AS A MANAGER

• provides an environment that "levels the playing field" for students with disabilities and special learning needs.

• provides resources that assist the student in delineating personal educational goals and objectives, benchmarks, and milestones.

• provides student-centered instruction, performance objectives and tasks, educational goals and continuous assessment techniques

• provides extended learning opportunities and parental involvement, through on-line moderating and facilitation, guided research, e-mail, and global collaborations.

• provides more students the opportunity to collaborate, teach peers, facilitate other teachers and professionals, and to understand and utilize the dynamics of collaborative learning processes

• provides opportunities for self-evaluation through critique circles, portfolios, and active participation in building project criteria (rubrics)

• promotes independent learners and self-starters who appreciate their work as authentic and important

• authenticates student assessment and achievement by using information technology resources to identify and address student progress

• gives students more information to enable them to take greater responsibility for their own learning, self-assessment, and progress monitoring through customized reports on student achievement

• assists students in developing a positive orientation about their future.

• "moves from sage on the stage to guide on the side"

• approaches learning with a positive attitude
• fellow explorer and collaborator
• models "best practices"
• proactive commitment to learner progress
• focused encourager -- assists learners in preparing, implementing, and reaching goals & objectives
• constructive observer -- is kind and compassionate, but truthful and constructive in assisting learner to build growth plans for success
• communicates high expectations
• documents benchmarks & shares in the celebration of milestones by observing & encouraging changes in behavior

• active and interactive learner -- shares previous experiences and assists all learners in building connections
• supports -- a resource of wisdom and experience

• provides opportunities that involve technology knowledge and skills and a variety of learning activities that address different learning styles and modalities
• challenges learners to reach higher
• demonstrates reflection and manages debriefing after learner-centered activities 

• provides access to useful knowledge in a timely manner with dynamic interaction between all learners, providing them new ways of working together and new processes for continuous inquiry -- promotes productive interactivity & innovation

• promotes effective communication skills across the curriculum through speaking, listening, reading, writing,  multimedia, & Web-based instruction

• prepares learner for the digital age by instructing in digital literacy skills, research skills, problems and hazards of digital information (biased, bad & distorted) versus rich, timely & powerful information gathering, organizing, categorizing, synthesizing, evaluating, as springboards to productivity

• provides enrichment opportunities for all types of learners who have mastered basic concepts and are ready to advance -- differentiates instruction.

• provides students opportunities to develop in career preparedness or advancement (SCANS) skills

• demonstrates professionalism reflecting ethical behavior and expectations

AS A MODEL

• Models excellent attitude toward learning -- inquisitive researcher (Research Skills)
• Models 6 Pillars of Character (Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Trustworthiness, Fairness, and Good Citizenship)

• Models ethical practices and use of copyright laws

• Modeling the Love of  Life-Long Learning & Exploration

• Modeling a Patience for the natural ebb and flow of life -- relinquish the "Type A" Personality when dealing with technology failures

• Models for students the concepts of being a Quality Producer
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• Models Innovativeness for students --"thinking outside the box" 

AS A MOTIVATOR

• provides feedback and opportunities to enhance student self-assessment, reflection, and improvement in their own learning process

• provides relevancy, school-to-careers connections, global resources, and opportunities for networking with peers and experts

• advances project-based learning to the highest mastery levels using more complex processes

• provides flexibility and more choices in activities that support student achievement as related to the TEKS and TAAS

• provides monitoring and adjustment for individual student needs (Rubrics)

• provides structured, clear, and well planned learning experiences (scaffolding)

• provides effective use of project-based learning and transparent technology with explicit expectations (rubrics) 

Expectancy:    In any classroom, a student has defined for himself  or  herself a belief in the probability of success.  Expectancy carries with it hope or lack of hope, faith in the process of learning or lack of faith in the process of learning, expectancy of fairness or lack of fairness, perception of  internal control or perception of external control.  The definition for expectancy that a student formulates for any given class or any given subject area has the potential of being redefined with the assistance of a master teacher .

Valuing Success is an incentive-based variable.  Success can be valued if it brings the type of recognition the student desires.  It can be a negative incentive if the student feels separated from peers or ostracized in anyway.  A positive valuing of success is derived by satisfaction from previous successful events.  This too, can be a teacher manipulated variable.

The Need to Succeed is an identity-based variable.  A student's need to succeed in a certain classroom depends upon a student's self-image.  A student who sees himself or herself as the "class clown" may not feel the need to succeed in academic endeavors.  A student who identifies with the National Honor Society might then have a strong desire to succeed.  Self-image can be shaped through experiences, peer input, and incentives.  Learned-failure mode can be reversed through teacher-managed "planned success" events.

This Approach-Avoidance Conflict that many students experience with "success" can be resolved through teacher modeling, mentoring, and management of the classroom environment.  By changing any one of the three "formula" components, each of the other components are affected exponentially.  The benefits of appropriate praise, connection to previous learning, monitoring and adjusting, planned success events, and learner-centered curriculum have tremendous potential in motivating every student to succeed.

PROJECT-BASED CURRICULUM 

Role

of Technology

1. A tool which is capable of increasing student motivation for being more receptive, more engaged, and more likely to learn.
2. Promotes cooperation and collaboration among students and trained teachers who can capitalize on individual student talents.
3. Promotes a deeper, richer, and more probing communication between teacher and students, and among students themselves.
4. Promotes more persistence in problem solving among students.
5. Affords more varied and individualized methods of assessment.
6. Provides an effective learning platform for diverse learners with diverse interests, talents and intellegences.
7. Fosters increased and improved oral and written communication.
8. Enables opportunities for more depth of understanding, experiences, and breadth of curriculum offerings.
9. Incorporates increased opportunities for thematic, interdisciplinary explorations and connections to real-world applications.
10. Allows students to develop and integrate hands-on learning with reflection, collection, and authentic assessment.
11. Provides real-world simulations including experiences in professional and career readiness skills
12. Provides contexts for authentic assessment, real-time feedback, tracking and on-going support for improvement

 

SERIOUS CONSIDERATIONS --

THE "DON'Ts" of TECHNOLOGY INFUSION

DEMO LESSON