Theory & Practice: Foundations for Effective Tech Integration

A great deal of this chapter focused on the distinction between direct teaching and constructivist teaching, also known as inquiry based learning.  According to the text, “A few technology applications, such as drill and practice and tutorials, are associated only with directed instruction; most others (problem solving, multimedia production, web-based learning) can enhance either directed instruction or constructivist learning, depending on how they are used.” (pg. 23).  The text further dissects the two learning styles by comparing and contrasting the learning styles.

Figure 2.7

Directed Models	Both	Constructivist Models
Integration to remedy indentified weaknesses or skill deficits	Integration to generate motivation to learn	Integration to foster creative problem solving and Metacognition
Integration to promote skill fluency or automatically	Integration to optimize scarce personnel and material resources	Integration to help build metal models and increase knowledge transfer
Integration to support efficient, self-paced instruction	Integration to remove logistical hurdles to learning	Integration to foster group cooperation
Integration to support self paced review of concepts	Integration to develop information literacy and visual literacy skills	Integration to allow for multiple and distributed intelligences

TPACK is the “essential qualities of knowledge required by teacher for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge” (pg. 49).  Basically, these are the skills and knowledge that teachers should possess in order to effectively create, utilize, and integrate technology inquiry based learning.  The major issue concerning this is that many of the items that were afore mentioned in the previous reading are not/shall not be available to all teachers in all districts.  I myself never worked with a white board and therefore would fall short according to TPACK standards in many area of proficiency. 

The TIP model for teachers answers the questions that would be raised by many teachers who would attempt to sit down and designed a web-based inquiry lesson. I’m going to tell you the truth, all I read was work!  Probably more work than I am willing to do, so unless some wonderful teacher has already created it and posted it…but the section did speak on teaching objectives and the skills the teacher want the students to gain, how students would be assessed, and determining of the inquiry was successful in implementation, in delivery, in receptions, and in learning, all very important on projects of this nature.