Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Integrating Technology into a Math Lesson | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Integrating Technology into a Math Lesson | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:


Integrating Technology into a Math Lesson

“I’m petrified that we’ll apply new technology to old pedagogy,” Professor Elliot Soloway at the University of Michigan said…. “We are not exploiting the affordances of the new technology to give kids new kinds of learn-by-doing activities….What a waste!”
Soloway expresses in vivid language a fixed belief among many high-tech advocates that new technologies such as tablets, smart phones, and similar devices can be used to transform traditional  teacher-centered instruction into progressive, student-centered learning-by-doing lessons . When these devices, however, are used to maintain existing pedagogies, it is a “waste.” Perhaps. Here is a math lesson I saw a few weeks ago. Would you  agree with Professor Soloway?
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In the charter school I visited, the Geometry class of 29 students, mostly Latino with a sprinkling of other minorities and whites, had already begun the  lesson when I arrived. Students sat sitting in seven rows of four