Performance and Technology in the Classroom

            What is incredibly unique and refreshing about taking a performance and technology-based educational methods course is the focus on maintaining challenging learning environments and for understanding the needs and learning styles of today’s students. This course has taught me how to expand on the traditional methods of teaching to encourage students’ active discovery through direct contact with and performance of language and the inclusion of computer literacy skills. By having electronic portfolios, my peers and I are able to share our own ideas fostering the importance of learning at all levels. As a teacher, my students will also become part of this learning continuum.

            Through this course, I have learned to expand my current palette of skills, tools, concepts, etc. that I can use to create meaningful learning experiences for my students. By incorporating performance into my lessons, students will be able to be more directly involved in their education and take more ownership over language. With the use of technology, students will be able to learn in a medium that they are becoming more and more reliant on for communication and information. They will have the opportunity to explore the different ways of communicating and using technology and can add this sort of communication into their codeswitching portfolio. Performance and technology help to encourage the development of critical thinking and problem solving in fresh and exciting ways.

            Through activities like webquests, illuminated sonnets, and stage and screen analysis and production, students will have great opportunities for learning and growing. By incorporating novels such as How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff, for example, which deals with the societal and personal implications of a third world war, students will have the opportunity to explore current events and developments in the world outside the school and how they have the potential to impact their own society, peers, teachers, families, etc. I have learned the importance of standing up for the teaching of literature, film, plays, etc., and will work to weigh the questionable content, if it is important to the development of young people. I feel that as educators, we should be constantly challenging and questioning ourselves with the hope to constantly improve the lives of our students and the way they think about the world.