As a newer teacher in the public school arena I have been
using available technologies in my lesson since I began teaching. I have high self-efficacy when it comes to
using technology as I have been taking online classes since 2005. Many teachers I work with who have been in
the building many years hesitate when it comes to technology use. At my school Promethean boards have been
placed in almost every classroom. The
boards are a great way for students to have interactive class sessions. The activote tool allows all students to
participate in question and answer sessions with the click of a button. I often use the promethean board for
formative assessment with this technology.
I have shown other teachers how to actively engage students using this
technology and they shy away from it.
Often I see the Promethean board being used solely as an electronic
whiteboard.
One teacher that I tried to get to use her whiteboard for
an interactive activity got overwhelmed by the “complexity” of the system and
changed her lesson. Simply she felt out
of touch with technology. She has been
teaching twenty plus years and never saw education taking this turn. We have moved so far from just a teacher and
a textbook. I still encourage her to use
different methods to adapt to students needs.
We know so much about learning styles and technology makes it easy to
incorporate various things in a lesson to adapt to many styles all at once. As a teacher we have to stay abreast of our
students’ needs. Keller’s ARCS model,
Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction, gives insight on how teachers
should treat any learning scenario.
There are question under each heading that allow teacher’s to reflect on
how they are going to make sure that each student gets what they need from the
lesson. For example there is a question under
Relevance that asks, “How and
when can I link my instruction to the learning styles and personal interests of
the learners?” This is what
all teachers have to understand when bringing lessons to the
classroom. The sole purpose of teaching
is bringing meaning to students if we don’t cater to their needs we have missed
our purpose.
