A discovery that I made while working on my independent inquiry is that it takes a long time to research an educational topic. Reading up on all the background and current information takes time. This made me realize that its a good thing I had the chance to investigate many issues in education during my degree, because it will be hard to find time to do it as a teacher.
The topic of my independent inquiry was investigating the gender gap in technology education. I realized through this inquiry that I have some personal biases when it comes to technology. I have become used to deferring to the men in my life when I have technology problems. Even examining this habit will be helpful as a teacher, because as I learned through my research the relationship I have with technology will likely affect my students. I was also surprised to learn how many embedded gender-related messages can be present in today’s technology such as video games.
The big revelation from my study was that one of the best, most inclusive ways to teach students to use technology is to do exactly what we have been learning about in our Technology and Inquiry class: design tasks where students are using technology in an engaging and authentic way. I learned that context is one of the most important things in making technology inclusive for all. It’s convenient, because I really like the type of teaching we have been talking about all semester. I am excited to teach using great inquiry projects with technology embedded in them. Now I have one more reason that this is a great way to teach. As a beginning teacher, I am always looking for the proof to justify what I am going to be doing in the classroom so that I can speak to parents and other educators about it eloquently. That’s the nice thing about the independent inquiry: it gives me that experience in communicating why I think inquiry based teaching is a good idea.
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