Changing Trends of Teaching -Learning

What is the role of a teacher in the present scenario? This is the question I often ask myself as I retrospect my teaching journey.

Over the years the role of a teacher has changed to a great extent. It has become very challenging as we are in an era of information explosion. The profile of students today is that of a sharp and updated lot. They are all digital natives and easily adapt to the new technology.  

As a result, the role of a teacher has become that of a facilitator, who can navigate them to their goal through this ocean of knowledge. This can be rightly illustrated by the example of the TED Talk winner Sugata Mitra. He has proved through his experiments with the underprivileged children that when the learner gets access to technology or the means of acquiring knowledge, they become quick learners. 

   

Now is the favourable time to motivate students for self learning. Though the wealth of information is just a click away, yet for selecting relevant chunks, the students require assistance of teacher. It has been a common observation that in spite of the huge reservoir of knowledge a majority of the students still shy away from exploration of such a facility on their own.

The teacher also has to catch up with the speed of change and update herself on the changes to be able to win confidence and trust of the students. One of my students at #DGMC had conducted a research on how the teachers are coping up with New Technology and the results could be very useful for all the teachers. The research concludes that teachers who have used traditional methods for teaching are now learning new technology and using it.

In a nutshell, a teacher’s role as a facilitator or catalyst will always bear significance upon the student’s all-round understanding of the subject matter and will always be instrumental in creating leaders for tomorrow.

-Prof. Shubhangi Dharma