Virtual vs. Traditional Classroom Setting

This morning I was checking my phone while having breakfast when a message popped out on my phone's screen "Facebook Helps Develop Software That Put Students in Charge of their Lesson Plans." It was an article from the New York Times. I immediately though, "What a good tool for teachers, it will definitely reduce the stress of planing and assessing lesson plans." However, while I start going through the article my idea about this changed. I started to consider whether virtual classrooms are more beneficial for students than traditional one or not? What about teachers' job?

The article was written by Natasha Singer and Mike Isaac and it was published on the New York Times. The article discussed an innovative change in educational setting in terms of students-teachers relation, making it more students-driven. The Summit-Personalized Leaning Platform is the novel educational tool that Facebook and Summit Public School are trying to introduce. It was already introduced to 19 schools from which only few of them reported considerable learning improvement (Singer & Isaac, 2016).

This software will allow students to have clear view of the academic responsibilities they must complete along the school year. It also provides students with information of specific and individual modules and lessons. This software may help the students to work at the own pace. It also fosters project-based learning and differentiated instruction because the software provides students with diverse projects for them to work on. Thus, students can choose the project they want to develop according to their own cognitive, linguistic, and academic abilities.

However, This  software will "require one-on-one mentoring and coaching to help each student to adapt" (Singer & Isaac, 2016). This situation may require some amount of money and high quality technology for children in the school and at home. Moreover, what concerns me the most is the teacher's role. Does a virtual environment, in which students have completely control of their assignments academic achievement, and assessment, needs teachers' supervision.

I consider that the technology is necessary and beneficial for students in order to become an autonomous learning, Nevertheless, they will always need the teachers' supervision to support and to explain things better. Virtual and traditional classrooms need to work together to really achieve academic success.


Reference:
Singer, Natasha, and Mike Isaac. "Facebook Helps Develop Software That Puts Students in Charge of Their Lesson Plans." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Aug. 2016. Web. 10 Aug. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/technology/facebook-helps-develop-software-that-puts-students-in-charge-of-their-lesson-plans.html?_r=0>.