Week 8

Learning Experiences:

This week in class we learned about TPACK and SAMR. TPACK stands for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. This is the framework for how teachers use content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technology integration to enhance their students’ learning. Teachers of course need to know their content and teach this content to their students but they also need knowledge of how their students learn and their levels, as well as use technology to the advantage of their students’ learning. SAMR is the levels of which technology is used in a lesson. At the lower levels Substitution and Augmentation are where technology is used as a tool substitution and there is very little functional improvement. Modification and Redefinition are the upper/deeper levels of technological integration, where technology is used to redefine the task and used to do something with the learning that used to be inconceivable. TPACK and SAMR both go with the NCTCS standard 4. Standard 4 is all about facilitating learning for your students, by understanding how they learn and working with this. Finding ways to teach the material that fits them and using technology to do so. 

Outside Learning:

This week at Washington we actually got to teach a semi-lesson to the students. It was Read Across America week this week, and the teacher wanted us to do the Dr. Seuss activity for Tuesday. We chose the story and came up with an art activity and a learning activity for them to do with the story. We chose One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Our art activity involved them creating fish using their hands and creating a version of the title page of the story. Since the story is mostly all about rhyming we had them do a rhyming activity where they matched up rhyming words. It was a very good experience for us and I really enjoyed it. I just wish we had a little more time to do more with them. But the semester is not over yet.

Future classroom:

Working closer in these classrooms at Washington and actually coming up with activities for the students is, as always, great practice for our future classrooms. Learning about TPACK can help us see how we need to use all the knowledge we have, on the content and the students, and technology together to make learning more meaningful and powerful. Learning SAMR helps us to see what level of technology integration has the most impact on a student’s learning.