ict enhancing teaching and learning process

 

 

Education around the world is experiencing major paradim shifts in educational practices of teaching and learning under the umbrella of ICT enabled learning environment. Whereas learning through facts, drill and practices, rules and procedures was more adaptive in earlier days, learning through projects and problems, inquiry and design, discovery and invention, creativity and diversity, action and reflection is perhaps more fitting for the present times. The major hallmark of this learning transition is from teacher centered to learner focus paradigm. 

 

 

The Use of ICT in Teaching:

 

The use of Information and Communication: Technology for teaching in classroom has changed the very nature of learning and there fore still remains and emerging trend. The ICT assisted way of teaching acts as a catalyst in the classroom. The introduction of the technological devices in the teaching field as gained popularity. The reasons for the success of the ICT in teaching are:

 

1. ICT in teaching reduces the traditional barrier between the teacher and the learner

2. This method is learner-centered. 

3. It is effective for it teaches and entertains at the same time.

4. User friendly technology which could be accessed beyond the class room hours.

5. It enhances the learning language sills listening, speaking, reading, and writing catering to individual needs.

 

 

 

 

Key emerging findings

The study found that in the case study schools:

•Overall the motivational impact of ICT was positive. However the circumstances and ways in which ICT was used affected the outcomes.

•The forms of motivation which arose as a result of ICT use were concerned with a commitment to learn, more than with a mere completion of tasks or to gain a competitive edge. This was more the case with primary pupils than secondary pupils, but true of both groups.

•ICT had a positive motivational impact on the following learning processes:

•engagement (through visual, kin-aesthetic and auditory means);

• research (access to a wide range of resources from which to search and select);

• writing and editing (through offering pupils ways to commit ideas more readily and edit to far greater extents than before) and;

• presentation (through enabling them to present work neatly and professionally).

• The types of ICT that pupils found particularly useful were: the Internet, interactive white boards, writing and publishing software and presentational software.

•There was evidence that ICT impacted positively on pupils’ attitudes towards and engagement with their school work and some evidence from pupils and school staff that behavior in class was better when ICT was used.

•Through improving motivation, ICT impacted on the quality of pupils’ work, but for potential attainment outcomes to be fully realised, ICT needs to be used to support subject learning, that is, to impact on pupils’ subject-specific learning processes, rather than just addressing issues relating to engagement and presentation of work.

Methodology

Seventeen case study schools from across England ere selected on the recommendation of external observers including Becta, Ofsted and LEAs, as representing good practice in the use of ICT.