Week One:
Lead by Example
As an introduction to Social Studies Methods, Dr. Smirnova showed a compelling video on the need for digital teachers, for the purpose of preparing the twenty-first century’s digital learners and producers.
When she posed the question as to why the percentage of teachers utilizing technology was so low, I was drawn back to Orientation to Teaching when we were taught the importance of a pre-teacher service program, the importance being to learn research-supported teaching strategies as opposed to just those we experienced as students for over a decade.
The excerpt above explains this very reality. Lortie describes that teachers assuming the methods of their previous teachers has led to an “endurance of traditional teaching practice” as opposed to the adoption of new research supported methods. Personally, I attended a poor, private school that did not have a lot of access to technology (or certified teachers). As a result, prior to college, I did not see my teachers using technology in the classroom and for the most part was taught in alignment with the behavioral model of instruction. Without a pre-service teacher program, I probably would have elected to teach in much the same way, unaware of other possibilities.
Thus, as a part of our pre-service program, many of the education professors, including Dr. Smirnova, structure their classroom so as to model for us what they would like us to do in our future classrooms.
Thank you for reading,
Works Cited
Kennedy, M.M. (1999). The role of pre-service education. In Darling-Hammond, L. and Sykes, G. Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of teaching and policy (p. 55). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Nesbitt, B. (2007, November 28). A Vision of K-12 Students Today. Retrieved January 27, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8
Saskatchewan Education. Instructional Approaches: A Framework for Professional Practice. Regina, SK: Saskatchewan Education.
Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. (2012, April 4). Retrieved January 28, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BX2ynEqLL4&feature=youtu.be
