Reflection prompt: How does your teaching philosophy align with or differ from the integration models you worked with during this module?

I teach to encourage students to continue to wish to learn throughout life. Many of these integration models help students stay engaged and interested in the material, through technology, so that they are more likely to want to be lifelong learners. For instance, PBL works best through collaboration with group members when coming up with solutions to problems, so they constantly stayed engaged (Savin-Baden, 2003). Both PBL and SAMR are student-centered models, rather than teacher-centered models. This gives students more opportunities to explore more resources on their technology and hold discussions with classmates. For example, Hamilton et al. (2016) gave an example where students came up with their own class expectations using technology to help provide ideas. Then, they discussed the expectations together to form a list (Hamilton et al. 2016). As a teacher, I practice the same expectations method because student voice is important, to keep a student-centered classroom. 

Technology is also extremely important in my classroom because technology continues to grow and is the now and future. Both PBL and SAMR are mostly reliant on technology, which keeps students in the classroom engaged and interested, so teachers may be more likely to adopt one of them into their classroom (Setiyawati et al. 2023). SAMR is considered a tool in technological use in the K-12 classroom setting (Hamilton et al. 2016). SAMR can be adopted through professional development class through examples. For example, Hamilton et al. (2016) described a high school science class lesson where students learned about light through an online simulation on their device (Hamilton et al. 2016). There are many sources, such as Nearpod that offer online simulations, virtual reality, and other activities that help support the diversity in learning in the classroom. 

To further explain Nearpod, here is an example: poetry in English class tends to be a difficult unit for middle school students. Using the Technology Integration Matrix (TIMS), Nearpod can make poetry more interesting for students. For example, a goal for a poetry Nearpod could be to understand and apply their understanding of theme and imagery by the end of the lesson. Some of the activities may include introduction of poetry analysis, a poem example with theme and imagery annotated, students read a poem with a partner and find the theme and imagery, the students individually draw a picture representing the poem’s imagery, and students write a short response using evidence from the poem to explain their drawing and the imagery it represents. Nearpod and other technology sources seem to be capable of being integrated into PBL, SAMR, or Technology Integration Matrix (TIMS).