{"id":386,"date":"2013-02-09T15:29:36","date_gmt":"2013-02-09T15:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/wp\/?p=386"},"modified":"2013-04-01T03:02:09","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T03:02:09","slug":"386","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/2013\/02\/09\/386\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Technology in Relational Pedagogy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I\u2019ve been thinking a lot lately about technology and learning.\u00a0 There\u2019s so much in the news about MOOCs, using iPads, schools using technology, etc.\u00a0 I am even part of a pilot program at my school right now where all of my students have iPads in my honors geometry class and we are trying to communicate at night using Voicethread<\/a> and the iPads.\u00a0 My hope was that having a way to share ideas during the evening would lessen the stress of homework problems that students are asked to grapple with in the PBL curriculum would give them more opportunities to throw out problem-solving ideas with each other before class starts so that we would spend less time in class debating different methods of solving the problem (although that\u2019s what I love about class, right?).<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m asked as a teacher to find ways to integrate technology into my classroom \u2013 but to what end?\u00a0 I want to find ways to use technology to solve problems, to explore ideas and to help improve students\u2019 understanding of the mathematics.\u00a0 Not necessarily help them communicate with each other, which is what I\u2019m finding most of the apps out there are for right now \u2013 which I am open to \u2013 but they are removing a huge part of the learning triangle.\u00a0 In fact, David Hawkins (1974) wrote about the I-thou-it reciprocal relationships in learning that simply must exist between the learner, the teacher and the subject matter.\u00a0 He said that if one of the relationships is hindered or dysfunctional in some way, that learning is not optimal.<\/p>\n

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Hawkins (1974)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So if I interrupt that relational triangle between the students’ communication with the material (and with each other) and with me, using technology instead of discussion and the connection with all three, my fear is that learning is not optimal.\u00a0 Perhaps the technology could enhance it, but for now I see that it is not truly happening.\u00a0 My guess is that it has to take time for the students maybe to want for that to happen.<\/p>\n

I also just read an article on Edutopia by a guy named Matt Levinson that was entitled \u201cWhere MOOCs Miss the Mark: The Student-Teacher Relationship\u201d<\/a> where it was stated that a lack of mentorship, close guidance or meaningful relationship between teachers and students is what is really lacking in these online courses. Even students who use Khan Academy lectures for \u201clearning\u201d sometimes comment that even though they don\u2019t like sitting and listening to lectures in math class, they would \u201cmuch [prefer] listening to her math teacher explain the same concepts because she likes this teacher and feels comfortable asking questions and going for extra help outside of class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carol Rodgers<\/a> (one of my most favorite people on earth) writes about teacher presence<\/a> and the importance of it in the classroom.\u00a0 I believe in mathematics class and especially the problem-based mathematics class it is truly essential because in order for students to take a risk with a method, they need to feel supported and safe in order to be open to new ideas and to discuss them with others.\u00a0 With the open presence of a teacher and mentor, students are not \u201creceiving knowledge\u201d but creating it with others \u2013 creating it within those relationships that Hawkins was talking about \u2013 maybe with technology or without it.\u00a0 But\u00a0 for someone who just spent two years writing about the importance of relational pedagogy in PBL, I find it extremely difficult to assume that without those relationship the same exceptional amount of learning would go on.<\/p>\n\n

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So I\u2019ve been thinking a lot lately about technology and learning.\u00a0 There\u2019s so much in the news about MOOCs, using iPads, schools using technology, etc.\u00a0 I am even part of a pilot program at my school right now where all of my students have iPads in my honors geometry class and we are trying to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11,6,18],"tags":[105,106],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-in-the-classroom","category-problem-based-learning","category-technology","tag-relational-pedagogy","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelschettino.com\/dev0418\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}