The past 10 years
have seen a surge in student-centered learning, and the integration of
technology into the classroom makes it increasingly easy to create engaging
lessons that reach a variety of learners in a variety of ways.
- Education Now Happens in Classrooms Without Walls
Teachers can continue to communicate and teach outside the classroom.
This means that
teachers have to be increasingly more communicative, more plugged into the
community in which they teach or live, and be willing to showcase connections
between the classroom and the world around the students.
- Textbooks
May Be Obsolete
Thanks to technology,
many schools are no longer ordering or relying on traditional textbooks.
Instead, it is up to teachers to sift through the content on the internet, or
on education websites, to find real world materials that showcase the content
being taught in the classroom. Teachers can no longer
rely on reading a chapter and then answering the textbook questions.
Instead, technology is encouraging educators to become more proactive in find
reading materials that are authentic and relevant, and engage students on a
deeper level.
- Technology
Makes it Easy to Flip Classrooms
Instead of teaching
the content and then assigning homework, technology enables teachers to provide
instructional materials (presentations, recorded lectures, PowerPoints or
presentations, YouTube videos, etc) for the students to peruse on their own
time and at their own pace. This means that teachers then become guides and
resources for the practice work – classwork now that used to be homework –
showing the students how to best use the information they took in. The
function of the teacher is no longer to impart information, but to guide students
in making the best use of the information they read and learn.
- Collaboration is Increasing: MathsRepublic is a Leader
Teachers no longer
need to teach in a vacuum! Teachers can collaborate
across content areas, grade levels, even across geographical distances.
Teachers can communicate with one another to make cross-curricular experiences
that will solidify student learning and find experiences that will help their
students in real-world situations. It also means that they can give their
students opportunities to learn from others in both similar and different life
situations, cultures, and locations. Teachers become facilitators for
students’ experiences.
- Learning
Can Be More Personalized
Technology makes it
easy for teachers to tweak lessons and materials to each individual student’s’
needs and interests. With technology, a teacher is responsible for differentiating his or her
lessons so that every student receives the greatest depth and breadth of
understanding.
- Teachers
Can Give More Meaningful Feedback
Teachers can now measure individual student learning
through communication and the near-constant feedback of computers.
- Classroom
Management Strategies are Shifting
With technology,
students always have the opportunity to be engaged, even when a teacher needs
to deal with one individual student. In the past, if a teacher needed to stop
class to address a student behavior, everyone else had to wait until the
teacher had returned to the task at hand to move forward. Now, forward progress
continues, regardless of to whom the teacher is speaking or why. But more than
that, technology can impact how classrooms are managed. From planning to
engaging to monitoring, teachers can use apps and technology to make sure that
students are on task and engaged, thus reducing misbehaviors.
Technology is here to
stay. And even though it presents its own unique array of challenges, it pushes
teachers to stay creative, to meet students on their home field, and to
innovate. From the information taught to the method of delivery to managing the
students’ behavior and achievement, technology helps teachers make the most of
class-time.
