Course: SED 412/512
Foundations of Technology in Teaching Math and Science
At its core, the course I am redesigning for hybrid delivery focuses on educating pre-service teachers on effectively integrating technology into mathematics and science classrooms. This naturally involves a myriad of possibilities, but we focus on understanding what technology, any technology, can afford a teacher in the classroom that traditional instruction may not. The course typically consists of about 25 undergraduate and graduate students and is taught in both the winter and summer terms. Interestingly, the undergraduates make up most of the winter enrollment but graduate students make up the majority of the summer enrollment. During the winter, the class meets in person on Mondays and online on Wednesdays and for a short time on Friday. During the four week summer course, we meet in person Monday, Wednesday and Friday and online Tuesday and Thursday.
The in class meeting time focuses on hands on experience using technology, presenting mock lesson plans created by the teachers for their students, and followup to discussions and summaries posted during the online portion of the course. The students will spend a significant amount of their online time working in small peer groups that are assigned at the beginning of the term. They can be thought of as mini learning communities. Within these groups, students collaborate and participate in discussions, reflections on reading, interpretation of national standards for mathematics and science, and even work on a small grant proposal related to technology use in the classroom. The students will both work and revise the core assignments of the course, lesson plans, in the classroom and online setting. I link the course delivery modes by ensuring that all assignments that occur online feedback into the in person meeting or assignments that occur in the in person meeting feedback into the online portion of the course.
Of course, this is all in theory until I put it into practice this summer. However, I am excited to be learning about hybrid delivery, as I think it has potential to vastly improve the educational experience for pre-service teachers.
