Technology in the Classroom

In Response to Teachers’ Views of Computers as Catalysts for Changes in Their Teaching Practice
by Sara L. Dexter, Ronald E. Anderson, and Henry Jay Becker

Is technology the huge catalyst for change in education that it has been painted out to be? I believe that it is not the only factor, but has indeed been a major influence on the learning process. We can’t deny that knowledge has a whole new meaning. Technology has changed the world, but has it changed the classroom? At this point most changes are small and inconsistent. If we want the classrooms to change, we have to look at teachers as the catalyst for change. If teachers aren’t aware of or are unfamiliar with the technology available, they will not be able to implement it in their classrooms.

Teachers come into schools that have established a set of norms for their teaching. They may be handed a curriculum, and will certainly be required to teach to the Oregon Standards. There is still plenty of room for teachers to choose how they want to teach and effective teachers will make use of all the tools that are available. They can adapt their lessons over time until they find a successful method. Even once they have fine-tuned their lessons, they should be ready to make changes with the times. When new research leads to a better understanding of the way students learn and new technology changes the way we think about knowledge, teachers should not be afraid to try out new teaching styles.

Technology should be used to provide active learning opportunities for students. Teachers need to know what technology is available and how to best implement the technology in their lessons. As a teacher I will embrace the technology already existing in my school and try to research new programs and technology that will challenge my students to make learning discoveries.

In class students always ask the question “Why are we learning this? I need to ask myself the same question, each and every day that I teach. What will my students do with the information I am teaching? It doesn’t matter how well a student does on an assessment, if the following year they’ve forgotten what they learned the previous. I cannot afford to teach to the test. I can’t only be looking at short-term results, how well my students are learning the material I am teaching. I have to be thinking about how well they are going to retain this information in the future, if they are learning how to solve problems, and how they will build on their knowledge. I have to look towards the future and ask myself where my students will be when they graduate high school, not simply if they are going to pass my next test.

On every test I would like to ask my students the question, “why do you need to know this?” Students should know why concepts are important and how they relate to their life. If they don’t, they will not remember it a month later. If students are unable to answer this question, then I have not been doing my job.

Some learning is straight memorization. But if a student memorizes without a purpose, without knowing why, the brain will throw out the information as “useless” instead of storing it in whatever part of the brain keeps things for later use. I need to help students understand how they take in and process information and how to organize it both internally and externally.

It is not merely technology that is changing the classroom. We are preparing students to enter a different world than we were 10 years ago. We are also discovering more every day about the way the brain works, about how we process information, and about how we learn. All of these changes must work their way into the classroom and it is the teachers who must bring them there.