The Banking Concept Vs. Problem Posing Teaching

“The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” reading, by Paulo Freire, presents two teaching styles and the effects it has on student learning. The first one is called the banking concept of education. This style of teaching works like a depositing transaction at a bank; the teacher delivers his lesson and deposits it to the students and the students simply accept it and store it like a depository. This style of teaching is not very effective and Freire states that it’s dehumanizing our society. “The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of the world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited to them (Freire pg. 396). In simple terms, he is saying that because we are not learning to critically think about everything that is presented to us we will never be independent beings. We are always going to allow others to think for us and we are always going to accept their views whether it’s right or wrong. Freire suggests that to prevent this from happening educators need to change their style of teaching and try to intellectually challenge their students more. The solution is using the problem posing method of education which involves student and teachers to exchange ideas, contradict ideas, and the opportunity to learn from each other and not just from the instructor. (The learning communities at NCC is a good example of using the problem posing teaching style). This second style of teaching is definitely more effective because it helps the students prepare themselves for the challenges they may encounter in society; they will be able to freely and independently choose what to accept or not to accept. This ability will always help them be in control of themselves.
Indirectly, the problem posing method of education is like hands on learning; it gets the students involved. That's how our approach of teaching Second Life Presentation should be based on... hands on learning....instead of a presentation that consists heavy lecturing to make it interesting/effective.

This is how we can incorporate Frieire’s ideas to the Second Life workshop.

-Have the students sign up for an account
- Customize their own avatar according to their individual preferences
- learn how to get your avatar to do different things such as teleport, fly
-In the end we can ask their opinions about the program of whether they liked it or not and why?
-We can ask them why they think this program has gained so much popularity and why people are so willing to spend so much time and money to create second life on this program.