Over the last two weeks, we’ve had the chance to listen to two tremendous guest speakers on the subject of technology use in the classroom and beyond: Jesse Miller and Rich McCue. Their presentations are what motivated me to start thinking about the intentionality of the classroom, and the technology within it, especially in relation to BC’s new curriculum.

I’m continuously fascinated and excited by BC’s curriculum, because I felt very strongly growing up (especially through high school) that some of my teachers and courses had lost sight of what exactly education was supposed to be. Though I performed marvelously on tests and assignments, I was continuously aware of the fact that most of what I “learned” was surface-level information, retained only long enough to be regurgitated on a given examination. But BC’s curriculum is the first step to addressing that problem. The emphasis is no longer on specific items of knowledge that students are expected to “know,” but rather on core personal competencies that teachers must develop via learning about Biology, or Drama, or any other given course. This curriculum signals to me that somewhere, one or more people came together and reminded each other what the intention of education truly was: to provide students with broadly-applicable and adaptable knowledge and skills they’ll need to be happy and healthy in the future.

So when Jesse and Rich start to talk about the considerations of technology use by our students, and of the potential ways that it can enhance student learning, I am drawn to think about the intentions of teachers and students when they use that technology. At my last high school observation, I talked to a number of teachers and students about cell phone policies, cell phone use, and their fears and hopes surrounding it. None of the four teachers I talked to had an overt cell phone policy, though a couple shared that they were sorely tempted to ban them outright. Nevertheless, their attitude was more or less that cell phones were not to be used while a teacher was presenting or during set class activities, while cell phones could be used during free work times.

This got me thinking about why teachers would be (relatively) okay with students using phones during free periods, but not while the teacher is presenting. The prevailing logic seemed to be that teachers did not want students to miss the important information teachers were speaking to… but that seems to run counter to the principles of BC’s curriculum as it stands now. There is a growing understanding and acceptance of the fact that all students will have a supercomputer in their pocket at all times, and because of this, it is far less important to know specific information than it is to know where to find it.

So why is there a premium being placed on the teacher’s uninterrupted delivery of information? Teachers did not seem to be concerned by students’ use of cell phones during class discussions/seminars, for example, mostly because they found students rarely used them in those settings. From what little I’ve learned so far, that’s likely because students are actively involved in the learning that is being done, and because those discussions more fully attend to the competencies that are supposed to be developed (for this example, those could be “[contributing] to finding solutions to problems at a local and/or global level through inquiry” or “[implementing] multiple strategies to solve problems in real-life, applied, and conceptual situations.” When students are most involved in their learning–learning that is designed to develop competencies via content, not just impart content alone–they are also least likely to be distracted by personal devices.

All of this is to say that I will continue to keep intentionality in mind as I explore the various strategies and considerations of technology usage we’re learning about. When I think about perceived benefits, challenges, and opportunities technology provides, it will be through the lens of developing those competencies that students need to be successful, so maybe when I’m entering my 50th minute of uninterrupted lecturing and I find a few students have their heads down in their laps, I’ll take that as a sign that I need to better engage them, and not that they need to pay better attention.

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash, Edited by Kinnon Haufe