Voices from the Field > Teacher Interview 1
Voices from the Field- Deciding to Use Technology – Why, When, and What to Use
Teachers make instructional decisions every day to best meet the needs of their students. This video features several teachers with 3-7 years of teaching experience who describe why and when they choose to incorporate technology in their classroom. They also describe some of the technologies they use and why those tools support their instruction. The voices heard in this video represent common themes we identified from interviews with 21 secondary mathematics teachers, most of whom were in their first four years of teaching. Hearing how teachers make decisions about incorporating technology can help inform the decision-making of beginning teachers.
The following questions can be used to guide discussion around this 6:30 minute video:
Before watching the video:
- Why and when do you think a mathematics teacher should choose to use technology in a lesson?
- When you think about technologies that could be used in a mathematics classroom, what tools come to mind? Why would a teacher choose to use those tools?
After watching the video:
- What surprised you about why, when, and what teachers choose to use? Why?
- Did you learn about any new tools and why teachers use them?
- Develop a list of guiding principles for yourself that could be used to help you make informed instructional decisions to incorporate technology.