Technology Leadership Book Summary

Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning

By Marc Prensky

Partnering pedagogy is basically creating a partnership between the teacher and student to learn the information and skills necessary to prepare the students for the 21st century. “For successful partnering, teachers and students alike must realize and accept that we have entered an era in which both students and teachers have something of equal importance to contribute to the learning process. Each side must respect, and learn from what the other has to offer” (Prensky, 2010). Asking guiding questions that focus on the concepts or knowledge to be learned, the teacher creates the lesson. Along with the overarching questions, details questions are also created to ensure the students have the answers for questions that will be on the test. The students, either in groups or individually, research for answers to the questions using any tools or technology available. The teacher facilitates the lesson by moving through the class monitoring or guiding the students in their work. Once the students have researched, they present their results to the class in a one or two minute presentation, where the entire class discusses the information. Throughout the partnering process, students are able to build their skills in researching, analyzing, critical-thinking and problem-solving and apply these to the real world problems while they are learning the content for the course.

For more information about this book and partnering pedagogy, visit my wiki at http://qtmouser.wikispaces.com/Technology+Leadership+Book+Summary.

Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin, A SAGE Company.