Alisha Craft- Theories of Critical Thinking

    The field of education is ever hanging, which is one thing that makes it so interesting! Technology has become a more and more integrated part of education as the twenty-first century continues. Education has become less about what the student and teacher actually knows and more and more about whether they can find the correct information. Students are now given so many more opportunities to discover learning for themselves as teachers are able to become better facilitators and are not having to present as much direct instruction as you would have seen before the age of technology in the classroom.
    Technology gives students the option to move past a simple comprehension and regurgitate method in the classroom to actually being able to synthesize and apply the topics that they are learning. Many times this is seen in Project or Problem Based Learning. (PBL). This allows students the opportunities to find and solve problems while moving up the Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid. Students are able to learn the information by discoveries of problems and analyzing the problems to come up with solutions in an educational manner. Technology also gives the Evaluation portion of Bloom’s Taxonomy a whole new meaning. Students are able to use technology to judge or critique other works and be judged or critiques on their own work. Such as we are doing in this blog, it gives the opportunity for students and teacher to connect their learning across the globe as well as across the system and even the school.
     As I have seen in my personal school, innovation is a very long and extensive process. Innovation is not something that happens quickly or overnight. Studies need to be seen and an impact on learning have to be evident so that people will buy into the process. There are always people that are skeptical and have always done it the same way and “it works.” These are the people that are sometimes the hardest to reach. Encouraging teachers to step out of their comfort zone and try something new is very critical when trying to create an innovative culture in the school. Sometimes having an innovative classroom or school needs to happen by seeing another innovative classroom or school. Many times people work better when working with people that share the same interests or difficulties.  Knowing that someone has been through it and has come out on top can sometimes help them jump into the feel of working in the same direction.