Interview with a Post Secondary Mathematic Instructor

Interview Except	Analysis
Can you give an example when you use technology and when you don't in your teaching? Please explain why you use or not use technology in each case. Use technology for computer demonstration of computer graphics, demonstration of calculations using Excel. Demonstration of other concepts using computers. Appropriate to use Excel to do the calculations to avoid tedium of calculation, and chart results. Computer graphics and algorithm course – demonstrate change in appearance, students can see the outcomes and effects. Don’t use Powerpoint. Used only rarely. On handouts, if you give them handouts, students believe handout is equivalent to learning. If you don’t give them handouts, they don’t make notes effectively, no matter how slow you go. Stay away from overhead projector, use white board, because it is more interactive.	The instructor uses technology judiciously. He is aware of the changing attitudes of his students and picks the appropriate technology, mainly to demonstrate the effects of mathematical concepts, rather than using technology to explain the details and derivation of these concepts. The instructor also prefers using the whiteboard to present mathematical concepts rather than using Powerpoint which is more static. By working out the mathematics on the board with the students, the students are able to follow the reasoning and the procedure behind the concepts and the derivation.
How has your teaching changed or not changed in the last X years with new technologies being introduced in the classroom? Does it reduce preparation time or increase it? Are the students more engaged? Less time on derivations and more time on demonstration. The effect can be seen on the changing characteristics of the class. Mathematic students tolerate derivation much less than before. Not big change in how to teach, but can do more demonstration better now. 20 years ago, computer graphics course emphasized on computer algorithms. Students nowadays will not benefit from that approach. They are less detail oriented, they click buttons to see what will happen. They learn less.	One of the advantages of technology is that it can easily captivate student attention through its multimedia presentation. The side effect is that the students are so used to the razzle and dazzle of these demonstrations that detailed analysis of the inner workings of the mathematical derivations, which are much more “mundane”, is not as well received.
How has the student's learning changed or not changed in the last X years with new technologies being introduced in the classroom? Do they do better? Do they ask more questions? Are their critical thinking skills improved? The students will not learn on their own. The existence of user interfaces in electronic equipment, whether telephone or computer screen, has changed. Strategy to solve problems is to put something down, and see if it gives the right answer. You may not know the answer but if it doesn’t look right, try something else. User friendliness does not promote stop and analysis learning. Strategy is to try a solution, if it doesn't work, try something else, and see if it works. Hacker mentality. It makes the trial and error. Hard to engage students in hard problem solving, with or without technology.	The result of using technologies in the classroom is that the students actually learn less with technologies, and the effect is exacerbated by the “user-friendliness” of available technologies in the classroom. Instead of promoting critical thinking and analysis, students can try different guesses to get at the solutions of their math problems, rather than logically reason out the steps to solve the problems. Instructors may also rely overly on technologies to grade student assignments, such as the use of Scantron, or simply checking the final answer rather than the steps to solve a problem, which is not available using current technology.
Imagine that your school had an unlimited budget and it offered the Mathematics Department the opportunity to completely revamp its classrooms and course contents. The Director of the Mathematics Department is looking for suggestions on how to spend that money. What would be your top three suggestions to spend those funds? (Damian) Used Maple TA to set up a testing system – enormous use of technology, took 8 months to set up the questions. Expense is not in equipment, but in developing the content, and creating the question templates. Potential use is to give every student equivalent work to do, but the questions are different. Students cannot just copy from other classmates. Good for co-op learning. Alternatives are generated by the random number generator. Used in a remedial class with high failure rate. Co-op learning does not work with one set of questions. Students will find out who the brightest student is and that student do the work and others will just copy from that student, and have little idea how to do the assignment. Students at XXXX have too much work to do. One student will do the work in one class for everyone, and another student will do the work for another class for everyone. Unique assignment will force each student to do the work. If done on the internet, the template can also generate hints for the students but these must be prepared by the instructor. Takes a lot of time to prepare.	Technologies need to be carefully evaluated before they are adopted in the classroom. The pros and cons of using technologies must be weighed upon carefully to ensure student learning is not affected negatively. Even learning methods without the explicit use of digital technologies, like co-op education, is found to be unsuitable for certain learning environments.
What kind of learning curve do your students experience with educational technology in your class? (PATRICIA) Are they pretty quick in picking up the new technologies? Not really a learning curve especially in demonstration. Students use Excel a lot. 25 years ago, they had to use calculators. Now they use Excel and they struggle with it. Not so much for computing students who probably learned from other courses. Other students take about 25% of course to learn Excel, included in course outline.	Learning to use technology in the classroom does take up extra time. This should be factored into the regular schedule without having students to learn them outside of class.
What limitations do you see with respect to using technology in your educational environment? (WANDA) Are there any support? Do you have enough preparation time? Consumes time. Support: it takes time to write programs to develop demonstration. Other instructors use Powerpoint to develop slides.	With the limited time and support for teachers, it is difficult to explore the use of technology in the classroom, and to critically evaluate their advantages and disadvantages. Powerpoint is popular and easy to use because presentations can be easily put together, and some textbooks already come with these presentations as part of the teacher’s resource kit. It also helps the teacher to organize the material to be presented.
Final comments on technologies in the classroom: Technology is not a panacea. Educational activity still takes place between people. Technology is just a tool. Technology is still very passive for the moment. Information is provided but the students have to figure it out themselves. As a tool to remove tedium of calculations, give variety and demonstration and visual in the classroom, technology is great. Not sure if the real contact between a machine and a student will ever happen. Not sure if a machine will pick up the thinking process of the students. Students still talk to the instructors because they can’t just learn from the book themselves.	Technology has not matured, and may not ever mature, to a state where learning can be tracked by a machine to effectively guide a student in the learning process. This instructor’s use of Maple TA is a step in the direction in that the templates he put together do project what the students may or may not do in the solution of the math problems. In case the student does take the wrong step, the program can question the student’s reasoning.