Case Building- Reviewing the Cases-Teacher S on Elementary Space Science.
Jan 29th, 2010 by Bev
This group of videos included an interview with a teacher who uses a great deal of technology in her multi-cultural grade 6/7 class, an interview with a group of students about their space science project, a new teacher and a retiring teacher. The classroom teacher reported that she had many students who’s first language was not English. She reported that the technology leveled the playing field for the students as no matter what their first language they were all tech savvy. She spoke about the different ways they used technology for math and science including research, doing a math rap (video?), and some type of math book. One issue that stands out for me here is assessment. Although she talks about the different things they are doing, she never addresses assessment of the learning or of the technology itself. I wonder :
Are they learning anything or just having fun?
Is technology the most appropriate way to learn the concepts?
Is the particular technology they are using the most appropriate technology?
Another issue that I wondered about is she reported many of the students had just come to Canada from countries such as India and Pakistan. Many of these students are coming from education systems that are still very traditional teacher centered institutions. I wonder how well they adjust to this child centered, project based classroom.
The interviews with the students were interesting but did little to convince that they were using the technology to its full capacity. Both interviews with the retiring and the new teacher highlighted the point that teachers need a lot of time and support to integrate technology into their classes