EDU 657 Week 5 Journal

Week 5: Journal

When I think about how students were impacted by the events, topics, and trends of their times; I know that I do not want to repeat some of the very mistakes that took place during them. At the time, I am certain that educators were trying to do the best they could with the tools and training they had available to them. However, at the end of the day the constant changes in the educational environment made for chaotic learning and frustrations in general. Things were under-regulated and over-regulated and real problems were not addressed for superficial ones to be investigated instead.

There were some approaches and strategies that worked, especially concerning positive movements toward co-education, ceasing discrimination based on gender, race, or sexuality, and treating students with mental disabilities like people and not burdens. There was a certain level of accountability in place that needed to be there and for that, there were successes. I even feel to an extent requiring certain levels of mastery and assessments to demonstrate that students were learning was appropriate and necessary.

I believe strongly that higher education will need to change yet again soon. We are approaching real issues with educated individuals unable to find work, everyone is in deep debt and cannot dig themselves out of it. The growing cost of college is not lessening, instead, it is ever-expanding. The cost of living is higher than it has ever been and when you have people that can not afford to put a roof over their heads with college degrees they cannot possibly begin to pay off, things must change. Schools will have to find a way to lower their tuitions or perhaps a massive student loan forgiveness must occur to reset things. As it is, the system is completely broken. Online learning will continue to increase because people do not want to spend the time on a campus anymore. They want to do their work and continue with their lives.

To teach effectively at this level, I first need to hope to be able to find a job. If that happens, I need to be able to present material to all of my students in a way they can understand. I need to be mindful of their needs as people. I also desire to teach online, so I will need to make sure that I am able to understand the way the digital classroom works and be able to communicate the material in a digital classroom. If I can do these things and keep in mind that learning is not strictly about assessments and frequently, assessments do not always help students show their ability to understand a subject; I stand a good chance. With diverse learning and continued use of differentiated instruction, I think I will succeed.