Exploring Ways to Make Technology Inviting for All Students and Teachers
When powerful digital formative assessment tools are woven into professional development, they help teachers reflect on their own learning while giving them the practice and confidence to use these tools in their own classrooms.
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Essential questions provide context for individual understandings or skills. They connect the small to the large, the known to what still must be explored. If designed well and integrated into instruction, they help students think bigger, communicate better, analyze and synthesize what they learn and transfer that knowledge to other subject areas both inside and outside of school.
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As any parent or teacher knows, children learn best when they solve problems on their own. In this week’s module of our class Digital Learning Environments, I chose to look at how ISTE Coaching Standard 3e, which calls for troubleshooting “basic software, hardware, and connectivity problems common in digital learning environments,” could be applied in K-5 elementary Technology and Computer Science classes. In this post I wanted to not only find digital tools that could support this standard, but more importantly, understand best practices for helping students solve problems they encounter when learning to code or use various software or hardware devices.
Continue reading “Building Independent Learners”In the current module of our class Teaching, Learning, and Assessment 2, we are focusing on ISTE Educator Standards 5, “Designer” and 7, “Analyst.” I wanted to investigate how technology can support culturally responsive teaching by giving students alternative ways to share their backgrounds and learning, and by providing access to information and viewpoints that are outside those contained in textbooks and other traditional academic resources.
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