Case 1

In the case study regarding Ms. Tucker’s classroom, there are several questions to consider. If students have ubiquitous access to information, that is, if students were to be able to find their own answers to questions by being given the opportunity to use critical thinking and different classroom tools, they would be able to possibly find new ways of learning that help them understand the classroom material in a deeper way. Not only this, but having access to this information and being allowed to explore it will help them develop skills that they will need later in life in their future jobs and everyday problem solving. Ms. Tucker raises a good point, that sometimes it’s more difficult to teach when students are supposed to find their own answers, because they are learning as they go. Not only this, but they might have a difficult time finding good resources to use and might be misinformed due to their own ignorance. However, these challenges are not as important as preparing students for their lives and allowing them creativity so that we don’t create codependent workers who need to be fed instructions in order to be able to succeed. Ubiquitous access has created an unfathomably huge database of knowledge for us to pull from, and we now know more than we did ever before because of it. It allows us to collaborate with others around the globe in seconds, and introduces us to new ideas that we might have never stumbled upon on our own. As teachers, we should use this resource to help our students grow in areas such as the 21st Century Skills. In regard to creativity and critical thinking, because we have so much more information now, we can and should encourage our students to discover new ways of learning while utilizing it. Because they need to sift through this information, their brains are active and capable of forming new connections that they would not otherwise get to if they were simply fed information all day in the classroom. In Ms. Tucker’s case, I would suggest that she have students do projects where they each get to be the teacher for a lesson, or a part of her lesson. The students can research a topic that is on her lesson plan, and then give some form of presentation to the class explaining what they found and how they found it. Ms. Tucker, of course, would have final say on what they found and could grade them on it, making sure their findings were accurate. This would allow them to be creative and use their critical thinking skills to forward the curriculum, thus tending to all of the possible issues that Ms. Tucker might have been apprehensive about.