Week 2: Definitions of Learning and Technology

 This week, through reading articles on wikipedia and watching the video slide presentations, the definitions of learning and technology stood out to me. I evaluated my current understanding of these terms. I tried to critically appraise the articles I read about these terms as well. Here are my thoughts:

Learning:

Last summer I read the book "Understanding by Design". This book is about the strategy of backwards design. This strategy basically asserts that a teacher, when developing a unit of study, should start with the end. A teacher should create the assessment and then develop the lessons and learning activities around the assessment. Studying this book greatly improved my teaching. After watching the second part of your video I remembered something I read in the book. You cited that empathy is the highest level of learning. I went back to the "Understanding by Design" book and found a sample rubric. This rubric had 5 levels of understanding, empathy being the highest. As a history teacher, facilitating learning activities for students where they can see events through the eyes of different perspectives is one of the most important activities these students can experience, which will hopefully lead them to be able to empathize with people from history. Like Father Guido I agree that we forget so much of what we learn, but if we can actually achieve the level of empathy I believe this greatly improves our chances of retaining what we learned!

Technology:

Sam Smith is my classroom next door neighbor at my school. He is a Spanish teacher and he is fantastic! He recently finished this program so when I was accepted I wanted to talk to him about some of the ways he has changed his teaching because of this program. I was a little surprised by his answer. I was expecting him to tell me about some amazing new computer program, or a new SMART board, or basically something that had to do with what I envisioned technology being. Instead, he told me about his approach to self-paced learning. This strategy did not need computers, or SMART boards, or anything along those lines. I then thought about my definition of technology and what I taught about technology in my own history classes. Technology is an application or advancement in knowledge. It doesn't have to involve computers, although a lot of instructional technology today does because of the great opportunities computers and software bring to the classroom. I liked your examples of the chalk board and the felt board as technological advancements in instruction. As I look to apply technology in my instruction I plan to evaluate whether the technology is for the benefit of instruction or whether I am using the technology for show.