Statement

Completing a puzzle seems insurmountable if only one puzzle piece is provided. My master's program and three years of teaching has solidified my understanding that no single method, style, or ideal by itself produces successful learning. Learning is successful by combining the multitudes of diverse learning styles, teaching methods, and tools. Therefore, stating that my beliefs are more closely related to a specific learning type such as active, constructive, intentional, authentic or cooperative would be erroneous: “[…], learning activities that represent a combination of these characteristics result in even more meaningful learning than the individual characteristics would in isolation” (Jonassen, Howland, Marra, Crismond, 2008).

Technology, however, proves to be a successful learning tool among the various learning styles and instructional methods. Evaluating a specific learning activity that uses technology helps demonstrate the connection among learning theories (Technology Usage Assessment). By itself, technology is just a word, but when incorporated with teaching and learning, technology makes connections in the educational process that provides relevancy, quality, depth, and change. Usage of a Concept Map clearly identifies the relationship among teaching, learning, and technology in graphic representation. This type of graphic organizer helps illustrate that by taking out one piece (or category nodule), the puzzle is not complete.

I believe successful and meaningful learning requires relevancy.

As educators, we should never hear the question, “Why do we have to learn this?” from our students. We should automatically structure our lessons and activities so they seem relative and worthy to students. When an outsider asks a student why he or she is doing an activity, students should be able to give that individual a clear explanation without resulting to “I don’t know.” This relates to learning where tasks should be “situated in some meaningful real-world” setting (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, Marra, 2003).

Technology provides educators with an automatic tool that helps connect lessons and activities to real-world situations. Students know little to none about society prior to the daily use of technology. For example, having students use Microsoft Excel to maintain a fictitious checkbook for a high school personal finance class gives them a relevant activity that is emphasized with the use of technology. Also, instead of having students merely create planned letterheads and letters in a computer applications class, students should apply those procedures to a business they actually create. The Letterhead Project and rubric demonstrate how students can create their own business of their interest and then use the technology to follow through with creating a letterhead for their business and a sample letter.

I believe quality and depth of teaching provide higher levels of learning.

Too often teachers struggle to cover all curricula in place by a school district. The expression “teach a mile wide and only an inch deep” comes to mind. Students need depth and application in order to successfully apply their knowledge for future use. When “learners integrate their new experiences with their prior knowledge about the world” they can reflect, analyze, and apply information effectively in a new environment (Jonassen et. al. 2003). This Constructive Learning theory gives educators a chance to integrate technology as a depth and application tool with many lessons and units. The Technology Integration Plan demonstrates how a normal grammar lesson in 9th grade English can use technology to deepen student understanding and facilitate the application process. Instead of showing videos to students and having students learn from technology, students can now create the videos and learn with technology. Completing the student corporation project provided a great sense of understanding to this concept. Students were not just merely learning financial vocabulary, but using technology to learn the terms, apply them, and create a project that integrated all those terms through one active learning web site.

I believe change is inevitable and necessary for the quality of learning to improve.

Teaching a lesson for the first time rarely looks exactly like it does when teaching that same lesson for the fourth or fifth time. We adapt, change, and evaluate the original lesson to improve the learning process. Teaching and learning has changed dramatically from the traditional one-room schoolhouse many decades ago. In order to prepare students for society and life, change must be implemented and taught in the educational process. We certainly would not want a doctor to perform heart surgery on us in a room with technology that is over thirty-five years old.

Technology is a tool that is being integrated more and more into the educational system. However, technology is changing so quickly, exceeding Moore’s Law and causing a constant need for training. As Provenzo and Brett state, “If computers are creating a new environment for teaching and learning, then the training of teachers must change as well.” (Provenzo, Brett, 2005). Educators need to learn to communicate and learn how to “speed up the rate of diffusion of innovations.” (Rogers 2003) Evaluating the channels of communication in a school can help by finding holes or gaps that keep educators from adapting to any new innovation. In addition, creating staff development plans and evaluating technology and its use in the district are two small steps to evaluate and increase the rate of adoption of all the new technologies in education.

References

Jonassen, D, Howland, J, Marra, R, & Crismond, D (2008). Meaningful learning with technology. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc..

Jonassen, D, Howland, J, Marra, R, & Moore, J (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc..

Provenzo, E, Brett, A, & McCloskey, G (2005). Computers, curriculum, and cultural change. New Jersey: Lawrence Eribaum Associates, Inc..

Rogers, E (2003). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press.