VESC

The use of technology in the classroom can be a blessing or a curse. Teachers’ dispositions can be affected by the experiences they encounter when integrating technology with a lesson.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

     ---William Butler Yeats

Whether your goal is to earn your bachelor's, master's, or doctorate, the thought of being in an educational setting can be an exciting yet scary step for so many students contemplating higher education. For me, my journey began back in 2014 when I decided to enroll at a local college in Connecticut. After earning my bachelor's degree in just three years, I was encouraged by a dear friend to go for my master's, and by the summer of 2019, I had earned my degree.

Dispositions of both teacher and student can significantly influence the role of technology in any learning movement. This blog post aims to explore the application of technology specifically in college-level dance education. In addition to making suggestions for faculty to improve dispositions towards technology in the dance classroom, we will consider some creative ways that higher education responded to the COVID-19 global pandemic and how technology may have served to preserve college dance education in ways never considered previously!

Daily we are growing in understanding how to best navigate what we face as we determine how to emerge from our pandemic encounter. It is up to you and you alone to find your space, determine your level of comfortability, and walk into your new life. As we learn to lean and depend on others while learning to rely on ourselves, we grow by leaps and bounds. The goal is not to find this challenge overwhelming! When we do, we become paralyzed by fear and the unfamiliar. As we move forward in 2022, a little bit of angst gives us flashbacks of the uncertainty that plagued the start of 2020. Let me encourage you amid your near panic attack to hold on to your faith or clutch your pearls, or swing for the fences. Whatever you do, don’t give up; recalibrate!

<p>I was exactly fifteen and a half to the day when my great grandmother turned 100 years old. My parents gave her a cassette tape recorder/player as a birthday present. They thought she could use it to listen to music, Sunday sermons, and perhaps even record memories of her incredible life to serve as a family resource for generations to come. They were not prepared for her reaction: she was at first confused by the device — my father had to explain what it was and how it worked. Nana was gracious, yet firm in her response — she was not at all interested in this new technology and was not planning to learn about it. She handed it back to my dad and said, “Thank you for thinking of me, but this is your world now, dear.”</p>

The early years in the classroom can be a daunting experience for novice teachers. Nieto (2018) recounted her struggles as a first-year teacher and the challenges of other classroom teachers who persisted despite the difficulty. Too often, novice teachers have few opportunities to participate in meaningful professional learning experiences to improve their practice. Having a licensed educator in a classroom is not enough to ensure sustainable growth for teachers and students. Well-intentioned school leaders succumb to competing priorities (Kim et al, 2019), which often overshadow the professional learning needs of new and experienced educators.  

American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students are underrepresented in higher education institutions, comprising only 120,000 enrolled undergraduate students in 2018, a decrease of 33% from 2010-2018 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). Graduate student enrollment also decreased 21% between 2010-2018, with only 13,600 AI/AN graduate students enrolled in 2018 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). Not only are AI/AN students underrepresented, but they have low rates of degree completion (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019).

Making Technology Second Nature in Your Mathematics Classroom

Technology has become a leading aid in classroom success in the 21^st century. In this article, we will look at what dispositions might be holding you back from technological success in your classroom as well as some strategies to implement it effortlessly.

One of the most important aspects of technology in education is its ability to level the field of opportunity for students. – John King, U. S. Secretary of Education (Department of Education, 2017)

Raise your hand if you have created more training videos, more PowerPoint presentations, or more online course modules in the last year than ever before? As I suspected. OK, you can all put your hands down. So, let me ask you this question. How do you ensure your final product becomes an effective learning resource?