Teaching with Technology

My Teaching with Technology Philosophy

I believe that learning is a two-way street. In both directions, there are cars traveling to distinct destinations. Road signs are well placed to instruct these vehicles as to how they should navigate successfully and arrive at their final end points. Metaphorically, the cars represent the students seeking directions and the road signs are the teachers guiding them. In any series of well-planned activities there will be unpredictable moments as a result of unforeseen variables. Teachers and students must be flexible and collaborate in traditional and non-traditional learning environments to achieve deep learning as they acquire logical outcomes through research and analysis.

The Teacher’s Role

Think of yourself as the sun having other heavenly bodies revolving around it. It is your light that shines and provides warmth to the planets circling within their separate frequencies around you. Our students come from many differing cultures with various beliefs and learning styles. Our goal is to engage students and meet there needs using various pedagogical and methodological approaches. Therefore, we must as faculty facilitate technology integration into our classrooms to enhance student learning. The availability of blogs, online tutorials, reflection journals, web-based articles, research journals, databases and other new technologies presents unlimited pathways to move students to advanced levels of creative and critical thinking. Keeping them warm is keeping them engaged!

The Student’s Role

It would be wonderful if all students were self-motivated, however, more than likely there will always be de-motivated individuals.  As teachers we must assist students in finding areas of learning that they are passionate about. This may require one to one conversation and personal assistance. Once students reach a comfort zone they will desire to work on their own, seeking some feedback from the instructor from time to time. Students must learn to develop a level of confidence that will allow them to freely ask questions. We must assist students in the process of constantly building their self-efficacy. Students must take responsibility to explore independently and in group learning experiences outside of the classroom. Also they must acquire good time-management skills as an important practice of the learner’s success. Participants must complete assigned tasks outside of the classroom and be prepared to present questions of inquiry that can help students to learn more deeply.

The Finale!

Finally, I believe that teachers and students collaboratively learn more deeply through technology integration in the classroom.  Technology brings raised levels of expectation, vigor and excitement to the learning environment. Students are highly motivated to independently complete projects that possess a commercial quality. Students learn as they build on existing data and gain proficiency in their current skill sets. Through meta-cognitive research and observational research methods we can see how teaching with technology can greatly enhance student learning in the classroom.  

Teddy Ferguson, Educator