Sandholtz - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: "The Evolution of Instruction in Technology-Rich Classrooms"

Chapter 3 discusses how instruction must change in order for technology integration to be successful.  On page 36, the authors state: "Technology by itself was not a silver bullet," they go onto say it adds a new level of complexity to a teachers already long list of challenges.  However, teachers that were prepared to replace their old beliefs with new ones and embrace the technology would lower the challenge drastically.  Much of the rest of the chapter goes onto to discuss the stages of instructional evolution of technology in the classroom.  The five stages they present are entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention.  The first level, entry, consists of initially getting the technology into the classroom, unpacking the boxes and booting up the computers.  The second stage is adoption, in which the teachers tried to integrate technology into their lesson plans on a daily basis.  The third stage, adaptation, occurs when the students and teachers become more comfortable using technology during the school day and incorporate it into more and more tasks.  In the fourth stage, appropriation, teachers experience a change in the way they think about technology and become "masters" of the technology and it seems effortless.  In the final stage, invention, teachers begin to experiment with other forms of instruction and other ways of relating material to students.  For example, project based learning, team teaching, individually paced instruction can occur during this stage.  The rest of the chapter deals with supporting teachers during technology integration and finding ways to help them confront changes in their instructional beliefs.

I think it is amazing that this book was written in 1996 and many of these principle that these teachers are advocating in this chapter like project based learning, cooperative learning and team teaching are once again education "buzz" words today.  We are living in a time where more and more schools are spending big money on technology for their students and as a result more and more teachers are at the entry and adoption stages.  I believe it is critical that teachers are supported during these stages to ensure that they try to adopt technology and change the way they "instruct" their classes.  Many of the teachers at my school are in the second stage and want to move more toward the adaptation phase, but little support is present for them to be successful.  In the age of the Common Core more and more emphasis will be placed on technology and instructional practices that promote more than just rote memorization of facts.  Student need to be able to problem solve and create.  Technology can help greatly with this, however if teachers are not prepared than how will our students be?