Mullins, Rebecca EDU 204 Technology in the Classroom: The Power of Why and Quality

In order to determine whether incorporating technology into your teaching makes sense, you need a crystal-clear picture of what you want to accomplish with the technology. Here are some strategies I've found useful in my own teaching that can help you uncover which aspects of your course would be best served by bringing in technology and also help steer you away from superfluous, why-are-we-using-this tech choices.

In the early 2010s, Jon Valant, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy, began researching Americans' perception of the "achievement gap," mainstream lingo for the difference in educational outcomes between historically advantaged and disadvantaged students. Recent polling shows a dramatic shift in the way Americans see racial disparity. A majority of white Americans now believe policing is racially biased, according to a recent Associated Press poll, and there is a growing sense among white Americans that racial injustice is a continuing problem in the United States – something that most Black Americans have said for years. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the reality that some students simply do not have the same resources as others, whether technological, familial, or institutional. A recent Pearson survey found that 72% of U.S. respondents worried the pandemic would exacerbate inequality at school.