{"id":3438,"date":"2016-05-24T14:41:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T18:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=3438"},"modified":"2025-07-02T15:00:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:00:52","slug":"technology-in-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2016\/05\/24\/technology-in-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology In The Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Donna

Donna Frey ’87 Bowen checks homework the old-fashioned way in her geometry class at Bullock Creek High School in Midland, Michigan. (Photo by Jon Styer)<\/p><\/div>\n

Donna Frey ’87 Bowen<\/b><\/span> was one of the first math teachers in the country to use graphing calculators \u2013 and you\u2019d think this was a pretty neat claim to modest fame \u2013 but when a Crossroads<\/i> writer begins to pepper this 25-year teaching veteran with questions about which brand, Casio or Texas Instruments, came first, et cetera, et cetera, she gently but firmly provides guidance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I know that\u2019s really interesting,\u201d she says patiently, but with quiet insistence, \u201cbut the real story is what technology allows me to do now. <\/i><\/span>I can do so much more in terms of engaging students. Even my classroom management has changed because of technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her interlocutor, who is hundreds of miles away, immediately senses, even over the phone, what it must be like as a student in Mrs. Bowen\u2019s geometry class at Bullock Creek High School in Midland, Michigan. Even a not-so-good student might gain confidence from that firm realignment towards a different horizon.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re on the right track<\/i> is the affirming message.<\/span> <\/i>Just go this direction with your brain instead.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Bowen, however, has to be convinced that her teaching trajectory is worth sharing: \u201cThere are many other teachers that do amazing things out there. I\u2019m really not doing anything extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consider this article, then, a snapshot of a teacher who does what every teacher should in the course of his or her professional career: be both a steadfast practitioner of tried-and-true methodologies and a savvy integrator of new technologies.<\/span><\/p>\n

That iconic pedagogical tool, The Chalkboard, has gone the way of the ditto machine and the overhead projector (whether you were taught with or taught yourself with those tools has become a generation-definer). In her classes, Bowen uses a computer whiteboard and several instructional software programs: eInstruction Workspace, the freeware app Geogebra, and TI SmartView, which projects a representation of a graphing calculator for classroom viewing.<\/p>\n

Not only does she have more options when presenting complex concepts, but using a small tablet called a Mobi Learner, Bowen can teach her lesson from any location in the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Using

Using a Mobi Learner, Frey works with students on a series of homework problems and introduces new concepts, keeping students engaged with constant interaction, both digital and human. (Photo by Jon Styer)<\/p><\/div>\n

This means the class cut-up Johnny, who used to wait until Mrs. Bowen\u2019s back was turned to the whiteboard to make a face or otherwise disrupt the class, no longer has the opportunity. He\u2019s probably more engaged with what\u2019s going on, and also keeping an eye on the alarmingly peripatetic Mrs. Bowen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy classroom management has completely changed,\u201d Bowen says. \u201cI am never at the front of the classroom. I can even hand the Mobi to a student to draw on or manipulate a model while everyone is watching. I can say, \u2018Show me,\u2019 and they can. The dynamics have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Bowen is a fan of technology, she says, it \u201cdoes not fundamentally change the methods I use for getting concepts across. I ask good leading questions. I listen to them. Good teaching starts with good questioning. In fact, the more I teach, the less I say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another change, Bowen notes, is that she no longer has to convince her students \u2013 and that\u2019s just about every student in the Bullock Creek school district, because Bowen has been, for most semesters, the only geometry teacher \u2013 that math skills are necessary to a successful post-high-school career. \u201cA high school diploma is critical, and most kids these days get that. They\u2019re not quite so hard to convince that this is a skill they need to learn for their own benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of kids she didn\u2019t need to convince of that were her own: Mattie, a senior at Bullock Creek, and Corey, who graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 2013 and is now a doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering at University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

Before moving to Michigan in 1995 with her husband Frank, Bowen also taught in Northern Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donna Frey ’87 Bowen was one of the first math teachers in the country to use graphing calculators \u2013 and you\u2019d think this was a pretty neat claim to modest fame \u2013 but when a Crossroads writer begins to pepper this 25-year teaching veteran with questions about which brand, Casio or Texas Instruments, came first, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":3440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,911],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-springsummer-2016","issues-spring-summer-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3438"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4937,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions\/4937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}