Reflection on Appendix A

Journal Entry #5:  Reflection on Appendix A

            Appendix A in Moursund’s text focused on the goals for IT in education, but began by describing the overall goals of education.  The goals of education included acquiring, understanding, and using new knowledge and skills.  This one definition of the goals of education, broken into the three different parts, easily sums up everything we as teachers want our students to be able to do.  All teachers should be creating lessons and activities that help students reach these goals.  Our PBL lessons are supposed to be able to do this, and I hope that I have created mine so that it reaches all three of these goals. 

            Moursund (2003) explains that “the distinction between information and knowledge is important” (p. 88).  This is important for a teacher to remember.  Just because the teacher provides the students with the information does not mean that they truly know the material.  And, even if the students can provide the same information back to the teacher, also does not mean that they truly know the material.  Knowledge comes from processing or using the new information based on existing knowledge.  For example, in my lesson, I may teach the formulas for volume of solid figures, and students may be able to tell me the formulas for the different figures, but they do not have the truly knowledge about volume until they can use the formulas in many different situations to find the volume of solid figures.  Teachers need to create opportunities for their students that allow them to practice and use the information received so that it becomes part of their own knowledge.  Well designed IT-PBL lessons provide students with this type of opportunity.

            The second part of the chapter focused on the IT part of the PBL lesson and the goals for IT in education.  My own opinion, which was also expanded upon in this chapter, is that information technology should be used as a tool to help students learn.  Sometimes teachers use technology just to use technology, and then may end up using in ineffectively.  It is important for teachers to use the technology as a tool for the students, and to make sure that the lesson is better because of the technology.  Of course this takes work and effort on the part of the teacher, but it is so important.  Technology can be an extremely powerful tool if used in the right way.

            The text discussed the idea of what students should learn to do mentally versus using paper and pencil, versus using a calculator or other computer device.  As a math teacher, I find this debate very interesting.  When I was in school teacher’s said that we could not use calculators for certain problems because when you’re in the grocery store, or at dinner, you won’t be carrying around a calculator with you.  However, now with the rise of technology, all cell phones have calculators and are carried with people everywhere!  I still think that students should learn to do basic math without a calculator, because I believe that these basic skills are still needed and help other areas of a student’s mind develop.  However, it is interesting to see how technology will become more readily available (as it already has), and students may have a reasonable point when teachers try to take away calculators. 

            The text also discussed the benefits of computer assisted learning and distance learning because of the rise of technology.  Computer assisted learning is a very interesting concept because it emphasizes that the students learn through the computer.  They do not just receive the information, but they learn.  I work with a computer assisted learning program every day.  It is called MyMathLab, and freshman at Seton Hall take a Developmental Math course using this program if they do not score well enough on their math placement test.  I think that the program is well-designed, but I think that it is not being used in the correct way.  This class puts them in front of the computer and has the computer “teach” them through exercises, examples, videos, etc.  The teacher is in the room with the students and they can ask him or her for help, but the teacher does not “instruct” the class.  For a highly motivated individual, this method may work well.  However, many of the students in this remedial class are unmotivated and have struggled with math all of their life.  I have seen first-hand that they find the CAL method frustrating, tiresome, and boring!  They struggle with grasping the concepts, and they basically try to memorize the way the computer solves a problem so that they can do well on the tests and get out of the class.  This goes against the goals of education, and shows how technology has possibly hurt this type of class and student learning.  It all goes back to trying to use technology in an efficient way that will help the students learn.