Chapter 5 from Sandholtz, Ringstaff and Dwyer

CHAPTER 5: REDEFINING STUDENT AND TEACHER ROLES

In Sandholtz, Ringstaff and Dwyer

                Chapter 5 touched on a lot of similar things we have read in other reading assignments. The big idea in this chapter is again, in the ACOT classrooms, the changes that came about over the course of the study. The changes that were focused on in this chapter were how the roles of the teachers and their students changed over time. The authors discussed using the students as peer tutors not only with the technology itself but with the content as well. Reflections from the teachers touched on how in the beginning the students helped one another with use of the computers and sometimes helped the teachers too as well as how eventually they could see students helping one another to make strides not only academically but socially as well. Again, the teacher reflections are really neat to read. As with some of the content we read by Prensky, these teachers eventually had the students directing their own learning and becoming “content experts”. The students were teaching themselves as well as those around them.

                As mentioned above, I really enjoy the teacher reflections from this book. I think that probably this idea of redefining roles is one of the more difficult things for teachers who integrate technology into their classrooms. I think that we still picture the teacher as the one in the front of the room dispensing knowledge. To get away from that is exciting but requires an individual to give up a lot in order to eventually see the rewards. It is definitely something one has to undergo with a lot of faith. It also is something that would require a lot of good classroom management as well as administrative and fellow teacher support.