Its Time for Education Reform :: Education Reform Essays

In Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, Ralph Tyler stated that we should determine what our children wishing to learn through analysis of contemporary society (1949). I argue further that we must teach beyond todays situation to deposit our students for an unsealed future. All things considered, students minimal exposure to engine room in schools is mystifying. How can we prepare our students for tomorrows world when we continue to teach with methods and materials from yesterday? My early experiences as a teacher and in my Masters degree program have inspired me to cypher to integrate technology into the inquiry and constructivist models of cognition education. I have turn up the value of both my instruction methods and curriculum design abilities in my throw biological recognition classroom, at conferences, and while working with other teachers however, I understand the change I initiate to be frustratingly localized. I want to seize a leadership role outsi de of the classroom so that my efforts allow influence more teachers and students and, perhaps, make a difference on insurance policy and practice in science education. Computers naturally engage students, so we must embrace and exploit this powerful bond as a factor to serve our goals as educators. Yet throughout my experience in educational settings, the role of technology seems to have been reduced to a flashy, colorful musical mode of reinforcing ineffective and outdated teaching strategies. I have focused my talents as a teacher and curriculum designer on the role of technology in the science classroom. I initiated this work during my Masters degree program, which was focused on technology in education, and began to adapt various computer programs and other devices to my Biology curriculum. During my first year of teaching I worked to bridge the gap among such technologies and my constructivist ideology, not only in Biology but overly in Earth Science. I knew that if th ese amazing resources were to advance the mission of science education, they would have to work with the model, not against it. Through search programs, curriculum development, and vary training, I have excelled at the integration of multiple forms of technology with research-supported methods of science instruction. In the summer of 2001, I participated in the E-2020 program, affiliated with the University of Colorado at Denver, which matches teachers with scientists for summer research accompanied by workshops in inquiry instruction. My research took place in the Surface Optical Spectroscopy Laboratory at the Colorado School of Mines, where I learned to perform Raman Scattering.