Four things every student in a school should learn

Reflections based on article “Four things every student in a school should learn but not every school is teaching” by Dennis Pierce.

One of the reasons why I enjoy teaching is that can enhance the learning of the four points that Alan November suggested the Net Generation should learn:

1.     Global Empathy. Students need to be sensitive to the needs of people from other countries. In one of my lessons on statistics I show students about the differences between central tendency and spread indicators. I give them the example of how two countries might have an equal income per capita (mean), but the differences between social classes can be measured by the standard deviation. I explain them how technology can enable us to gather this data easily and how their mathematic skills can help them understand how people in other countries live, and hence what their needs are.

2.     Ethical responsibility on the web. I agree with November that schools blocking social networks might have less positive influence on their use. I believe that when teachers use social networks in their lessons in a way that enhances education, this benefits the students from three perspectives: they are more motivated, they learn more and they see how social networks can be used in other contexts. This last perspective can help their ethical responsibility on the web by example and by practice.

3.     Permanence of information posted online… and in their computers and in shared computers. I think that often students need the idea that anything they type into their computers could be used against them...or in their benefit. This is why I often have my students create an online portfolio showing the skills they have learned in my class and encourage them to expand to other topics/subjects.

4.     Critical thinking about the information found online. Search engine ranking is indeed, as November suggests, a popularity context, and the most popular might not be the best. Being able to search for the best information is a skill very important. Sometimes instead of giving the formulae required to work on a problem in class, I ask my students to do some research. They invest more time in this task thank they would normally, but they improve their searching skills. As I tell my students, it will be impossible for them to learn everything they need to know in school, so they need to learn how to find whatever is needed.