Tag Archives: teaching
Vulnerability in Teaching & Leading
I think teachers and leaders have trouble with vulnerability. Traditionally, these roles are supposed to have all the answers. However, embracing humility and vulnerability is probably more honest and even more productive in both teaching and leading. A vulnerable stance … Continue reading
One Way to Improve Your Teaching
Sometimes I am asked what is the most important part of teaching effectively or what is the one thing that I’d recommend for people to try. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the question can be answered. There is no single thing … Continue reading
4 Strategies to Ask Better Questions
One of the things I focus on when teaching teachers is the role of questions in teaching. To raise the expected level of thinking, the kinds of questions we ask matter. When I ask, “Does anyone know …?”, students can … Continue reading
Teaching is Design: Material Constraints
Before beginning their official designs, engineers and designers have to further understand the context in which they are designing. Part of this context are the material constraints. That is, how do the properties and cost of available materials create barriers or inherent … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Education Reform
Tagged constraints, Design, instructional materials, nature of technology, teaching
2 Comments
Teaching is Design: End User
Once we know the outcomes of our design, we need to consider for whom we design? The best designed products clearly considered the end user in the design process. When a product is designed for the end user, the user … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Learning, Nature of Learning
Tagged Design, education, Learning, learning theory, students, teaching
2 Comments
Teaching is Designing
Teaching is designing. If we take John Spencer’s design cycle as a starting point, consider how teachers demonstrate awareness, inquiry, research, ideation, planning, prototyping, testing and revising, and launching/marketing. For example, when a teacher is working on creating a new problem-based … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Nature of technology, teacher education, Technology Education
Tagged Design, engineering, teaching
4 Comments
Teachers’ Beliefs and Technology
Teachers’ beliefs have always played an important role in classrooms (Fang, 1996; Haney et al., 1996; Nespor, 1987). Chen (2006, p. v) confirms this trend related to educational technology implementation: Teachers with more constructivist beliefs made efforts to allocate time … Continue reading
The Limited Nature of Technology (part 2)
Not only is technology limited in its ability to solve deep problems, technology may actually limit both teacher and students in profound ways. Specifically, technology may limit students thinking and inhibit teachers’ ability to understand student thinking. Technology can effectively … Continue reading
Creation of what?
When we talk about the use of technology in schools we often note how the technology can be leveraged to increase students’ level of thinking. Bloom’s taxonomy placed “creating” (used to be synthesis) near the top of the “thinking pyramid”. … Continue reading
Teaching as Dynamic 