Lesson 11: The Computer as the Teacher’s Tool

Content

            In this lesson, we shall again look at the computer, but this time from another perspective in which the computer as a teacher’s handy tool. It can in fact support constructivist and social constructivist paradigms of constructivist learning. Constructivist was introduced by Piaget (1991) and Bruner (1990). They give stress to knowledge discovery of new meaning/concepts/principles in the learning process.

Constructivist was introduced by Piaget (1981) and Bruner (1990). They gave stress to knowledge discovery of new meaning/concepts/principles in the learning process. Various strategies have been suggested to foster knowledge discovery, among these, is making students engaged in gathering unorganized information from which they can induce ideas and principles. Students are also asked to apply discovered knowledge to new situations, a process for making their knowledge applicable to real life situations. While knowledge is constructed by the individual learner in constructivism, knowledge can also be socially constructed-Social constructivism-. This is an effort to show that the construction of knowledge is governed by social, historical and cultural contexts. In effect, this is to say that the learner who interprets knowledge has a predetermined point of view according to the social perspectives of the community or society he lives in.

Experience

            As we can see, most of our teachers today use computers in their discussion and as a tool to project the lesson visually. Also, as an education student, especially during demo-teachings and reports I had experienced it to use computers as a tool and I can see its effectiveness to the listeners since learners today are visual learners.

Reflection

            With this present day’s innovation, flexibility and sophistication, the computer can be an important tool for teacher’s to access information, foster creative social knowledge building and use these in their profession. Without the computer, today’s learners may still be assuming the tedious task of low-level information gathering, building and new knew knowledge packaging. Since students nowadays are computer-oriented, so we should integrate this in learning to see how the learners participate in the activities. Also, to catch up easily the interests of the learners, then I guess using computer as a tool will be effective as a teacher’s tool in teaching.

Application

            As a future teacher, I will use computer as a tool in teaching so that I could easily catch students interests and eventually to enhance their critical thinking skills with the use of innovative technologies and ideas. Teachers might need an advance equipment to help them facilitate and provide information for the student. It can also promote some strategies were teachers can use it to think the appropriate technique for the learners.