Group items tagged

"Student agency, which we might loosely define as students' ability to influence their own learning, undoubtedly plays a critical role in education. Many schools and districts see the value in it, but it has often been difficult to achieve. Shifting to an approach where each student directs their own learning - rather than the traditional teacher-led approach - does not happen overnight."

"I was approached by a teacher who had never redesigned her lessons to take advantage of edtech's potential to transform learning. She was still stuck in the $1,000 pencil phase of using new tools to do traditional work. When I showed examples of how teachers around the country were challenging students to design and find solutions to their own problems, she immediately saw the benefit of shifting her thinking. The good news was that she was reconsidering her beliefs and was now convinced that she had been underestimating her students. The bad news is, she was afraid of appearing vulnerable in front of her students if something went wrong." It is okay to not know everything about technology. Many times your students know more than you do...and that is okay!

"Managing tablets as learning tools in the classroom is not easy, especially when many kids use them largely as toys outside of school, if they have access to a tablet in their home environment. Kids often come to school and instinctively want to engage with a tablet as a toy, expecting to be free to play the games they want to play and explore the apps they are interested in. To get kids to shift into tablet as learning tool, teachers are finding that instilling fair, reasonable and consistent classroom habits in tablet learning environments is key."

"Innovative educators enjoy using high quality digital programs to support learning where they work, but it does mean their role shifts."