A Challenge for Teachers and Students in the 21st Century: How To Cope with Personal Ignorance and Generate Knowledge in an Information-Centred World.

N

14

Access to Information; Action Research; Adult Learning; Comparative Analysis; Educational Attitudes; Educational Environment; Educational Needs; Educational Objectives; Educational Practices; Educational Quality; Educational Research; Empowerment; Foreign Countries; Futures (of Society); Information Needs; Learning Processes; Learning Readiness; Learning Strategies; Lifelong Learning; Metacognition; Needs Assessment; Position Papers; Postsecondary Education; Professional Development; Secondary Education; Student Needs; Student Responsibility; Teacher Improvement; Teacher Responsibility; Teacher Role; Teacher Student Relationship; Trend Analysis; Values

Australia; Denmark; Sweden

The information explosion and exponential development of information-accessing tools has had a disempowering effect on many people. A major challenge of the information-centered world is for students and teachers alike to learn how to assert responsibility and control over personal practice. Meeting this challenge may require personal reconceptualization of thinking, feeling, and acting with respect to the following aspects of teaching and learning: values and beliefs, intentions and purposes, and approaches and behavior. Selected long-term educational research projects in Australia, Denmark, and Sweden have yielded findings that have made it possible to develop a conceptualization of how teachers and students may operate to increase students' willingness and ability to take enhanced responsibility and control over their own learning. According to the conceptualization, teachers and students alike should take the following actions: acknowledge and accept their personal ignorance and the importance of active teaching and learning; seek and foster challenge in their own teaching and learning; and engage in a purposeful inquiry to generate enhanced metacognition. In addition, teachers should undertake collaborative action research, enact good teaching behavior, and set classroom teaching procedures that foster good learning behavior in students. Students should enact good learning behavior to overcome poor learning tendencies. (MN)

2001

ED447289