the room. All of the tables and smart board desks will be connected to the teacher so students can instantly get help privately or as part of the class discussion, and students can share their work on the main board. The teacher will also be able to put anything that he or she needs on the students tables or desks. The teacher will rely on technological tools for collecting homework and grading assignments. The classroom technology will complement teachers’ chosen learning objectives. In terms of curriculum, I believe that the educational track in the United States educational system will continue to be respected. The traditional curriculum centered on Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts will continue to dominate the field. The classroom of the future will aim to make learning in the core areas easier and more interesting through the use of technology. Students will receive a combination of traditional lecture and media-based lessons and tutorials in place of the former textbook only based method of instruction. In terms of teaching methodology, teachers in the future will be charged with finding multimedia sources to support daily lessons. Teachers will have to work to become aware of trends in popular culture and how those trends might be related to learning objectives and learning goals. Part of the teachers’ tasks will be to find new ways to make instruction more interesting. For instance, the teacher might get the help of a web designer to illustrate and animate an interesting example of a boring concept. Teaching a child about gravity or the atomic structure or philosophers would probably take the shape of animations that would keep the interest of the students in the lecture. The future teaching methodologies will be based on three key trends; collaboration, technology, and a blend of conventions with modern trends (Barsehgian, 2011). Collaboration between students will shape the new culture of learning. Technology is among the most influential elements that will shape the future classrooms. The policy makers and the teachers will play their part through blending old teaching traditions and modern trends. The education culture in the U.S. will be respected in the future. Generally, technology will solve many problems that the teachers and the students face today. For instance, the computers will cover the basics; online classrooms, “flipping” lectures and classes and even group activity shared on video with the students (Factor, 2014). It will be easier for teachers to monitor the progress of students through technology. The teachers will check the progress of each student from his online profile. Assessments and tasks will be built into online learning programs making the job easier for the teachers (Factor, 2014). The focus of implementing this technique will be to improve the performance of students. In conclusion, the classroom of the future will be highly technological and interactive for the students. There will be animations, videos and colorful electronic boards for students to learn from. The teaching methodology will focus on incorporating technological tools to help improve the learning process. But the cost of technology will also play a huge role in this process. Overall the learning experience will improve as the focus of these changes will be better academic performance of the students. References Factor, S. (2014) High-tech, low stress: The classroom of the future. Forbes. Retrieved November 11, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/schoolboard/2014/04/25/high-tech-low-stress-the-teachers-aides-of-the-future/ Tanner, K. C. and J. A. Lackney (2006). Educational facilities planning: Leadership, architecture, & management. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Willis, J. (2007) Brain-friendly strategies for the inclusion classroom: Insights from a neurologist and classroom teacher. ASCD. Barseghian, T. (2011) Three trends that define the future of teaching and learning. Mind Shift. Retrieved November 11, 2014 http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/02/three-trends-that-define-the-future-of-teaching-and-learning/ Bruce S. and Paul B. (2004) Best Practice in School Design Acnielsen Read More