Characteristics of 21st Century Teachers: How Do I Create the Environment?

I often relate my classroom to the term “organized chaos.” There is often no real lecture to listen to, and you will often find my students spread throughout the classroom, in the hallways, and in other teachers’ classrooms. However, in order to provide the students this type of environment, there needs to be a lot of structure.

Within the first 5 weeks of every school year, the students are brought through a rigorous orientation program. My students often refer to this as the “Brainwashing.” During this orientation, the students participate in several activities that provide them the opportunity to learn about me, their peers, the class expectations and the class structure. I have several “methods to my madness,” as the students like to call it, to get them thinking about what it means to be in the Multimedia Technology program. As you will notice, I refer to my class as the Multimedia Technology program. I believe it is important for the students to understand that we are equally a part of the environment and we both will share the space in different capacities. I do explain that I have the most amount of responsibility, but we all must do our part.

In relation to their responsibilities as students, I discuss the challenges they currently face in school, the difficulties they have learning, and their feelings toward school. More often the students express the same things every year; they want their freedom, they want to learn things that are relative, they don’t want to be told what to do, they hate tests, and the list goes on and on. From this feedback, together we create lists of the positive and negative things about school and discuss the various methods in which we learn and the strategies teachers use.

At the conclusion of these activities, the students usually have created a healthy list of pros and cons about the education system. From this list, we start to discuss our classroom environment and how the students would like to see the classroom operate. This is called “The Buy In.” I believe that if I provide the students the opportunity to create the culture in which they would like to learn, I will get the most out of them. However, with this freedom comes consequences.

For instance, students say that they don’t like lectures. For that reason, I simply don’t lecture. Instead, the students are asked to read, outline, review and develop questions regarding the chapter material. Anytime a student has a question about the chapter, I simply answer their questions. However, if the students do not do well on any exam, we stop working in the lab and I will lecture in the classroom. Usually I have to lecture at least once a school year. This is a result of the access students have to information and their desire to want to be in “The Lab.”

“The Lab” is a privilege! At least I try to make it that way. You see, once the students are in the lab, they are free to be creative and use all of the tools available to them to create transformational media. When in “The Lab,” they have access to HD video, photo, audio, and multimedia equipment. Often students will be working on independent projects while assisting several others with their projects. My job, therefore, is to be present when needed, assist with equipment and provide feedback on their work.

This generation actually likes to learn and wants to work. However, they want to do it using the tools they know best. Simply give them the tools and get out of their way.