The first paper I read, A Model of Effective Instruction, focused on the four elements of QAIT: Quality, Appropriateness, Incentive, Time. The part of this that I personally struggle with is the Incentive component. It's important that students are motivated to do the work you are assigning. This ties back to what Alan November was talking about. He found a way to do that by getting the students involved in their communities and taking ownership of the problems they were working on. I would love to do that, but I'm not entirely sure how to. The second paper I read, Principles of Effective Instruction, had two main principles that it focused on. The first was the idea of reflexive learning. That means that students need to reflect on what they are learning. I agree that this is incredibly important to student success in terms of complete understanding and retention of the material. My issue is that it feels like there's never enough time to allow for that to happen in class. We are being told we have to include more and more into the curriculum every year and I feel we don't get to go as deep into as topic as we should because there is never enough time in the school year. The other principle is support. There are three different types of support that were discussed: cognitive, motivational, and emotional.
I think it's important for a Technology Integration Specialist (TIS) to be an effective instuctor. The role of a TIS is to help classroom teachers become more effective instructors. Ultimately, students are more successful when their teachers are effective instructors. This means it starts at the top with the TIS and trickles down.
