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Reflections on your Journey
My Innovative Learning experience has been exciting and fruitful, due both to the supportive, flexible staff and the "choose your own adventure" format of the program. As a person that considers himself more of a learner than a student, the structure worked exceptionally well for me. I was able to embark on a project of my choice, received support from the staff as I needed it, and benefitted from their flexibility as I tended to complete assignments with an eye toward my classroom and the needs of my students rather than the original guidelines of the task. In fact, this is truly the most powerful part of the program. At all times the program worked to supplement and support that work that I was concurrently doing in my own classroom.
Lasting Learning from the Innovative Learning program
My most important takeaways are:
- Technology in the classroom only matters if it's serving the more important goals of Pedagogy and Content
- Teachers much be ever vigilant in teaching Digital Citizenship to students, as the online world is ever changing! Digital Natives are a myth.
- Students learn better (content, agency skills, etc.) when they have the opportunity to be Connected, Effective and Agentic
TPACK
The TPACK framework is close to my heart, because it tackles topics that I have been concerned about before I knew there was a term for it. As a former web developer and a general appreciator of innovative tools, I have always appreciated technology’s ability to help us solve problems that otherwise could not be solved as efficiently or effectively. Clearly those with influence over the world of education share this perspective, and now technology in the classroom is seen as a necessity by some and the next logical step to curriculum improvement by the rest. The only problem is, by and large, technology expectations in the classroom have not been balanced with teacher (and often administrator) support in the best ways to use technology. As a result, public schools have classrooms in which technology exists simply for technology’s sake at least as often as classrooms using technology to allow for organizational or educational purposes that couldn’t be completed as effectively with another, simpler method.
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At my school site, and in the context of the Napa Valley Unified School District that is trying to replicate the New Tech Network model, there is no shortage of drive toward technology use in the classroom, and implementation of innovative teaching strategies (assuming the reader considers Project Based Learning be innovative). The problem, of course, is that strategies for connecting all the newfangled technology to content are largely lacking. Additionally, examples of technology use to complete tasks that would be more pedagogically effective are not hard to find. The use of technology simply for technology's sake, or innovative strategies without a firm connection to a content goal, are frequently occurring. The topics of “technology” and “innovative” coexist in the same sentences so frequently that it’s easy to assume that “technology = innovative,” especially if one is at a school site where new curriculum development expectations do not come with consistently clear explanations of the “why.” While I try to keep my teaching choices informed, however, I can't say that I am free of these problems.
The TPACK model, simply put, is a tech-in-the-classroom model pretty specifically designed to address this problem. With each individual component, (Technology, Pedagogy and Content), I feel like my class manages at a fairly high level of success for a 3rd year teacher. I feel pretty confident in each one individually. I also feel confident in the Technology-Content and Pedagogy-Content spheres, since I make a concerted effort to make sure that every strategy or tool I use is the most appropriate strategy/tool for the Content goal. When it comes to incorporating all parts in concert, I do sometimes struggle. After reflecting upon my practice last year, I found that I will prioritize my student's "getting through" the Content portion sometimes to the exclusion of the others. Of course, this resulted in decreased development in Content knowledge despite my prioritization, so I find myself trying pretty hard to avoid those issues. Of course, as a result, my lessons tend to take a bit longer as I let the pedagogical strategies do their work. This seems to have worked well with my students’ learning outcomes, but it’s hard to point to a single factor when explaining overall student performance.
Coverage of the TPACK model seems like it would be well situated for staff meeting Professional Development, and at the schools that are impressing the need for technology innovation on their teachers it seems like a terrific (and likely imperative) use of staff time. My next steps are to connect with the administration at my school site and see if I can utilize staff meeting time for a refresher with TPACK.
Coverage of the TPACK model seems like it would be well situated for staff meeting Professional Development, and at the schools that are impressing the need for technology innovation on their teachers it seems like a terrific (and likely imperative) use of staff time. My next steps are to connect with the administration at my school site and see if I can utilize staff meeting time for a refresher with TPACK.