A video on Youtube.com called A Vision of K -12 Students today... shows how students will use engaging technologies in collaborative, and inquiry-based learning environments with teachers who are willing and able to use technology. Today’s technology can assist teachers in transforming knowledge and skills into products, solutions, and new information (KayTimes). The fundamental importance of this video is engagement; which is the question this video challenges; and that's where my teaching philosophy steps in. I feel as a teacher, students need to be engaged all day long. They want to learn, they want to study history, math, and science; they want to learn how to read, and how to write a great paper. Even though they may be learning these things in school now, the question that is raised is ‘why aren't they interested in it?’ The world is moving at a fast pace, and technology is advancing every day. When students are at home, they watch television, they play games, they blog, they instant message, they listen to music, and much more. I believe as teachers, we need to embrace the advancing technology, and allow the students to incorporate all that they are learning into what they love to do. Encouraging students to think how they can apply their knowledge from what they learn that day, to something they can use every day, will make a big difference. As teachers we should never teach lessons the same, each of our lessons should be unique, especially in math. Teaching math can become dull when taught as just direct instruction, it shouldn’t be taught by standing in front of the class, writing on the board, or lecturing. Math should be taught as inquiry and cooperative learning based, this allows students to think, to explore, and discuss with each other what their thoughts are on what they are learning about.
Mathematics is a great way to incorporate technology and engage students in learning. By allowing students to use technology in the classroom or for independent practice, it will allow students to become more interested and engaged in learning certain things. By teaching math with technology, students will be able to learn information with different sites and different perspectives. Students can blog about what they have learned, can make presentations on PowerPoint, the use of interactive lessons on SMARTboard notebook or find a video from the internet that catches their view of the lesson. Students will be able to have different views of how math affects everyone daily and understand how what they are learning can be applied in the real world.