Dive Brief:
- Mathematician and technologist Conrad Wolfram, CEO of the European branch of Wolfram Research, says schools focus too often on teaching students how to do hand calculations in math when they should actually let computers do that, freeing up students for higher-level problem-solving.
- Ed Tech Magazine reports Wolfram sees new curriculum in math classes as an important step to solving this problem, and key will be incorporating abstract problem solving and coding and setting the basic computation aside.
- Wolfram encourages teachers to give students open-ended projects to work on with technology, shifting their role from one of lecturer to supervisor, and he says it’s important for the technology students use in the classroom to be as close as possible to the technology they’d find in the workplace.
Dive Insight:
Strict standards and aggressive test prep in many schools has prevented teachers from using technology to transform their classrooms. Many have no choice but to use new tools with old strategies. Besides class time constraints, teachers also face limitations in their own knowledge about how to get the most out of technology in the classroom. Targeted professional development is a critical first step. And schools that have seen the most success let the most excited and prepared teachers start first, inspiring their colleagues along the way.
Schoolwide implementation without a smaller pilot can be disastrous when it comes to implementation with fidelity to original goals. A scaled rollout also gives administrators time to stagger training. From there, Wisconsin elementary school principal Matt Renwick urges teachers to let technology drive instruction sometimes.
