Technology And Student Achievement

For students growing up in society today, they have been inundated with technology from birth. As they begin their journey through education, they will experience a classroom where laptops, tablets, and other forms of electronic devices has been integrated into the curriculum in an effort to increase student achievement. The goal for using technology is to fully engage students in a way that a traditional classroom cannot. In order to accomplish increase student achievement 1) educators must be well trained and 2) create a positive learning environment where student-centered learning can flourish. Some advantages that technology has enables students to be more creative, synthesize, critically think, organize, research, and work together …show more content…
Therefore, I believe that when integrated properly, technology can have on positive impact on student achievement.
The first way to impact student achievement with technology is to have teachers that are properly trained to integrate technology as a learning tool. However, many educators claim to use technology, but when asked how they use it, they cite PowerPoint, overhead …show more content…
For example, as a student begins to work through a mathematics lesson, via educational software, they have the ability to work through each problem at their own pace (Dolenc and Aberšek, 2015). In addition, software programs provide students with immediate feedback on the lesson they just completed. By providing students with instantaneous feedback the student can focus on problem areas, and thus become more active in their own learning. However, in larger classrooms, students cannot get this type of individualized attention. They either wait for feedback, or never receive feedback from the instructor. In a study conducted by researchers Smith and Greene (2013), they used flip cameras to record the lesson from each of the 27 pre-service teachers. Once recorded, the pre-service teacher upload their video to a course website, and then reviewed by peers and faculty in their class. They concluded that after watching their own lesson, 82% felt they learned more about their teaching habits than trying to think about what transpired in class after a few days (Smith and Greene, 2013). Also, 77% of pre-service teachers valued the feedback they received after their professor viewed the video (Smith and Greene, 2013). This type of immediate feedback and freedom cannot be replicated in the traditional classroom. In another