Assistive Technology

Through CEP 452, I have learned a great deal about assistive technology.  Before this course, I had not given assistive technology very much thought.  I had no idea how much assistive technology was out there or what exactly qualified as assistive technology.  I now see how much potential assistive technology has.  Assistive technology can be used in any classroom.  This technology has such a wide range of offerings that it allows teachers to find the technology that will work best for their student.  Assistive technology has a place in both general eduction and special eduction rooms.  I feel that a lot of students could benefit from having assistance from technology.  I think that almost any student will struggle with something throughout their schooling and technology could help.

Questions

I feel that questions play a very important part in the classroom.  Even if a student asks a question that you cannot answer right away, I think it is still important to value the question and encourage your students to continue asking questions.  I feel that there are ways for students to know you value questions without having to answer every question immediately when it is asked.  I think that each teacher needs to find their own way balancing the encouragement of questions without answering them all right away.  One possible way to do this is to allow your students to write their questions down.  You can then have your students put the questions in a question box for you to answer later, or the students can hold on to the question and the teacher can answer it during a designated time later that day.  This is just one possible solution but there are many.

Wait Time

I think that wait time is a very important in the classroom.  Once you have asked a question of students, you need to give the students time to process what you have asked.  Students also need that time so that they can formulate an answer.  The additional time give students to think about an answer and to form it in a way that they can say it.  I think wait can also be beneficial for teachers.  Once a students has given a response to the question, the teacher also needs a second or two to process what the student response was. Wait time at this point gives other students time to process the answer as well so that they can respond as well to what the student said.  I found an article that discusses some of the benefits of wait time: Think-Time.