Providing Teacher Support through Technology
Students obviously need proper teacher support in the classroom so that they can learn efficiently. While teachers aren’t there to literally spoon-feed information, they are there to guide students in their journey of learning. But the challenge for teachers nowadays is to find new and better ways to engage their students. It is fast becoming difficult to keep their attention and efficiently help them learn.
This is where technology can come in.
With the advent of different technologies such as the internet, smart phones, affordable laptop computers, and tablet computers, teachers now have a powerful ally in helping children learn. They can use these in different ways to engage students. Here’s a few ways on how technology can provide proper teacher support.
Gamified Learning
There is a lot of research behind gamified learning. People today have learned to type properly when they did it as a game. This is true to some extent with other subjects as well.
Through technology, teachers can provide gamified learning experiences that engage student’s mental capacity, focus, and competitive spirit. It helps them learn in a fun way essentially so that they are more into it. And the more the kids are into it, they learn more efficiently.
This also taps into the competitive spirit of other students which gives them the initiative to study on their own as well.
Gamification has quickly become a popular teacher support method using technology in the past few years.
Digital Field Trips
Field trips are a great way for students to learn. They get to see first hand what teachers talk about. They get to experience different locations and basically how the world really works. However, this can be a difficult and costly endeavour for teachers and the school. And normally, due to the cost, classes can only have limited trips per year.
Fortunately, technology can now offer an alternative teacher support method; digital field trips.
Teachers can now make use of digital maps such as Google’s Steetview in order to take students to places they have never been before; at almost no cost.
They can explore the castles of Europe to better understand the history of the place. Or maybe they can take trips through different natural parks for natural science lessons. And if VR is available, it can elevate the experience even more!
Multimedia Lessons
Having a board and writing on it is an old and quite simply, boring way to transfer knowledge. Unless students are really into the subject, it is difficult to keep their attention. A good way around this is to use multimedia resources.
Teacher support can be provided in a variety of ways; video, audio, and other interactive means. Presentations can be done using a variety of tools and animation. Video recordings have always been a popular method for keeping student’s attention on the material. It all depends on the teacher’s creativity on how to use these different technologies to deliver lessons.
Online Activities
In order to encourage students to do their best on classroom activities, some teachers have opted to provide a reward for those who finish early in the form of online activities.
There are a lot of online activities that can be used as teacher support for students such as watching video documentaries, play educational games, and many more. The idea is to allow students who finish early access to these in order to encourage them since they have something to look forward to if they finish their work early and properly.
Allow Student Feedback
Proper teacher support should never be one way. Teachers should be able to take in feedback so that they can improve their approach and help students learn better. Creating a classroom atmosphere where students are comfortable to speak their mind is ideal. But the reality is, a lot of them would be shy or even scared to voice out their opinion on a subject matter or on a teacher. This is where technology can come in as well.Teachers and schools can set up a digital form which allows for anonymous feedback about a particular subject or teacher. In this way, students can be completely honest with how they feel and teachers would be informed so that they can adjust accordingly.
A key challenge in using technology for teacher support is of course, security. Any endeavour that centers on tech has this challenge. Fortunately, academic institutions have the option to go with NuEDUSEC. We provide a platform in order to keep your technologies secure inside the campus. Contact us today to see how we can help keep you, your school, and your students safe online.