Affordances, Efficiency and Intention Within the Use of Technology in the Mathematics Classroom

Interviewee
Mr. M
Years of Experience: 5 years
Subject Levels: High school mathematics
Current course load: PreCalc 12, PreCalc 11
Interview Date: January 18, 2018.

During the interview activity, I was interested in exploring new roles of technology in the senior mathematics classroom.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. M on his experience employing various technology in the classroom.  Mr. M is 5 years into his teaching career and is an early adopter of many new educational technologies.  The interview was conducted through Google Docs in order to allow Mr. M the flexibility to reflect and answer questions at his convenience.  It was clear from the interview, that Mr. M is comfortable experimenting with new technologies and actively tries to innovate his teaching practice with technology.  Three central themes that arose most frequently during the interview process were affordances, access, and intentionality.

Affordances

Mr. M responded at length the many ways he uses technology and the affordances it offers to his classroom.  “There are many ways that technology enhances learning in my classroom,” Mr. M said,  “I am able to write better on my tablet than on a whiteboard. The use of a tablet also allows for notes to be uploaded online. This allows students to revisit ideas that they may have missed in class.” He also mentions the affordance of asynchronous learning whereby technology “allows for learning to be completed outside of the classroom setting, as students can learn at home through the use of videos or revisiting notes.”  In short, Mr. M summarizes that technology “enhances [his] teaching and makes the knowledge easier to understand” for his students.

Efficiency

Another recurring theme throughout the interview was that of efficiency.  Mr. M’s use of technology was often closely tied to improving the efficiency of learning and communication in the classroom.  For instance, Mr. M uses “a collaboration tool called Slack to allow for text messaging between myself and students. This allows [Mr. M.] to address student questions and concerns almost anywhere at any time.”  Likewise, Mr. M’s students frequently use graphing calculators which “make many calculations and graphing more accessible to students”; additionally “many [students] would have a difficult time if they did not have one.” At Mr. M’s school, many students miss school due to extra-curricular activities.  Technology allows Mr. M to efficiently “send students links to videos that teach various skills in case they miss class or are struggling to understand a topic” Bottom line, technology greases the proverbial wheel and provides more opportunity for students to learn at their own pace.

Intention

Mr. M demonstrates a high degree of intention behind every piece of technology he uses.  He recognizes when technology is appropriate and when it is not.  Mr. Ma avoids using technology for the sake of technology and will use traditional approaches when appropriate.  For instance, “learning how to solve an equation is a skill that is best learned through constant practice [using] pencil and paper… I am unsure if there are better ways to for students to be more proficient at [solving equations] on the computer than by hand.”   Although showing online video instruction instead of direct instruction might employ more technology in the classroom, he argues that instructional videos are “not very good at explaining ideas that would allow students to arrive at a deeper understanding of Mathematics.”  Ultimately, there is a great deal of intention behind every decision he makes concerning technology use.  “I never show a video in front of a class in order to teach a concept. Instead of spending time in class teaching students how to perform different operations on a graphing calculator, I simply direct them to a video instead.”