Teaching according to their Time
Students and kids nowadays are far different from before. They are more inclined to instant things and are more attracted to gadgets. The internet is their best friend, it is a lot easier for them to track events, get updated and discover new things via the World Wide Web. They would rather spend time reading online than holding an actual book. Their definition of bookmark is clicking and not an insert. There’s a study stating that if the online world is a country, it would be 2nd next to China in terms of population, oh by the way they also call internet users as netizens (citizens of the internet).
Because of this change and factor, we also need to adapt to these technology adjustments to create interest and draw the attention of kids into studying. Considering these, it will not surprise me if the student also wants instant process, fast solutions and speedy results.
Algebra or solving algebraic problems manually is far from this perspective. Because getting your hands in manual solving of algebraic equations mean long hours of analysis, trial and error and verification of results. It would be a given that these students will move away from this subject and might end up loosing interest into learning.
Teaching the concept and guiding principles of algebra is essential for every student’s growth and development, but as mentioned bringing them away from their interests would not be in any form help. That is why we have to merge their interest and our manner of teaching. Let them understand the idea but also allow them to use the benefits of their generation to make things simpler and easier.
I mentioned Algebra earlier because it is a great example. Traditionally, we are given assignments that we have to solve overnight manually. Leaving most of the students sleepless and worse encourages cheating. But now there are online tools that could assist the students in solving algebra problems, encouraging them to do their home work by themselves without the fear of having sleepless night.
One of the tools found online is the Algebra Solver. Here the student can input the equation and it will show the step by step procedure on how the answer was derived. This then keeps the student close to its best friend, the internet, and also encourages him or her to solve the problem based on the concept and principles taught. Some of them might want to prove the program wrong so they would manually do the computation.
It’s a two way learning process. Either the student solves the problem manually then verifies his answer via the algebra solver or he/she uses the algebra solver to come up with an answer and verify it manually.
If you’re worried that this might encourage laziness to your students, then conduct recitations and seat works where they cannot access the internet. Here you can verify if they really understood the solution or just copied the answer provide by the internet through the algebra solver.