• Question: In my naive understanding, there seems to be a wide variety of ideas to enhance learning such as gamification, flipped learning, cooperative learning, etc. At the same time, there are many tech platforms that use these ideas to teach, presumably, more effectively. My questions are, to what extend are the application of new education technologies/platforms beneficial for the learning process and what is the best way to introduce them in a classroom as a complement/substitution? to the teachers' teaching?

    Asked by andres-ito to Jessie, Jo, Liz, Lucy, Paul, Yana on 22 Jan 2018.
    • Photo: Yana Weinstein

      Yana Weinstein answered on 22 Jan 2018:


      That is a great idea. From my perspective as a learning scientist, it’s much less about the new shiny technology or even “active learning” itself, and much more about what’s going on in the students’ heads. The following blog post talks about incorporating GOOD active learning into the classroom, with our without apps. The apps are just a tool at the teacher’s disposal, and shouldn’t drive pedagogy. http://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/9/8-1

    • Photo: Jo Taylor

      Jo Taylor answered on 22 Jan 2018:


      Hi there, I’m not an expert in these things, but one thing I would definitely say is you should not pay lots of money for these types of technologies. There is usually no evidence that any one particular platform enhances learning relative to any other, or in fact relative to no platform at all. Often it is the ideas in them that are useful rather than the tech itself. Perhaps someone else can say some more about the specific ideas, e.g. gamification?

Comments