{"id":4707,"date":"2018-01-24T15:54:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T22:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2018-01-24T15:54:39","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T22:54:39","slug":"depth-accessibility-and-differentiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/01\/24\/depth-accessibility-and-differentiation\/","title":{"rendered":"Depth, Accessibility and Differentiation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Depth, Accessibility and Differentiation<\/strong><\/p>\n

This assignment had me interviewing a colleague name Trina<\/em>. She works in a K-9 school situated in Alberta. Trina has been teaching grade 5 for three years, transitioning from four years of teaching grade 1. The interview was conducted after the school day in an empty classroom in Trina\u2019s school. Trina currently has 23 students and has taught math and science in both grade 1 and grade 5. Her classroom has one-to-one Chromebooks as well as a cart of iPads that can be brought in. While Trina is not responsible for any technology programming school wide, she is well versed in a variety of technologies and runs the school yearbook club.<\/p>\n

In talking with Trina, three main themes came up regarding technology: depth, accessibility and independence.<\/p>\n

Depth<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trina communicated to me that technology facilitates a depth of learning that is far deeper than a textbook and often goes further than what an individual teacher can provide. She remarked, \u201c<\/strong>they [students] have access to all the teachers on the internet that can help explain a concept they are having trouble with.\u201d She also explained that science is her favourite subject to teach because there are online resources that show \u201cwhat I [Trina] am not able to show.\u201d An example of this would be the exchange of electrons with electricity.<\/p>\n

When speaking about students\u2019 today, she remarked that \u201cI think they have a really, really unique experience.\u201d She went on to explain this is because they have close proximity to such an abundance of information, whereas during Trina\u2019s education her learning ended with the worksheet or the textbook.<\/p>\n

Accessibility<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>It came up a couple of times in the interview how accessibility to technology is key, and through that most all known information is then accessible. When comparing the one-to-one Chromebooks with the old days of a computer lab she clearly established \u201cA computer lab is not accessible.\u201d She went further to explain that one-to-one access is essential because it provides them the chance to have a more realistic interaction with the technology. She finds that her students use the technology often, \u201cIf they are reading and find a word they don\u2019t understand, they pull out their Chromebook right there.\u201d Accessibility enables students to not be \u2018left hanging\u2019 if they are wondering about a topic.<\/p>\n

In a conversation with Trina after our interview, she reiterated the fact that having a lab is simply not sufficient in today\u2019s world. Students need to be able to taught how to properly manage instant access to devices.<\/p>\n

Independence<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>In listening through the recording again when transcribing, it jumped out at me how much Trina emphasized the ability of technology to facilitate the creation of independent learners. She went so far as to state that students \u201cneed to learn how to be able to learn, rather than learn specific things we want them to learn.\u201d While she did also mention that the curriculum is important, Trina saw the world as rapidly changing, and was clear that she things the \u2018sage on the stage\u2019 days of learning are dead.<\/p>\n

When analyzing the interview further, Trina seemed to see this independence in a few different ways. Firstly, it gives the students a chance to independently learn about topics of their choosing. They are not restricted to topic in a text or books in a library. Secondly, it allows independent programming (differentiation) when dealing most specifically with math. Thirdly, it allows them to become independent learners. Learning both on their own time, or answering their own questions in class using technology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Depth, Accessibility and Differentiation This assignment had me interviewing a colleague name Trina. She works in a K-9 school situated in Alberta. Trina has been teaching grade 5 for three years, transitioning from four years of teaching grade 1. The interview was conducted after the school day in an empty classroom in Trina\u2019s school. Trina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49876,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669387],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4709,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions\/4709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}