Week Two Reflection Question #3

I believe educational technology is a vital part of our school systems and is responsible for the increased success of our students’ ability to learn. My synthesized view of teaching, learning, and technology is as follows. How teachers’ approach passing knowledge to their students should be focused on the individual student’s ability to process information based on his/her personal filters, environmental factors and psychological factors. Different students are able to learn in different environments. For example, one student may need complete silence in order to take an exam while another student may perform better with a light music playing in the background. I believe finding a balance between the two extremes is very important and should be considered and researched for each individual class. I would take a poll from the class to determine the optimal learning environment for those particular students, then I would adjust their classroom environment accordingly.
Psychological factors also play a major role in the student’s ability to learn. The student’s home life may have a strong impact on how the student is able to communicate and receive information; therefore, as a teacher I would talk to the student to see what I could do to help clarify the information for him/her. Every student has a particular learning style, and students fall into three categories: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. For each class, I would hand out a questionnaire to determine the best learning style for each of my students and then try to incorporate those learning styles into my curriculum. Students also have personal filters in place when they walk into the classroom, I believe it is the teacher’s job to respect those filters (cultural, value systems, etc.) and to find a way to still teach the material required.
A teacher’s teaching style should be based on the learning style of the students. I learn visually, but that does not mean I should only teach my students by using visual aides and movies. I need to keep in mind the best way for my students to learn. A teacher can use technology to incorporate all three learning styles into one lesson. For example, the use of the internet in learning. I would use a power point presentation to present information about how plants produce their own food, then I would assign homework for the students. The students would have to go home and watch a video on the internet about how plants make their own food, and then use the internet to research a fact relating to the topic that was not mentioned in the power point presentation in class, and share it with the class the next day. By watching the video the visual students would be able to see how plants make their own food, auditory students would be able to listen to the video when describing each step required for plants to make their own food, and kinesthetic students would be able to actually do some research themselves. Technology is a great tool to use in the classroom and allows the physical boundaries of the classroom to disappear. I believe teaching, learning and technology requires each other to function successfully and efficiently.