Teaching for TODAY!

School is out for summer, but we all know educators are already thinking about next year. Each term, we are presented with a new group of students. Each group has a unique skill set and come with their own set of challenges.

After we take our summer vacations, we quickly get back into the "zone". We start anticipating what to expect and begin attending various professional development workshops. We have our school's initiatives, our state's initiatives, our nation's initiatives...but what about reality? 

We can attempt to follow and understand the trends of the different generations. I belong to the Generation X, but now there's the Millennials. What do these students look like, act like, how do they learn? It seems that education as we know it is shifting. No longer is it "knowing" the content, but a shift towards becoming more digitally"literate". In other words, when and if we do not "know" something, are we able to locate a reliable source of information with the correct answer or solution? This is a shift that will not widely be accepted at first, but with the Internet readily available to Google any question, it is important that students are digitally literate. So, as educators, we have become charged with this responsibility.

More and more students are learning online. This format of education has to have the same quality and rigor as their traditional face-to-face counterpart. The emerging technologies and trends that are more and more amazing keep shifting how we learn. They definitely are shifting how we teach. Being aware of these innovations and how they influence education is a critical function for educators. 

What has been your experience with teaching TODAY's students?