TechAccpetancePresentation

The Many Types of Motivation

The question, “Why do I need to know this?” By posing this question, students are informing the teacher, “I do not find this valuable or interesting,” thus we would fully expect interest to wane. Informing students “you will need this next year” introduces external motivations that are unlikely to increase interest. Unfamiliar, incongruous, or personally Read More

TechAccpetancePresentation

Four Approaches to Teaching

Four elevator pitches in one post: Behaviorist approaches to teaching is appropriate when an instructor knows with certainty what student must transfer. We help students know what steps to follow through worked examples and other “show-and-tell” methods, give them opportunities for practice, and we can evaluate them against clear criteria.  Cognitive approaches to teaching help Read More

TechAccpetancePresentation

Heutagogy

Everyone who works in or studies education is familiar with the word pedagogy. It comprises the strategies and methods teachers use to teach. Included in pedagogical practices are a wide range of activities that are grounded in behaviorist, cognitive, and connectionists psychologies. The methods are connected by several assumptions, however. Specifically, pedagogy assumes the teacher Read More

TechAccpetancePresentation

On Interactive Whiteboards

Another common piece of hardware one encounters in schools is interactive whiteboards. Ostensibly, these look like whiteboards that have replaced chalkboard in most schools. When connected to computers, these whiteboards function as an input device. Teachers or students using them can launch applications, navigate files, and even use digital markers to write on files. (One Read More

TechAccpetancePresentation

On Control in #Classrooms

Whether we admit it or not, much of teaching requires students to do things they would not otherwise. Some students will read, write, compute, think, and interact for their own motivations or to comply, but in the absence of school and the assignments that accompany class, most students would not choose the work that comprises school.   If we accept my premise, then one Read More

TechAccpetancePresentation

Least Objectionable Curriculum

In the 1960’s, a television executive proposed the concept of the least objectionable program. According to this idea, programmers will broadcast the shows that are least likely to offend large parts of the population. It has been argued that adhering to this principle led television executives to support programming that was uninspired.   In the time Read More