How Teachers Use Tech in Classrooms—According to Students

To be sure, there is an abundance of resources and tech tools online that teachers can use in the classroom or in computer labs. It’s interesting to ask students how their teachers are putting technologies to use. As you would guess, a variety of answers will most likely be forthcoming. You may hear: “We do all kinds of projects —like videos, animations, podcasts, and radio shows—with our computers and iPads.” “All we do with our laptops is look up sites on the Internet and take notes on paper.” “Some of our teachers let us use our cell phones in their lessons, but most make us keep them in our backpacks or lockers.” “I don’t think that every teacher has to use computers in class.” “Interactive whiteboards are fun in some classes and boring in others.” “I know kids are supposed to know lots about tech, but some teachers expect you to know how to do things you don’t know how to do. They should realize that not everyone uses the same apps or software as they do.” “I like it when we connect to other classes around the world.”  —When you listen to your students, what do you hear and what does it mean?

Are We “Dumbing Down” What We Do With Kids, Teachers, & Computing?

Ask Gary Stager. If you haven’t heard him speak, experienced a workshop with him, or read any of his writing; you’ve missed a dynamic advocate for empowering teachers and students. He tells us that when educational computing transformed itself into educational technology, we turned from letting students attempt the impossible to having them name the parts of a computer. As for teachers, we make them take courses in using iPads, when Stager tells us his “95-year-old grandmother figured it out all by herself.” The words “Computer Literacy”, coined by Arthur Luehrmann, originally referred to using computers to solve problems, not to browse Web sites or practice keyboarding. Gary Stager asks us to use our brains when working the computers and kids and to give our students challenges that have meaning for them. Besides reading Stager’s article Dumbing Down, check out his Website, blog, and his Minds-On Institute for Educators, July 9-12, 2012, in Manchester New Hampshire. The topic of the Institute is Constructing Modern Knowledge and that’s just what you’ll do if you have the chance to attend.

When Teaching Gets Tough

The new ASCD book, When Teaching Gets Tough: Smart Ways to Reclaim Your Game, by Allen Mendler, gives us what so many need: information about how to deal with difficult students, difficult parents, and difficult colleagues while being “expected to get top-notch student achievement without adequate support.” No one except a teacher knows how much patience and time it takes to run a successful classroom. However, every teacher should remember that there will be times when not everyone agrees with how you are teaching, grading, and interacting with students. A growing number of parents today scrutinize everything their children’s teachers do. Instead of working with teachers as a team to help children, some seem to work against what teachers are trying to do. Teachers may also feel underappreciated by administrators and colleagues and don’t feel that they are given the chance to be truly professional. Mendler’s book focuses on encouraging teachers to take care of themselves, to remember the big picture when problems arise, and to put to use crucial self-help advice.  The world of the classroom may not be perfect, but teachers can make the best of imperfect environments and situations.

Help Teachers with 21st Century Teaching Skills

With everything moving so fast in the realm of technology in education, it’s difficult to keep up, let alone be computer-savvy. To help teachers master the tech skills they need, Pearson has teamed with Edvation to create pd21 Professional Development. This is a fast-track program to help teachers improve tech skills by putting to use a library of over “150 project-based technology integration curriculum activities to use with students that support Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts in grades K-12.” There’s a demo of pd21 that you can request to see if this program would be valuable to help, not only with teacher tech skills, but also to speed the adoption and acceptance of technology-integrated curricula in your school or school district.

Think Locally About Ed Tech Needs

Maybe you are thinking about purchasing some of the latest technologies for your school or classroom and decide to look for research on the product or methodology.  Chances are, you won’t find it. With the speed of changes in technology, research can’t possibly keep up. Good research takes time (usually years), and if you wait for it, the ed tech world will move on to new products and ideas before you are able to make a decision about what to purchase.

In order to help school leaders with decisions about educational innovation, Laura Devaney, Managing Editor of eSchool News, in her article How Can Research Inform Ed-Tech Decisions?, offers ideas from Stanford’s Larry Cuban, North Carolina State’s Glenn Kleiman, and Harvard’s Chris Dede. Kleiman suggests that schools follow their own research to find what needs improving and what “approach is the best fit for [their] context.”  According to Dede, if school leaders decide to give all students digital devices, they need to remember, whether there is research or not, that good results probably won’t happen without staff support, staff development, and curricular changes. Cuban suggests that the first question school leaders should ask is: “What is the problem to which an iPad or a laptop is the solution?”

The bottom line seems to be that educators can’t expect to find research to justify purchases of technologies, and that even if they did, they may discover that their local needs don’t fit the research. It’s time to ask the right questions locally before seeking answers and spending money.

Haven’t we been saying that one-size-doesn’t-fit-all in education? That’s what Kleiman says as well.

Teacher Morale at 20-Year Low

The MetLife Survey of THE AMERICAN TEACHER, completed between October and August of 2011, talked to 1000+ teachers K-12 by telephone, to 100+ parents and guardians of students in Grades 3-12 online, and almost 1000 students in Grades 3-12. According to the Executive Summary of the report, only 44% of teachers are satisfied with their job and many feel that their job is not secure. Twenty-nine percent of the teachers interviewed said, “They are very or fairly likely to leave the profession.” Why? Answers given by those in the survey included problems of school budgets; layoffs; larger classes; lack of salary increases along with higher insurance costs; reductions in programs in art, music, foreign language, and physical education; reductions in health services; lack of up-to-date technology; and pessimism about student achievement. In 2008, the MetLife Survey showed that 62% of teachers were satisfied with their jobs. 

Being a Principal Is Not an Easy Job

If you look at school from a principal’s viewpoint, especially those who are relatively new to the job, you might find that putting out “small fires” and sometimes “big fires” take a great deal of their time. Even if principals come to the job with special administrative training, it’s difficult for them to think ahead about curriculum, teaching, and moving forward with technologies when their days are filled up with administrative tasks and problems that cannot be handled by another on the staff. Education Week reports (in Samuel’s Principal Turnover Bodes Poorly for Schools) that many principals (about 20%) leave their job within one to two years and only about 50% are still at their schools after five years even though it takes about three years for principals to “get the lay of the land” at a school in order to make a difference. They leave for a variety of reasons, including the inability to raise test scores quickly.  So what do we need to provide schools with the best principals?  We need to engage educators who will be effective leaders in specialized training for their jobs, we need to encourage principals to continue on at their schools even though the first few years may be difficult, and we need to encourage principals to learn to appreciate the culture within a school and use this knowledge plus collaboration with staff to bring about change.

Education Week also provides a PDF download ($4.95) called Spotlight on Principals, which features nine articles on topics such as training and evaluation, recruiting effective school leaders, secrets of success, and principal turnover.

Bag the Excuses

Consultant Dick Webster starts one of his workshop sessions by having teachers and administrators in the audience use index cards to write a short note about something they’d really like to do but haven’t accomplished. Then, on the back of the cards, he asks them to list why they haven’t made it to their goal. At the end of the session, he has everyone drop their cards into a bag as he instructs them to “bag their excuses” and get moving. Webster, who has been a teacher, headmaster and coach, challenges his audiences to have a positive impact on students in their schools. He motivates educators to rethink what they are doing as they develop confidence in their own abilities and help their students gain the confidence they need to find success in school and beyond. Sometimes, just giving students another chance and letting them know that you have faith in them will spur them on to the right path.

This message is also appropriate for schools and technology in this time of economic crisis.  It’s not easy for us to face cutbacks and stop grumbling about what we need for our classrooms. Do we need to do as Webster would advise, “strengthen our ignition systems” and make a commitment to do the best with what we have—all the while fighting for what we feel we need to help our students?

Rock Enroll

Those of us who have been in education for some time have been through more in-service and professional development sessions than we can remember. Most often, they are forgettable. While some are inspiring and on-target with what will help you and your students, many leave you thinking that you’d rather use the time grading papers or working with your students. You have seen all sorts of ideas designed to promote good teaching. The latest I’ve not seen, but have read about is Teach Like a Rock Star.  It sounds quite interesting. The leader is Hal Bowman, teacher and author, who leads educators in his dynamic sessions to help raise tests scores, motivate individual students, become a classroom leader, build better connections with students, create enthusiasm, become a positive influence in students’ lives, and “tap their own ability to uncover The Rock Star Teacher that lies within.”

21st Century Teaching & Learning Plan

Attention School Leaders: ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and CoSN (Consortium for School Networking) have announced that they will work together to provide the online course: From Vision to Action: The 21^st Century Teaching and Learning Plan.  This will be a collaborative and interactive program in which school leaders will work together using tools such as readings, videos, presentations and application exercises to develop and implement a plan, which will reflect 21^st century teaching and learning. The price for the course is $99.