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Effective Use of Technology In the Classroom?
postermmxvicom writes "I remember in college I had one professor who, in addition to being a great teacher, really took advantage of the technology in the classroom to illustrate the concepts for Calculus and Linear Algebra. Well, now I am the teacher. I teach Algebra, AP Calculus, and Physics in high school. This year I have gotten a tablet and a wireless projector. Now I can write on my tablet instead of the board, as well as use other applications. I want to utilize this tech effectively for teaching. Would you please share how you have seen technology effectively used for Math and Physics — either specific software or how that software was used (specific or general)?"
It is a interative screen-whiteboard with real-world physics. It's kinda hard to describe without a movie.
If my experience in High School still applies (and maybe it doesn't; it was a long time ago) you're going to turn out the lights to use that fancy gizno and half the class is going straight to sleep, the other half is going to be passing notes and shooting spitwads and paper airplanes around.
I suggest you compliment the technology there with a pair of night-vision goggles or something.
I think a major mistake teachers make is to discover new teaching technology and then invent a curriculum that uses them. This gets the process entirely backwards. If you try this, you're going to sacrifice learning in the interest of playing with your new toys.
... "this would work better if I can use my new gizmo." This is where the technology comes in. First find the problem, then find the solution.
You've got these new tools. That's great. Now forget about them. Design your lessons as you would. As you go, you're going to realize
So, what is the problem with a blackboard? Be precise.
Then, look at whether the technology will solve that/those problem(s). We're talking math here. Is the technology going to allow you to better explain some difficult concepts or will the focus end up being on the technology?
Blackboards work because blackboards always work. They don't need to be rebooted.
One way the tablet is better than a blackboard is that you can save a written copy of your lecture, and make copies available to the students. That way they can spend their time paying attention to the lecture, instead of rushing to copy everything down. This can make the class more interactive.
The PC can be used, in general, to demo the physics and calculus principles through animation. It can be a useful teaching tool, just don't let it replace the hands on activities usually done in the lab portions of the course. Sometimes doing is better than seeing.
PowerPoint is very useful if the person using that tool uses it correctly. Unfortunately, most people use it incorrectly and write down every single thing that they're planning on saying on a slide. If you're going to do that, students will catch on and just think that they can get by with printing off the notes and skipping class because listening to the teacher will not help them understand the material any better. The catch is, they won't understand it at all. Active learning helps people learn and remember facts and concepts way better than passive reading or listening. That's why the best way to use PowerPoint is as a guide or outline to what you're going to talk about. It forces people to use more than one sense to take everything in, and if they want notes on everything important from the lecture, they have to write it down themselves and actually comprehend it in the first place.
If you don't know how you're going to use it to meet your classroom goals, maybe you should be asking yourself why you intend to use it at all.
"Because it's there" doesn't seem like a good reason for introducing technology into the classroom.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I have two suggestions. (a) if there are things that you find tedious (e.g. marking) or difficult (e.g. sketches, if you aren't a good artist), look for technological solutions to those so that you can devote your time and energy to more important things and won't get tired and frustrated; (b) don't focus on your new toys. Instead, think about what ideas and skills you have a hard time getting across and ask yourself how you could improve in those areas. Sometimes the answer will be something your toys are good for, maybe a simulation for an experiment you can't readily do, but sometimes it won't be technological. It might just be a better derivation of a theorem or formula or a clever diagram. If you focus too much on your toys, you run the risk of doing things that you, and maybe your students, find cool, but that aren't really of much educational value.
In my university days, I understood a lot of calculus by visualizing an animated sequence (mean value theorem, limits, derivatives...). Animation is a great tool for these things. Same goes for numerical analysis.
Also (from the same days), linear algebra can be (often / sometimes) simplified to a 2d / 3d projection which can be displayed easily by a computer. Forget that you CAN'T draw in 3D or can't animate in 2D on the board - the computer can.
And of course - physics, chemistry, geography, history - omg, history would be so cool to learn with a projector, if done correctly (not just clips - diagrams, arrows on the world map describing population movements, pressures, wars) - all of the "real world" sciences are much more fun when working in the real world. Even political science (if your school offers it) can enjoy the benefits of a projector, even if only as a video machine (watching Marting Luther King Jr. making his speech for example).
However - I don't think that a projector is a "magic wand". It conforms to the equation "invest more time, reap more results". If you invest the proper amount of time preparing good material (and not only video clips), your students would enjoy it immensely.
Just my 2 bits.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout [Robert Heinlein]
Before even thinking about making a powerpoint presentation, (re)read Edward Tufte's wonderful essay Powerpoint is Evil.
I try to use Mythbusters sub-episodes every so often as teaching tools. As most of us know, it's pretty entertaining and, while a little too seat-of-your-pants to serve as rigorous science, it definitely captures the scientific spirit and frequently inspires teachers and students alike. We'll typically watch some part of an episode, discuss the principles involved in the myth, and try and do some calculation related to the episode (e.g. number of ping pong balls to lift a boat off the bottom of the bay, terminal velocity of a penny, etc.). With your setup, you can nicely embed the parts of the video into a presentation then use the tablet to lead a real-time discussion of various topics of interest. As you probably know, there are many nice physics videos out there which can be used in this way. I also can suggest using a nice plotting calculator with your setup to quickly demonstrate ideas like Taylor expansion, Fourier decomposition, basic plotting, etc.
There is some software available out there that will analyze video motion using basic mechanics tools (CM motion, rotational motion, vectors, motion diagrams, position versus time, etc.). You give it a few anchor points on the real video capture and can step it through the motion but with all the vectors and graphs superimposed. Although it is a cool idea, sadly, the version I tried was old quite clumsy (made more clumsy by the laptop/AV setup). However, with your tablet and wireless, you may have more versatility if updated software exists.
There are several intriguing student grading/evaluation systems out there that use bar codes (for example, here). I know at a glance this sounds rather sinister and 1984-ish, but with student-customized bar codes (not tattooed on their foreheads, but rather printed on their papers), I think this can be used quite well to facilitate quick grading of quizzes with real-time feedback and histograms, class participation credit, and other creative classroom data organizing solutions. This could be made especially effective with the mobility provided by your tablet and wireless.
Anyway, all the best with your pending projects.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Use of blackboards/whiteboards works very well. The prof writes the equations down as he explains them, and the students handwrite them into their notes. The prof writing them down keeps the focus on the relevant part, and the student handwriting a copy helps fix it in their brains.
It ain't broke, and doesn't need fixing.
Well powerpoint is the only thing usefull, my teachers ever used.
Invest in some old fashioned hardware. Hands-on physics teaches a lot of concepts to those who don't quite grasp concepts published in a book. Examples are a bicycle to teach force/displacement/speed relationships. The classic is standing a bike up and asking if the pedal low to the floor is pushed to the rear of the bike, will the cranking force move the bike foreward or will the gearing cause the bike to move backwards in the direction of the force and why?
Students that grasp these concepts early on are the ones to understand the conservation of energy and entropy. They will understand why you can't use a high speed motor of say 1 HP to drive a 1 KW generator fast enough to power the motor and have a few hundred watts of power left over. An electrical load on the generator provides a mechanical load to the motor. This is not over unity creating a perpertual motion machine.
Props such as a hand cranked generator or bicycle driven generator that can be loaded make a serious impression to early students. Cranking 60 watts is work. 300 Watts sustained is very serious work. This leads to an understang of torque/speed/horsepower relationships. Torque or speed is not power. Feeling power generation is better than most any PowerPoint presentation.
After the mechanical presentations, then go into lecture and detail such as going over an electric bill and figuring the typical days power use and how much work is delivered for a dollar.
Power economy and the hand cranked PC scale now come into view. Hand cranking your typical home PC or laptop and Monitor are now seen as beyond pratical. Energy conservation to fit the hand cranked energy budget now become a prime design consideration for future engineers instead of how to hand crank existing tech.
Hand cranking a 2 watt laptop is possible as well as a 60 watt laptop, but the 60 watt laptop isn't pratical as all the time will be spent cranking quite hard.
You were cheated in your physics class if they didn't do the blowgun/falling ball demo or used air hocky tables to show center of mass of spinning objects and conservation of momentium, elastic and inelastic collisions. In the 1970's we shot a lot of film of this on an air hocky table and took measurements from the photographs to calculate displacement of the objects photographed under a strobe light. The hands on stuff was the best.
The truth shall set you free!
I find it stunning (and disturbing) that there is this notion that adding tech to the classroom is by default beneficial. This idea is complete rubbish and the studies are starting to mount that show this (see below). Especially when it comes to the hard sciences and mathematics. We know that 'dead poets society' ruined a generation of english teachers. IMO, technology is ruining a generation (or more) of science/math teachers.
/never/ seen it used properly) that they actually seriously detract from the class. In fact, people tend to do the exactly same nonsense with powerpoint that they do with the chalkboard i.e. write what they say. Yes, I can read, tell me/write on the board something I can't.
/. archives for the links). The conclusions were that all this tech actually largely prevents learning because the kids are distracted by all the "shiny objects" rather than actually paying attention to the content.
I've seen exactly ZERO tech used in class beyond an overhead that was anywhere near effective whether high-school or beyond. Hell, even when I taught *C++* I used the white-board a significant chunk of the time. Also, in high-school, that cover of darkness can prove to be a bad choice.
Powerpoint (and similar products) are so poorly used (I've actually
There have also been studies on using tech with kids (look through
So, my suggestion is to put away all of you expensive toys (that are proving to be less and less effective as time goes on), pick up a piece of chalk and actually teach them. After all, when it comes to Math and Science, all you need is quick sketches to get the ideas across, now don't you.
I have learned more math and physics as a result of self-guided programming than I ever did in school. I remember a few years ago I was working on a simple vector graphics system for a video game I was making, and I finally understood the point of converting between cartesian and polar coordinates. Then I added physics to the program and picked up ideas like velocity along the angle of impact vs. the tangent. Recently I was working on a program to find color differences, and had to scale certain 0-1 values into a curve by using various exponents.
These are all simple things that I should have picked up in school. Things which I'm sure were explained but without any practical (or even impractical) application. So I only had the vaguest recollection that they were even possible. But the moment I encountered a programming problem that I wanted to solve, yet required this kind of knowledge, I vacuumed it up.
That may not be what you mean by "using technology" in the classroom, but it's what came to mind for me.
Cheers.
The problem with powerpoint slides is that someone recently figured out we're not made to read text off a slide and hear someone talk at the same time. We only have enough brain power for one, not for both. If you even try to -- and people instinctively will -- you'll go fuzzy brained and remember neither. So in effect showing powerpoint slides badly, can be in fact worse than not writing anything anywhere.
Now they figured that out for management presentations, and why you come empty-headed from of a presentation you were actually interested in. But I can't come up with any argument as to why it would work better in schools. In fact, it might be outright scary. Using powerpoint instead of a blackboard may well be _the_ most destructive thing one can do.
There are ways to use powerpoint well, like you'd use an overhead projector. E.g., to show charts, relevant illustrations, etc. E.g., in a biology class you could show a picture of a cell's structure as a slide instead of as an overhead projector foil. And leave people time to digest it, instead of forcing them to also take notes at the same time.
But a substitute for a blackboard it ain't. On a blackboard:
A) you're led to follow the current focus of attention, whatever word is currently being written. You don't just get a big word soup to get lost in and out of sync, you get to follow the cursor (hand with chalk) so to speak, at the same time you're hearing it. It works to reinforce what you hear, not to try to split your attention between two different texts.
B) the teacher is only human too, and he too would have trouble if he tried speaking one thing while writing something completely different. So there's a self-reinforcing mechanism to hold prevent it from becoming an attention-splitting device. As a subcase, if he takes some time to explain why he did something to a formula, he won't already start writing the next one.
C) it enforces _some_ structure, because a blackboard is all the space you can get at a time. Which also cuts back on distractions like flipping back and forth between charts. Which is a distraction. Everytime you go "hmm, this one we don't need.. next... nope, this one we'll learn next week... let's see the next one... nah, we don't need that... next... aha, here we are..." that's not just wasted time. That's a bunch of people who've either tried to read it fast and the next minutes will be busy figuring that out instead of what you say next, or (probably most) whose attention and focus went right out the window while you did that little powerpoint dance.
D) well, I hate to be mean to teachers (God knows they have a shitty job already), but it forces them to prepare that material instead of just borrowing someone's slides. And if they didn't know it too well, they'll at least recap it while they write it on the blackboard.
If you will, what I'm saying at points C an D is that I see it as the same as in IT: the better tools and languages we had, the more unqualified monkeys got hired to use them. I'm all for better tools and compilers, don't get me wrong. But in a lot of places the trend wasn't to do more with them, but to lower the baseline for the people hired to use them. And they'll feel the less of a need to learn what they're doing there. After all, the tool will do the thinking for them, right?
The same might just happen in schools. I can see some people (e.g., substitute teachers) going into a class with someone else's powerpoint presentation, but barely knowing what it's about.
Except in IT you have at least some reality check whether it worked or not. If it doesn't compile or doesn't run the test cases, you know you've screwed up. In teaching we might not even know it before we pump out a few generations of complete airheads, for no fault of their own. And for a change I don't mean just the dumb jocks and prom queens, because the powerpoint fuzzy-brain effect applies to nerds interested in that topic too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'm both enthusiastic as well as sceptical (and wrote and talked about it [PDF]). Here are some major points for me:
The key to using technology effectively is to not think about the technology. Think about how to convey information to students. How long does it really take for a concept to sink in? Actually doing math or physics is a skill; it takes practice (i.e. homework), and it is a process not an answer. If you can use technology to show the process in action at a speed at which students can absorb it, you are using technology well.
Never use technology to avoid taking time to write something. Guess what? If you don't write it, they don't have time to either. And if you provide notes, then they won't even take the time to listen--why bother, your students will think, when I can just read the notes?
What you want to do is take them through the process, slowly, with examples, showing how to do the manipulations and explaining why at each stage a decision is made. (If you have to deal with moderate numbers of students who no longer remember how to do algebra--and you almost certainly will--you may need to elect to leave them behind; if you have huge numbers of such students, you'd better go through how to do algebra again!)
Here's one way that I've used a tablet to be helpful. You can start with a well-designed picture or graph, then draw all over it while you're explaining a concept. You can show a short movie of an interesting phenomenon, then dissect the process, e.g. by taking out frames and scribbling equations on them.
One big mistake that people make is thinking either that computers are useless and shouldn't be used for homework, or in thinking that the fundamentals are useless and you should just teach people to do derivatives with Mathematica. It's a waste of time for almost everyone to do math by hand these days if they have access to a symbolic package. But they had better understand _exactly_ how the operations work and under what conditions they fail, or they're liable to have the symbolic package perform nonsense.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with teaching is that students don't come in with the right background. And a tablet can't fix that.
--Rex
Congratulations: you've got some of the potentially most interesting classes to use technology in - but that potential will be wasted if you just use the tablet and projector to show Powerpoint slides.
When you're designing your class, think: what can the tablet do that would be useful that could not have been done without it. Powerpoint fails this test miserably - an overhead projector would do just as well.
Here are some possible uses that do pass the test:
One last suggestion: don't hog the tablet - let your students use it too. You can set up a problem, and invite students to come up and work through it individually or in groups, showing their thought process to the rest of the class. The students will learn much more, and everybody - including you - will have a lot more fun.
Good luck!
Chalk and board. Plus some props to demonstrate stuff. Seriously, computers don't _really_ help students really understand stuff.
Physics? Nothing beats a good 'ol number of balls, rods, ramps, tubes etc etc in demonstrating how stuff works. Watching virtual cars colliding on the screen doesn't really make students appreciate the nature of momentum and conservation of energy.
Chemistry? How does using some 3D software showing off molecules really compare to a good 'ol titration in the lab?
Biology? Disecting a rat just beats reading about rat morphology any day.
Mathematics? Take the students down to the beach and measure waves. Their height, period, variation in shape, speed etc.
Computers and other technology is useful for analysing and summarising the data, but get the students out of the classroom to gather the data.
As some see it, the main reason blackboards are used in math/physics is to get the teacher to slow the hell down. The only outcome of technology is teachers who fly through equations too fast for students to copy them.
The Physics Education Group at Kansas State University has made a set of tools for teaching quantum mechanics. Some of them involve computer simulation of wave packets, etc. This helps for visualizing the (rather complex) ideas behind quantum mechanics. I interacted with these tools while taking an undergraduate physics course (intended for non-majors). They really worked well.