Joey Chun_Theories of Critical Thinking Blog Post

     I teach my students mathematics using the direct-instruction model, and majority of my summative assessments are in test or exam format. Although this instructional model is effective in teaching students content knowledge and developing procedural fluency, it rarely teaches students useful skills they need for their future. According to Fullan and Langworthy (2014), they stated that current educational institutions put heavy emphasis on covering content knowledge day after day and taking tests after tests. Perhaps, this is the reason why many students believe what they learn in school will not be useful in their future. Fullan and Langworthy suggest that educators to implement "Deep Learning" pedagogy using digital tools. They firmly believe that deep learning will help students "gain competencies and dispositions that will prepare them to be creative, connected, and collaborative life-long problem solvers and to be healthy, holistic human beings who not only contribute to but also create the common good in today's knowledge-based, creative, interdependent world" (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014, p.2). I like how this pedagogy prepares students to be creative and problem solvers, as these skills are life skills an individual must have to succeed in their life, so I want to implement at least a few traits, if not all, from deep learning pedagogy. In addition, I also learned that I need to implement more technologies to better support my students in developing these useful skills.

    Reflecting on my teaching last school year, I do not think I used technologies as often as I did before. For example, I did not use GeoGebra when teaching angle relationships formed by parallel lines cut by a transversal. Perhaps, this reflection is telling me to implement and use technology often and effectively for successful implementation of deep learning pedagogy. However, Hobbs (2011) state that simply purchasing and implementing "the latest digital technologies does not necessarily lead to the acquisition of digital and media literacy competencies" (p.15). I must carefully select and use technologies so that they allow my students to develop important skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, and communication, they must have for their school and future (Hobbs, 2011). I will collaborate with the media center specialist and instructional technology specialist to help me select and use technology, and I will also collaborate with them to build digital and media literacy for me and my students.

    The use of technology is also beneficial for teachers. According to Kuhn (2008), he states that "technology is making it easier for teachers to ensure depth and balance in their lessons" (p.18). I've experienced this when another math teacher introduced me to Formative, a website that allows teachers to assess students in real-time. I used Formative in my lesson and used its real-time student response system to determine if I needed to slow down or move forward. Kuhn (2008) also states that "the differentiating power of educational technology makes meeting the needs of different 'intelligences' or 'learning styles' more and more possible" (p.18). I've also experienced this, as Formative allows students to demonstrate their understanding in their preferred learning style. For example, visual learners can use a digital whiteboard. In addition, Formative allowed me to provide feedback immediately to students. As a result, students are more inclined to ask me questions regarding errors they made in their work, which is something you do not see often from students when they are working on paper assignments.

    Although I use technologies like Formative in my classroom, I noticed how this use of technology is limited to lower-order thinking skills, such as Remembering, Understanding, and Applying from the revised Bloom's Taxonomy (Huitt, 2011). To promote students to develop higher-order thinking skills, I believe I need to design rigorous tasks that involves technology. For example, I could create an assignment where students explore transformations on the coordinate plane using GeoGebra and create a video that explains each transformation, which would be a task that falls under Creating. The article written by Everett Rogers also helped me learn different types of adopters when it comes to responding to new technologies. From his article, I learned that I am an early majority, as I am "willing to consider new ideas only after peers have adopted" (Rogers, 1963, p.73). Perhaps, I believe I need to step up and become an early adopter so that I can better support my students in their education journey.