Dedal, Mateo D.

BEED-IV
Educ. 125 (The Teaching Profession)
Reaction Paper
October 2, 2014
Educational Technology and Innovative Teaching
I. Discussion
In recent years, many education systems have introduced educational technology into the
schools for teaching, learning, and management purposes (Cunningham, 2009; De Freitas &
Oliver, 2005; Fullan & Smith, 1999; Halverson & Smith 2010; Selwyn, 2010 as cited in Avidov
Ungar, 2010). Educational technology tools such as computers, probeware, data collection and
analysis software, digital microscopes, hypermedia/multimedia, student response systems, and
interactive white boards can help students actively engage in the acquisition of scientific
knowledge and development of the nature of science and inquiry. When educational technology
tools are used appropriately and effectively in science classrooms, students actively engage in
their knowledge construction and improve their thinking and problem solving skills (Trowbridge,
Bybee, & Powell, 2008 as cited in Guzey & Roehrig, 2009).
Effective use of educational technology is vital to solving many of our current educational
challenges (Culatta, 2011). One of the persistent challenges has been how to encourage, support
and sustain these innovative practices which rest largely on the individual lecturer (Cox, 2010).
Bringing up educational technology programme for teaching, learning and school administration
is one form of technological innovation. There are two forms of embracing innovation: one is the
comprehensive innovation which involves most of the organization and islands of innovation
which is limited only to specific groups within it (Avidov Ungar, 2010).

There is no substitute for good teaching. This is as true with digital learning technologies
as it is with digital learning technologies of chalk and board or paper and pen. This is the view of
students, parents and educators. However, in the digital age, the teacher is a navigator or
facilitator fostering in students the ability to search competently, safely and efficiently through
the wealth of information and human resources available to them. The teacher nurtures effective
approaches, the use of appropriate tools, capacity to synthesize the results of research and the
skills to create new knowledge. Emerging digital learning technologies allow teachers not only to
encourage students to pursue self directed learning but to collaborate with them as co learners
on a local or global scale. In a blended learning environment, technology allows for a greater
share of class time to be used for one on one support, collaboration and consolidation of
learning (OPSBA: A Vision for Learning and Teaching in the Digital Age. Retrieved on
September 25, 2014 from http://www.opsba.org/files/OPSBA_AVisionForLearning.pdf).
II. As a prospective movement practitioner, how may knowledge of the content improve
the teaching/learning process?
At one level, concern about the knowledge base focuses on improving the respect and status
accorded teaching, thereby making it a more rewarding career (Shulman, 1987 as cited in Strom,
1991). In this regard, the professionalization of teaching depends on showing that teaching, like
other learned professions, requires mastery of a specialized body of knowledge that is applied
with wisdom and ethical concern (Strom, 1991).
To teach all students according to todays standards, teachers need to understand subject
matter deeply and flexibly so they can help students create useful cognitive maps, relate one idea
to another, and address misconceptions. Teachers need to see how ideas connect across fields

and to everyday life. This kind of understanding provides a foundation for pedagogical content
knowledge that enables teachers to make ideas accessible to others (Shulman, 1987 as cited in
Teachers in Depth Content Knowledge. Retrieved on September 24, 2014 from
http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/teacher/teac2summary.html).
Indeed, the teacher content knowledge is crucially important to the improvement of teaching
and learning. Shulman identified a special domain of teacher knowledge, which he referred to as
pedagogical content knowledge. He distinguished between content as it is studied and learned in
disciplinary settings and the special amalgam of content and pedagogy needed for teaching the
subject. These ideas had a major impact on the research community, immediately focusing
attention on the foundational importance of content knowledge in teaching and on pedagogical
content knowledge in particular. The content knowledge as technical knowledge is a key to the
establishment of teaching as a profession. Shulman and his colleagues argued that high quality
instruction requires a sophisticated professional knowledge that goes beyond simple rules such as
how long to wait for students to respond.
Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching: An Example

Our analyses of teachers practice reveal that the mathematical demands of teaching are
substantial. In fact, knowledge for teaching must be detailed in ways unnecessary for everyday
functioning. To better understand what we mean by this, we offer an example based on a simple
subtraction computation: 307 168. Most readers will know an algorithm to produce the answer
139, such as: 3 0 7
- 1 6 8
1 3 9

Teachers must be able to themselves perform this calculation. This is mathematical
knowledge we would expect a well-educated adult to know, and we refer to it as common content
knowledge (CCK). It is closely related to the content of the curriculum, but not to a particular
curriculum. It includes knowing when students have answers wrong, recognizing when the
textbook gives an inaccurate definition, and being able to use terms and notation correctly when
speaking and writing at the board. In short, it is the knowledge teachers need in order to be able
to do the work that they are assigning their students. In analyzing video of teaching, it became
obvious, especially when teachers lacked common content knowledge, that such knowledge is
essential. When a teacher mispronounced terms, made calculation errors, or got stuck trying to
solve a problem, instruction suffered and valuable time was lost. In mapping out the
mathematical knowledge needed by teachers, it is important not to lose sight of the critical role
that a basic understanding of the mathematics in the student curriculum plays in planning and
carrying out instruction. Returning to our subtraction problem, however, we see that being able
to carry out the procedure is necessary, but not sufficient, for teaching it. Many third graders
struggle with this algorithm, often making errors. One common error is: 307
- 168
261
A teacher needs to be able to spot that 261 is incorrect. However, a teacher who can see only that
this is not the correct answer is not well equipped to help a student learn to get it right. Skillful
teaching requires being able to size up the source of a mathematical error. Further, this is work
that teachers often must do very quickly, since, in a classroom, students cannot wait as a teacher
puzzles over the mathematics. Here, for example, a student has, in each column, calculated the
difference between the two digits, or subtracted the smaller digit from the larger one. A teacher

who is mystified about what could have produced 261 as an answer will arguably move more
slowly and with less precision to help correct the students problem. Consider another error that
teachers may see with this subtraction problem.

307
- 168
169
What line of thinking would produce this error? In this case, the student has borrowed one
from the hundreds column, carried the one to the ones place, and subtracted 8 from 17,
yielding 9. The thinking might continue by bringing down the 6 and subtracting 2 1 = 1.
Teachers need to be able to perform this kind of mathematical error analysis efficiently and
fluently. These two errors stem from different difficulties with the algorithm for subtracting
multidigit numbers. In the first, the student considered the difference between digits with no
thought to the relationships among columns. In the second, the student attempts to regroup the
number, but without careful consideration of the value of the places and the conservation of the
value of the number. Seeing both answers as simply wrong does not equip a teacher with the
detailed mathematical understanding required for a skillful treatment of the problems these
students face.
Analysis such as this are characteristic of the distinctive work teachers do and they
require a kind of mathematical reasoning that most adults do not need to do on a regular basis.
And although mathematicians engage in analyses of error, often of failed proofs, the analysis
used to uncover a student error appears to be related to, but not the same as, other error analysis

in the discipline. Further, there is no demand on mathematicians to conduct their work quickly as
students wait for guidance.
It is also common in instruction for students to come up with non-standard approaches
that are unfamiliar to the teacher. For instance, what mathematical issues confront a teacher if a
student asserts that she would take 8 away from both the top and the bottom, yielding the
easier problem:

299
-160


Is it okay to do this? Why? Would it work in general? Is it easier for some numbers and harder
for others? How might you describe the method the student is using and how would you justify it
mathematically? Being able to engage in this sort of mathematical inner dialogue, and to provide
mathematically sound answers to these questions, is a crucial foundation for determining what to
do in teaching this mathematics.
Physical Education: Content Knowledge
Teaching physical education needs content knowledge in order to determine whether
concepts regarding it will be conveyed and taught effectively to students. A physical education
teacher cannot teach anything without a sufficient content or professional knowledge about the
different areas of physical education. According to Solis (n. d.), the content sand specific
pedagogy are key ingredient in teaching quality.


IV. Bibliographical Information

Avidov Ungar, O. 2010. Islands of innovation or comprehensive innovation. Assimilating
educational technology in teaching, learning, and management: a case study of school
networks in Israel. Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects. Volume
6, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.ijello.org/Volume6/IJELLOv6p259-
280Avidov704.pdf
Cox, G. 2010. Sustaining innovations in educational technology: views of innovators at the
university of cape town. Retrieved from
http://ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney10/procs/Cox-concise.pdf
Culatta, R. 2011. Instructional technology. Retrieved from
http://innovativelearning.com/instructional_technology/
Ball, D.L., Thames, M.H., & Phelps, G. n d. Content knowledge for Teaching: what makes it
Special. Retrieved from http://conferences.illinoisstate.edu/nsa/papers/thamesphelps.pdf
Duffey,D. & Fox, C.(2012).National EducationalTechnology Trends: 2012: State Leadership
Empowers Educators,Transforms Teaching and Learning. Washington, DC: State
Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). Retrieved from
http://www.setda.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/SETDANational_Trends_2012_June20_Final.pdf
Guzey, S. S., & Roehrig, G. H. (2009). Teaching science with technology: Case studies of
science teachers development of technology, pedagogy, and content

knowledge.Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1). Retrieved
from http://www.citejournal.org/vol9/iss1/science/article1.cfm
OPSBA: A Vision for learning and Teaching in Digital Age. Retrieved from
http://www.opsba.org/files/OPSBA_AVisionForLearning.pdf
Williamson, B. & Payton, S. 2009. Curriculum and teaching innovation transforming classroom
practice and personalisation. A Futurelab Handbook. Retrieved from
http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/curriculum_and_teaching
_innovation2.pdf
Teachers In Depth Content Knowledge. Retrieved from
http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/teacher/teac2summary.html
Weimer, M. 2008. Effective Teaching Strategies: The Importance of Marrying Content and
Process. Retrieved from
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/effective-teaching-
strategies-the-importance-of-marrying-content-and-process/
Weimer, M. 2007.Content Knowledge: a Barier to teacher development. Retrieved from
http://www.biz.colostate.edu/mti/tips/pages/ContentKnowledge.aspx

Solis, A. Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Retrieved from
http://www.idra.org/IDRA_Newsletter/August_2009_Actionable_Knowledge/Pedagogic
al_Content_Knowledge/


Strom, S. 1991. The Knowledge Base for Teaching. Retrieved from
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/base.htm

Physical Education Content Knowledge (0091). Retrieved from
http://www.uwosh.edu/hperclub/pdf/0091.pdf

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/materials/tchlrnmd.html