I heard a classroom teacher say, “Do a few Math exercises on the computer and then you can play games for the rest of the period.”
When I heard this, I was shocked. I wanted to scream. This school has very low state math scores and yet the students are going to play non-academic games. I kept track and most students finished the Math in ten minutes so they played for thirty minutes.
It reminded me of a school where every Friday the Special Education students got to play computer games as a reward for working hard the rest of the week. So for working 4/5 days, they got to waste time, a full class period, on the computer. It meant that for 20% of every week, they did not learn. 20% of an 180 school year was 36 days of not learning. I do not know of any student that could miss 36 days of learning and be successful.
Do you use your students’ time effectively when they are using technology? How do you maximize thinking time and minimize hyper-jumping? How do you scaffold the technology-use to help them quickly climb up the thinking levels? How does every minute using technology bring the students closer to being proficient in the standard?
——–

0 Responses to “Teacher Technology Use For Students: On Task or a Waste of Time?”