The Texas STaR Chart mirrors The Long-Range Plan for Technology. Four key areas provide a framework for students, educators, leaders, and infrastructure to help us measure how well we’re progressing with our technology goals.
I believe that all four areas are essential to improving student learning, but today I’d like to explore just one area, Teaching and Learning. The key area of Teaching and Learning is directly related to how students use technology in the classroom. Research, problem-solving, and communication are the skills to promote. All students need access to tools and resources for individualized learning. Traditional teaching methods need to be replaced with learner-centered, authentic experiences where students collaborate and analyze data to solve real-world problems. Web-based lessons align and integrate technology TEKS into content area TEKS.
A teacher can make a big impact on student motivation and achievement by integrating technology into content-area lessons. With most teachers already using the web, email, and word processing for personal use, it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to apply it to lessons. The best way to improve this area is to provide teachers with sample lessons and model implementation. By examining how they use technology in their lives, teachers will begin to envision some real-world projects for their students to experience.
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I really like how you mentioned that with the use of technology, teachers can impact student motivation. Intrinsic motivation is very important.
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the best way for implementation is by modeling and sample lessons. I feel more educators would use more of technology in their lessons if they were given examples. Real world projects is a great goal!