The Role of Technology in My Teaching Philosophy and Practice

Network and information technology are in such frequent use, that several of the students participating in today’s classroom are not familiar with a life without it.  As such, use of these solutions can not only expand the outreach of traditional classrooms, but enhance the learning experience students received.   By providing multi-modal content, through technology platforms, students are more likely to be engaged in the learning process while relating better to the format in which the information is being shared.

My teaching philosophy draws on combining my experience, prior learning, and use of a variety of approaches to engage students in the classroom.  One of my biggest goals is to present new information and class content in a manner that feels applicable and pertinent to the students I am teaching.  Given students in my classroom are pursuing their graduate degrees in healthcare, I try to be mindful of their need to balance school with work and life commitments. 

By incorporating additional network and information technology into my classroom I am not only able to teach remotely, but also incorporate valuable lecture time, videos, Q&A sessions, and assignment explanations I would be unable to provide without these solutions.

In this classroom I have had the opportunity to familiarize myself with a few solutions I was previously unfamiliar with, or simply had not explored enough to incorporate into my teaching philosophy.  Moving forward I plan to use the following resources more fluidly, not only in my classroom, but in my professional career as well:

Jing – I was unfamiliar with this tool prior to this class and feel it provides a great forum for explaining assignments, familiarizing students with Blackboard, and highlighting key concepts I want to point out from the reading or videos assigned.

Ted-Ed – I was familiar with this site but had not thought about incorporating some of these videos into class room learning.  After reviewing the site, I found a couple of discussions I want to use in my project management course as case studies for risk mitigation.

Prezi – I am now a reformed power point user!  I had familiarity with Prezi prior to the class but had not taken the time to learn more about the solution, capabilities, and functionality.  Now that I have transitioned a couple of lessons to this platform, I absolutely love it!  I like that I am do not have to click through slides to get to specific content areas – which can be helpful in classes where discussions and questions may move you to different areas in lecture points.  I also feel the dynamic transition and animation of the slides provides more interest and feels less “sterile” than viewing slide after slide of copy.

Zoom – I really like the ease of this platform for recording longer presentations, discussions, and/or allowing students to meet with me remotely and in real-time.  The platform does not require a lot of software configuration to use it and is very user friendly if I as the instructor or one of my students would like to share content.  Moving forward, I plan to use this platform for 1:1 student discussions, and for remote lecturing where students will be asked to present information as part of the class assignment.  My goal for this is twofold, 1) it generates better engagement, 2) these tools can be very helpful in their present work arena so I want them to have familiarity with their use.