One of the things I tell my teacher trainees at the beginning of the semester is to “think and act as teachers, not as students”.

NIE calls them student teachers, but I think too many see themselves as the former rather than the latter. The rest of the world might label them preservice teachers but this is not accurate because practically all teachers-to-be in Singapore have some teaching experience. So I call them teacher trainees even though I don’t like the idea of  “training” them.

They are teachers-in-training and they should think and act like teachers. Except maybe this one time…

I was facilitating a class in a computer laboratory when I noticed a group debating something. The group eventually got my attention and asked me if there was a difference between constructivism and constructionism. They thought like conventional teachers when faced with a question they could not answer: Ask an expert.

There is nothing wrong with that but if they had thought like today’s students, they would have just Googled it or looked it up in Wikipedia. After all, we were in a computer laboratory and they had the world’s libraries and expertise at their fingertips. I told them to search and they did.

Perhaps I should tell them to think like digital immigrants who are fully conversant and immersed in digital native language and culture. Is there a short way to say this?