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Monday, May 10, 2010
8845 MOD 5 Blog
Assumptions
The assumptions that educators have a positive attitude toward experimenting with new technologies in the workplace and that there exist educators who have low self-efficacy in experimenting with new technologies are safe in my school district. The phenomenon where a teacher has an interactive whiteboard in his/her classroom but underutilizes it is an all too common happenstance therein. The following is a description of a case where I intervened.
The mathematics teacher was deeply ensconced in the traditional ethic of ‘drill for skill.’ His only use of the whiteboard was to link to TeacherTube. The selections never seemed to mesh with the ‘drill for skill’ content, audio and video was always poor, he did not know how to maximize the image, and the class would inevitably and quickly lose interest. I had no choice but to talk to the teacher.
In retrospect, without familiarity with Keller’s ARCS model at the time, my initiatives reflected all its elements. My first move was to engage the teacher in his room during his free prep period (I had his Attention). As per our assumptions, he was a willing experimenter with low self-efficacy in the use of whiteboard technology.
During the first session we talked about the importance of exploiting the potential of the technology for purposes of effective teaching and learning (I made the technology Relevant). Subsequent sessions had the teacher practice with hands-on functioning. Technology-based lessons were modeled (we built Confidence). Finally, he taught a technology-based lesson to his classes (Satisfaction was realized).
While many things can be assumed regarding technology in education, many others cannot. One such thing that cannot be assumed is that technology in the classroom is an automatic cause for learning. To those that would make the assumption, I direct them to the first three letters in the word.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
The assumptions that educators have a positive attitude toward experimenting with new technologies in the workplace and that there exist educators who have low self-efficacy in experimenting with new technologies are safe in my school district. The phenomenon where a teacher has an interactive whiteboard in his/her classroom but underutilizes it is an all too common happenstance therein. The following is a description of a case where I intervened.
The mathematics teacher was deeply ensconced in the traditional ethic of ‘drill for skill.’ His only use of the whiteboard was to link to TeacherTube. The selections never seemed to mesh with the ‘drill for skill’ content, audio and video was always poor, he did not know how to maximize the image, and the class would inevitably and quickly lose interest. I had no choice but to talk to the teacher.
In retrospect, without familiarity with Keller’s ARCS model at the time, my initiatives reflected all its elements. My first move was to engage the teacher in his room during his free prep period (I had his Attention). As per our assumptions, he was a willing experimenter with low self-efficacy in the use of whiteboard technology.
During the first session we talked about the importance of exploiting the potential of the technology for purposes of effective teaching and learning (I made the technology Relevant). Subsequent sessions had the teacher practice with hands-on functioning. Technology-based lessons were modeled (we built Confidence). Finally, he taught a technology-based lesson to his classes (Satisfaction was realized).
While many things can be assumed regarding technology in education, many others cannot. One such thing that cannot be assumed is that technology in the classroom is an automatic cause for learning. To those that would make the assumption, I direct them to the first three letters in the word.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
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