Sorry about the late post. It was a little hard for me to find a colleague to interview as I don’t currently work in a school nor with teachers who teach Math, Science or at all, and those I knew who did so aren’t in Canada. But I did manage to get some perspectives from tutors I work with on weekends.
I looked at asking them what they thought about using technologies in Math and Science classrooms, for teaching, for pedagogies, and difficulties.
Interviewee Sam, is a Secondary school teacher, who teaches full time at an International School. She teaches International Students from all over the world English, Math, Science, and Psychology. Below is a short abstract of her answers for each of the concepts I focused on.
Uses
- Do you use technology in your Math and Science classes?
- How do you implement or integrate technology into your classroom?
- What are some new technologies that you would like to start using in your science and math classroom?
Sam found that she used technology in Science class more than she would in Math. She uses technologies like Powerpoint, Videos, Digital Documents, Cameras, and overhead projectors in her classrooms. Very simple and easy to use technologies to simplify uses. However, if given a chance she wouldn’t mind trying any program that would help her demonstrate concepts, for example, the Smartboard.
Different styles
- Do you think that the students do better with the technologies integrated into your lessons?
Sam agrees that technologies do help with learning. It gives the teacher a chance to try different teaching pedagogies and allows her to help students learning in various methods.
Support
- Does your administration support technology integration in your school? Do you feel you need to be an expert to integrate technology into the classroom?
- What are your biggest concerns when using technologies in the classroom to teach Math or Science?
Tech Support is important and crucial to the success of the implementation into classrooms. However, to Sam, though she knows that her school supports the use of technologies, she often thinks it’s a bit over her head. Her greatest concern is her lack of knowledge of the technology and feels that only experts can integrate technologies into the classroom.
Hi Wanyi,
Thank you for your post. What I noticed from reading trough a number of posts is that educators, no matter if they are in traditional schools, tutors, or in businesses struggle with lack of knowledge with respect to technology; how to use it effectively, how to problem-solve when something goes wrong, etc. Many educators feel so far behind before they even start!
I wonder with the focus on incorporating technology, and with educational programs such as MET, whether we will see a decrease in that feeling of “over my head”? I certainly hope so.
Like Natalie and Wanyi have both mentioned, there is a similarity in that most educators feel there is a lack of knowledge and funds to fully implement technology into the classroom. How do teachers overcome this? How do school districts and administration help teachers with this problem? This is a great debate.
I think the lack of knowledge and funds is definitely a problem, and many schools now find different ways to get this funding. I’m not sure about public schools, but during my recent visits to different private schools I work with, I noticed that the schools like to hold different types of fundraisers to raise funds throughout the year. In some cases, the school may even have classes work on solving this lack of funding problem as a class activity, to see if the students can come up with a solution. Technology knowledge wise, I’ve also seen students try new apps or programs as part of their assignments, then sharing what they’ve learned with the class. It seems like most of the private schools I visited, try solving such problems by involving more people, have many people attack the problem together, perhaps in hopes that there is power in numbers? Have your schools seen similar tactics?
It’s interesting to note that this fear of technology is still so prevalent. It’s nice to know, however, that the teacher, in this case, is committed to working with technology because she honestly sees the benefit. My guess would be she is far more proficient than she gives herself credit for as the fact is the spectrum of technical knowledge is very wide. In many instances I find myself feeling like the most tech savvy person in the room and on other days, when I’ve gotten together at Google summits or other events I feel like a novice at best. I believe the most important thing is we continue to commit ourselves to learning and professional development. For some of us this will happen at faster rates depending on the subject matter but we can be confident that we are fulfilling our commitment to be life-long learners,
Hi Ryan,
I can definitely relate to how you feel about feeling like the most tech savvy person than the novice. You are right, the important thing is to continue to learn as we go. There is a Chinese saying “One is never too old to learn.” I guess that’s what we must remember.