Best Practices for Technology Integration
What are best practices?
Choose technology that aligns with your teaching goals
Before introducing any technology into your classroom, think about what you want to achieve and how the technology will support those goals.
Integrate technology seamlessly into your lesson plans
Technology should be used to supplement, rather than replace, traditional teaching methods. Consider how the technology will fit into your existing lesson plans and how you can use it to enhance student learning.
Provide clear instructions and support
Make sure that students understand how to use the technology and have access to the resources they need to succeed. Consider offering training sessions or setting up a tech support system to help students who are struggling.
Monitor and assess student progress
Use technology to track student progress and provide feedback on their learning. This can help you identify areas where students need additional support, and can help you adjust your teaching strategies accordingly.
Do as I Say…AND as I Do
Practice what you preach. Professors, trainers and professional development specialists should take a lesson from a teacher’s handbook and design learning to mirror the way teachers are expected to teach. Forcing teachers to sit, listen and take notes during professional development while the sage on the stage talks at them is completely opposite of what’s expected daily of them in their classroom with their own learners. Just as kids will instinctually mimic what they see and hear, so will teachers. If we want to break the cycle of the traditional lecture, we have to break the mold on how teaching and learning is modeled when teachers are put in the position of students.
Questions to Consider
Will This Technology Expand Student-To-Student Communication and/or Collaboration?
Research continues to underscore the importance of discourse in student learning. When students can communicate with others about their ideas, their understanding deepens. Luckily, new technologies offer far more avenues for classroom communication than we’ve ever had before. Students can use their devices for digital writing and editing, composing photos or videos, or responding to polls. Unfortunately, the way we leverage technology in classrooms doesn’t always spark communication between students. In fact, sometimes it even blocks communication
Will This Technology Expand Possibilities For Student Choice and Creation?
By expanding students’ access to new technologies, you can open up learning possibilities that were previously unavailable. Now, digital technologies expand the topics that our students can investigate and allow them to share knowledge through multimodal compositions. However, in many classrooms, we’re integrating technology in ways that narrow students’ options for engaging and participating rather than widening opportunities for student choice.
Will This Technology Enhance Assessment?
New technologies can offer us access to incredible amounts of data about our students. Ideally, we can use this seemingly infinite information about our students to adapt our teaching to better meet their needs.
Will This Technology Offer Opportunities for Critical Thinking or Problem Solving?
Reflection activities provide students with opportunities to track their learning and demonstrate their progress throughout the semester.
Peer review activities enable students to demonstrate communication skills by giving feedback on each other’s work, expose students to alternative perspectives, and allow students to question what they are reading.
Discussion forums allow students to communicate with their peers, answer questions that require them to demonstrate both lower-level and higher-level critical thinking skills, and analyze course content.