Reflection #1

Reflection on Reigeluth & Postman articles.

            Reigeluth’s article Beyond Technology Integration: The Case for Technology Transformation calls for an upgrade our educational system from one that meets the needs of the industrial age to one that better aligns with the information age we live in. Table-1 identifies aspects of each era and provide comparisons that I believe really helps bring Reigeluth’s main point home and helps readers see immediately why his article is relevant. As the title suggest Reigeluth’s believes and I agree that advances in technology are not being used to their fullest potential; instead of incorporating technology into education we should instead allow it to transform education as it has transformed society.
            Beyond Technology Integration provides a few suggestions for achieving this transformation that I support and already have used or want to use in my own practice. One of those being the “shift from decontextualized learning to authentic tasks” , I try to do this as much as I can and I feel bad when I don’t. My Precalculus recently learned a unit on systems of equations which I introduced using a series of problems that involved a tiny bit of Physics but nothing outside of knowing the relationships between distance, rate, and time and knowing how rates are affected by opposite forces (i.e. swimming against a current, walking wrong way up an escalator, etc.). Most of my students responded as desired but there was still about a quarter of the class that was resistant to these authentic tasks and just wanted to be given “the formula/rule”. As a new teacher students tend to question my decisions more so than I believe they question more experienced teachers. Even on the first day I had a student raise her hand and ask “Why are we learning physics in a math class?” I’m usually not good with responses to questions like this on my feet but I told her “We aren’t learning physics, we are using physics to learn how to solve systems of equations”. I’m wondering how we can get students to realize that authentic tasks are generally better for their learning than decontextualized and compartmentalized tasks? I tend to see a lot of resistance against them.
            Yet another suggestion from Reigeluth’s article was that of moving away from a report card to an inventory of attainments, we as individual teachers have no control over this however we can find better systems to evaluate students that aren’t singular letter or number grades but rather specific to exactly what students know and don’t know. If I had it my way students would receive feedback but never get grades until the end of a course (if then). Reigeluth raises the important question that is on the back of all educators minds when we are attend professional developments and read articles like this “How can a teacher help 30+ kids learn different things at different rates in different ways while using authentic tasks?” however I felt his response to this question was vague and rather optimistic. As a side note I’m also wondering how does one act as a “guide on the side” without crossing the line of being a tutor to every single student?
            Postman’s article Of Luddites, Learning, and Life presented another way to view technology as an educator, instead of it being the transformational force that Reigeluth speaks of, it is instead an arbitrary feature of our society. We can use it, but it isn’t a necessity and it isn’t going to solve some of the fundamental issues we face as teachers nor will technology solve some of the heavier issues the world is facing. Postman refers to a story about buying a new car which I enjoyed and thought was a solid example of both technology’s tendency to replace options instead of providing additional options and as well as the buzz-word / fan-boy type of attention that technology receives when often we don’t think about whether technologies are helping us or just making small aspects of life easier (there is a difference). If producers were to ask themselves this during stage 1 of development more time could be devoted to developing technologies that solve existing problems. Overall Postman seems to be saying that technology while great is not the universal solution as it is often hyped up to be.
            I don’t think that the articles provide conflicting views of technology, I think that each author looked at different sets of possibilities. Reigeluth wanted readers to see how technology can help us better achieve our goals as educators and improve learning overall, he never claimed that technology was going to end world hunger and make all students learn because he seemed to be focused on how technology can improve learning regardless of all of the other issues we face as teachers. I think if Postman were to see Reigeluth’s Table-1 and look at the achievement gaps that exist both within our country and between us and other countries he might add a section about technology as a possible solution to closing achievement gaps.