A specific piece of the puzzle…
As part of a monthly newsletter that a colleague and I send out at school, I decided to be specific to our scenario on how technology can work with other school initiatives. I think we sometimes lose sight of that, so I thought I’d reiterate it in this month’s article.
Technology and the PDI Focus Areas:
By now everyone is well aware of our professional development focus areas: Brain-based Learning, Framework for Teaching and Understanding by Design.
These pillars represent the body of knowledge we call best practices. While technology is not specifically addressed within each of these focus areas, it is not difficult to weave technology integration strategies into these best practices, enriching our district’s professional development initiatives.
Brain-based Learning – With discoveries in neuroscience, many beliefs that teachers held for years concerning how their students learn have been either scientifically reinforced or brought into question. Through the use of various types of digital content, technology can be used as a support for differentiating instruction, realizing one of our goals for learning. The student brains of today are not what they were 15 years ago. Technology can be used to address the latest brain-based findings.
Framework for Teaching – The Danielson model provides a structure to help teachers become more effective in many different areas, including the use of technology. Artifacts such as technology enhanced lessons and products lend themselves well to the Danielson model and the evaluation of teacher effectiveness. Teachers should understand how technology can help them with planning and preparation, creating the classroom environment, and delivering instruction.
Understanding by Design – The effective integration of technology challenges students and teachers to go beyond the surface and dig deeply in order to unearth the enduring understandings of a particular content area. Technology-enhanced project and problem-based learning is particularly well-suited to this model of understanding, and can provide us with alternative assessments to determine whether a student has reached a particular understanding.
Many of our initiatives attempt to foster a constructivist learning environment - one that is learner-centered, interactive, collaborative, focused on inquiry and developing deeper understandings of knowledge. Technology fits best with this style of delivery. It therefore is easy to think of technology working in tandem with school reform issues that endeavor to move teachers toward a more constructivist learning environment.
However, we must be careful not to think of technology as an add-on. It is a powerful tool - one piece of the puzzle, but a very important one.
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