Transform Pedagogy with Compelling Learning Environments

"Technology should be used by teachers, students and others in the community to develop capacity, to think, interact, share ideas and resources, to focus energy and attention on student learning. Technology has the power to do that in a way we've never been able to do before. Not that we throw out everything we've been doing. Face-to-face interaction is still important. But we’re limited by time and space. Technology frees us to interact with people around the globe."
— Dennis Richards, Superintendent, Falmouth Public Schools, MA

To be an effective technology leader, it is important to understand that reaching all students today requires new methods of teaching and different kinds of learning environments.

"Do something that makes a difference in the classroom" is becoming a call to action nationwide for a number of reasons:

• Higher expectations for all students – not just the easy-to-reach, easy-to-teach students – require teachers to incorporate different pedagogical approaches and strategies into their repertoires.
• Different expectations for all students, including 21st century content and skills, demand more complex and wider-ranging learning opportunities and experiences.
• Years of research into how students learn critical knowledge, concepts and skills make it clear what works. Yet many research-based practices – such as conceptual learning in the content areas, inquiry-based instruction, real-world problem solving and critical thinking, differentiated instruction based on assessed student needs, apprenticeship (in which students learn from experts), constructive learning (in which students create their own knowledge), collaborative learning, and assessment-driven diagnosis and intervention – have yet to be incorporated into pedagogy across the curriculum and at every grade level.
• The allure of engrossing digital tools, entertaining experiences and social networking communities outside of school is making it increasingly difficult for educators to motivate and engage a large majority of students in academic learning with traditional pedagogy.
• Traditional pedagogy and classroom learning environments bear little resemblance to the collaborative, creative, entrepreneurial, technology rich environments students will face when they leave school.

Used comprehensively and effectively, technology can help schools transform pedagogy, support students in acquiring 21st century skills, make learning environments more engaging and relevant, and personalize instruction.

The challenge now is to incorporate technology deliberately into education across the board in ways that augment high-quality, face-to-face instruction with different kinds of interactions – such as student-to-student discussions about their understandings, engaging questions that invoke higher-order thinking and student-led projects outside of school, for example – supported by individual and collaborative technologies, such as wikis and blogs for journaling, writing and reporting; online chats for after-school study groups; video streaming sites for presentations; portable digital devices for sharing multimedia content; and digital probes for observing and measuring scientific phenomenon.