Many teachers resist being taught to use technology.

 If we say that school is a learning community, then teachers are learners too. For the teachers also the space to differentiate (Teachings in education, 2017) their own learning is required. Teachers, being implementers of curriculum require an autonomy to decide for themselves strategies that they can utilize in the best manner to teach their students.

Granted that there ought to be some pressure to grow out of comfort zones, however to insist that everyone uses technology in the same way is to insult the space of autonomy, for teachers are human beings and not computers running on a software.

As (Prensky, 2008) says, “The teacher’s role should not be a technological one, but an intellectual one – to provide the students with context, quality assurance, and individualized help. (Of course, those teachers who love technology are free to learn and use it.)” In that the teacher may or may not use technology, depending on the situation. The teacher’s real role would be to develop or design a task to stimulate the thinking of the students.

I always believed in empowering the students with self-study and tried textbook based work when I was teaching in the national curriculum schools in India. However, it never worked very well. Textbook as a tool did not attract attention of the students. “One reason that the pedagogy of students teaching themselves never caught on as the mainstream approach – although it has been advocated by many, certainly since Dewey and probably since Socrates – is that the available tools for learners to use just were not good enough”.

However, today we have enough technology tools to use to create a learning environment that is learner led. The tool I used was open source material readily used online. This is because of the situation that I was in. I taught IGCSE Maths, where the school had free Wi-Fi and each student and teacher had a laptop. The school gave me the space to discover my own personal style of integrating technology in the lessons. I used this space to develop Maths lessons that were primarily self-paced within a broad structure.

I had a system that ran perfectly with the following steps:

1.     Email to students a task sheet with all instructions, weblinks and reference to text book. A rubric with time lines was handed too.

2.     Help them to organize themselves into groups.

3.     Students wold work with their peers to learn the content and solve problems.

4.     I would be called upon only if they required.

5.     The students would wind up the work and move to assessment at their own pace.

6.     A buffer day was given to those who required.

7.     In the end we gave each other our reflections to improve the system continuously.

I discovered the following:

1.     To come to such a program, you require a good base of relationship with students.

2.     As a teacher I had to be a meticulous planner and organizer.

3.     As a mentor I had to guide students who were not very well organized in managing their material.

4.     Overall, the students loved the classes, as one of them said during a lesson on Percentages, “Now, I am learning the concept properly!” (% and self-study using IT, 2019)

While such lessons went with my nature of going with a flexible flow, when I was asked to use a smart-board by the head of department, I was quite paralysed. I found the rigid structure of a smart-board with the content already inputted very off putting and I avoided it at all cost. I was very hands on with open-source content and playing around with it to suit the learners’ needs. Being learner centric, I preferred to be able to tweak the content.

But my colleague was excellent with a smart board led class and created many successful learner centric lessons using the same. We were different, but our end goals were same. I used a blended program with many strategies, while she preferred few structured programs.

“…technology’s role – and its only role – should be to support students teaching themselves (with, of course, their teachers’ guidance.)” (Prensky, 2008)

 

References:

1.     % and self-study using IT. (2019, September 12). Retrieved from https://humanemaths.blogspot.com/2019/09/and-self-study-using-it.html.

2.     Prensky, M. (2008). The Role of Technology in teaching and the classroom.  Educational Technology. Retrieved from http://marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Role_of_Technology-ET-11-12-08.pdf

3.     Teachings in Education. (2017). Differentiated instruction: Why, how, and examples. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BVvImZcnkw (5:30)