Scripted Instruction

When I was researching online and deciding what to write about for this week’s blog post, I came across a very interesting article called “Winning Equation: How Technology Can Help Save Math Education.” The article starts out with a powerful statement about the current math education in the United States. It says “Math education in the United States is a broken system.” I kind of agree to the statement and that one simple sentence explains why many students are currently struggling with basic Algebra. Although we know that many students are struggling in Math, but we don’t know how to deal with the struggle. Educators suggest that incorporating technology into the classroom may help. For example, the article suggests different online programs such as the Assistment Program and SimCalc that teachers may incorporate into the lessons in order to keep the lessons current and their students engaged. I agree that those programs may be helpful because we are now living in digital age, where many things can be accomplished through technology. We used to learn Math through lectures and practice worksheets. The teacher would talk and write notes on the board, then go over a couple of examples on the board, and that was it. But nowadays, students don’t like that since they are all being exposed to different technologies outside of schools. In order to make the learning experience meaningful to students and help students see the purpose of what they are learning, we need to relate our lessons to their daily lives. Therefore, I believe the need to make our lessons relevant to students’ lives is the biggest reason why the current school system continues to push teachers to incorporate technology into their classrooms.

Although those programs claim to help students to learn Math, but there are negative effects that the educators fail to consider when they suggest to integrate technology with Math. Teachers will tend to let the program to “guide” the curriculum or pace of the class. Once they have the program in the classroom, teachers tend to build their lessons around it. Teachers should be the one who is making the decisions such as what and how to teach according to students’ needs, not the program. Therefore, schools should be conscious of what program they are bringing in to the school and how teachers are using them. Those expensive programs shall only be a supplement to the curriculum, and not the curriculum. Also, giving online homework through educational websites such as WebAssign may not always be useful to students’ learning. It just makes the teacher’ life easier, and has no benefits to students’ learning at all. Students may make an educated guess to get the question right or work from the answer because students may find pattern in the answers once they have done enough of the problems. I remember that I used to purposefully get the question wrong for the first attempt, and then let the computer to show me the answer so that I can work from the answer to get the same question with different numbers right. Students can always find tricks or other ways to get things right when it is given online or through other technologies. Therefore, we need to be careful with how we incorporate technology into our lessons.