Teach Like Google Exists

I absolutely love this quote from Alice Keeler.  "Teach like Google exists."  How thought provoking.....

Many of us - if not most - grew up in the "PG Era" (Pre-Google).  Because of this, school looked a lot different than it does today.  The teacher was the sole holder of information and he/she shared that knowledge with students through their teaching.  The only other way to acquire knowledge was through books, if you had access to them.  Many of us remember searching through the volumes of encyclopedias to do a report on Ecuador or Thomas Jefferson.  Or we had to go to the library, search through a card catalog, find that area of the library, search for the book and hopefully locate it.  Once we located the book, we then had to look through the entire book to obtain the information we desired.  This was ...... time consuming.  It could also be completely frustrating.

Imagine if we asked our students today to turn off all devices and look through an encyclopedia or library to find basic information.  They would look at us as if we had just told them to build a rocket ship to the moon.  They may actually be able to do that easier than finding information the old-fashioned way.  

But I think the implications of this quote go farther than just knowledge acquisition.  Traditional schools have equipped students with knowledge in the form of facts.  We memorized facts so when we needed them later in life, we could easily recall these.  Our brains were like dusty library shelves holding volumes of information that we may never use again.  But in today's world, students do not to spend time memorizing these facts - they can be found easily by searching Google.  I visualize their brains as a complex series of pinballs bouncing back and forth to all regions of their brain as they synthesize information and use it to create new ideas.

Take a short break and time yourself to see how long it takes to search Google for one of the following:

• The capital of North Dakota.
• The 32nd US President.
• The population of Spain.
• The 18th Amendment.

How long did it take you?  I searched each one and found the answer in between 7 to 10 seconds. (depending on how fast you type.)  So, if this information can be obtained in a matter of seconds using devices, why would we ever ask students to memorize this information?  We live in a world where students have constant access to digital devices - and always will.

In a world where facts can be obtained by anyone in a matter of seconds, why are we still asking students to memorize information and testing this memorization on standardized tests?  Fact regurgitation is an antiquated skill.  If Google can pass the tests we give to students, there's something wrong with the tests.

Please don't misunderstand - I do think there are some things that should and must be committed to memory.  How can students learn to read if they don't know the alphabet?  Multiplication tables must be memorized to further math knowledge.  However, the list of the "must memorize" items, has decreased significantly in today's world. 

If information is so readily accessible, education should not be about mere knowledge acquisition.  Education today should be about what students can DO with that information.  Rather than regurgitate, students should be analyzing, comparing, synthesizing and creating new ideas based on information.

Let's look at the 18th Amendment about Alcoholic Prohibition for a moment.  Instead of having students only learn what the amendment is, they should be doing something with that information.  Students could write an opinion blog either supporting or not supporting the amendment and its enforcement.  Students could compare the societal conditions that led to the passing of the amendment, to current societal conditions in the US regarding marijuana usage.  After learning about the amendment and what led up to it, students could draft an alternate amendment to better address the issue.  By going deeper, students will understand the information better and make connections about its relevance to their lives and laws that are passed currently in the US.  

Having knowledge now is simply not enough.  Anyone who can type, can access knowledge.  What you can DO with the knowledge is what is important now.

How are you changing your instruction to teach and lead like Google exists?

Image credit: https://twitter.com/alicekeeler/status/734921010810486784