Introducing Teachers to Technology That Serves as Authentic Learning Activities
Introducing Teachers to Technology That Serves as Authentic Learning Activities
In order to solve our problem, lets send teachers to professional conferences in careers related to their content fields. These conferences are usually full of presentations on the real-world content of these careers and, importantly to us as technology facilitators, tech demonstrations of tools that will make whatever their jobs are easier. The idea is that these technologies may be utilized in the classroom in order to emulate authentic learning activities that satisfy our ISTE design standard.
Ensure that participants understand all of the questions before attending the conference. It's important that they be able to identify an effective technology when they see one.
After reviewing the terms and concepts on this page and ISTE Educator Designer standard 5b, the teachers will be able to successfully evaluate whether covered technologies and scenarios at a professional conference in their content area will be applicable in the classroom as opportunities for authentic learning and active deep learning.
Content Standards: Usually specified at the state and sometimes national level, can be found at Louisiana Believes
Authentic Learning Opportunities: Learning taking place either in real world situations or with a focus on real-world application.
Active, Deep Learning: Content mastery gained while simultaneously building a student's overall perseverance.
PICRAT
Passive: Student is witness to knowledge delivery
Interactive: Student interacts with technology in order to utilize it
Create: Student utilizes technology to author some product that demonstrates mastery of a concept.
Replace: Technology replaces something that is already being done in the classroom
Amplify: Technology improves something that is already being done in the classroom
Transform: Technology is a novel use case that provides a new avenue toward achieving some learning objective that was not previously possible.
Hopefully, the main indicator of success here is that participating teachers are preaching the gospel of some transformative educational tool that provides for an authentic learning experience of content standards. This is an additional survey that could be utilized to chart just how successful or unsuccessful the conference was.
Limited success would be teachers only finding authentic learning experience scenarios to implement in their classrooms.
Abject failures would be a misjudged technology being implemented at high cost to the parish, no identified authentic learning activities, or a missed opportunity due to teachers not accurately identifying an effective technology.