by: Ninive C. Calegari and Daniel Moulthrop
This article goes along with my own personal teaching philosophy. It states that "teaching is about coaching-understanding the specific needs and skills of each student, and then, to a certain extent, teaching them individually." This quote makes complete sense! If you notice a child struggling with a certain topic, why would you continue teaching to the rest of the class, while that child continues to regress? I believe teachers should present the idea, guide them through the process, allow students to problem solve and collarborate together, while you are able to then rove around the room assessing student progress and pulling flexible groups based on student need (either to break down the lesson or to give an extension).
Transforming Learning with Technology
funded by Joyce Foundation
This article seemed to connect with the majority of the other articles on integrating technology and what we have discussed in our class. It is essential to integrate technology into our curriculum, but to make that learning authentic, relate it to the real world. When students are able to understand why they are learning a certain concept and how it relates to their own personal lives, they are able to make stronger connections. A great way to continually integrate technology into our daily lessons, is to collaborate with other educators. Listen to what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. With so much on our plates, it is important to not "reinvent the wheel", but learn how to tweak our instruction in ways to make the learning more engaging to meet the needs of our individual students.
How do Teachers Become Tech Wizards?
By: Rosemary Shaw
Rosemary suggest three strategies to use to become stronger in the field of technology:
- Be open to new ideas (continually read up on new ideas, attend conferences, and subscribe to professional articles and journals)
- Problem Solving Skills (instead of reaching out to others when you can't figure out a problem, try first to solve it on your own. You might just learn something! Who would have thought that was possible??)
- Determination (know that if you have the drive to make change happen, continue to find ways to keep educators positive)
Making Good Change Happen
by: Jamie McKenzie
This article was very interesting, because it discussed the gap between district administrations and classroom teachers. Districts get ahead of themselves, and spend millions of dollars on technology for schools, but fail to teach teachers on how to successfully implement this technology into their instruction. Principal Don Weatherby states, "Change doesn't happen in a school simply because you install new equipment." Funding needs to be made in appropriate measures, and discussions between administrations need to include the teachers! Teachers are the ones in charge of their students, and they know what's best. A bad example of how this was done in my district, was the installation of Smartboards a few years ago. Luckily I was in my room when the installation process began, because I was able to explain where I wanted the wall port in relation to my desk. Other teachers were unfortunately not in their rooms when the installation process began, and they had to completely rearrange their rooms so that the technology would work the way it was made. Frustrating!! Are we supposed to live in our rooms, so that changes are not made to completely reuine the flow of our days?
2 comments:
I swear, sometimes I wish that we had aids to help us! Great points you make here. I'm thinking that we need to get paid more. LOL. You are so right about it being important to not reinvent the wheel and to work smarter and not harder.
I have found that I am so much more open to learning new technology, just from taking this class. I will no longer need to be dragged kicking and screaming to learn about new technology. It is so important.
I think that it is so funny (not ha ha but interesting) that we picked out the same main idea from Rosemary Shaw's article. You must be a tech wizard too! Aren't we all after this class?
Today's readings struck me as sort of cumulative. I think Dr. Christie wanted to nail down the importance of tech integration into our classrooms. We get it, we get it! It's unfortunate that many administrators / politicians don't. I believe there is more of a trickle down effect lacking here rather than a trickle up.
Anyhow, I suppose if each teacher advocates technology improvements for themselves, eventually we'll have a riot on our hands or a shift in education. Either way, it will be exciting, huh? Ya gotta start somewhere! Good luck in your class this year and here at ASU.
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