Blog 2 - Emerging Technology that Supports Content Learning

In the beginning of the chapter, I really appreciated reading about the three types of knowledge outlined for the reader: declarative, structural, and procedural. The way that Egbert described the ways in which these types of learning relate to each other and meld together made me evaluate my own teaching. I tried to focus and reflect on my own teaching to evaluate the type of knowledge that I'm helping to impart on my students.

One statement that stood out to me in the reading was that "different ways to learn and teach content might be necessary across disciplines" (Egbert, 2009). As a teacher of two contents - math and language arts - I thought about my own teaching and how I approach these very different areas in different ways. The way that I present the material in the math class is much more straightforward and procedural; however, in my language arts classroom, I tend to approach the material in a way that allows the students an opportunity to be more creative. This allows them the chance to develop their own learning through their writing and the delving into the literature. It made me realize that I should create more opportunities in my math classes for students to develop their own learning and knowledge.

After reflecting on my own teaching and the information presented in this chapter, one of the biggest ideas that I will take from the chapter is to create meaningful knowledge through the use of more advanced ways of learning rather than through lots of memorization and other means of declarative knowledge. As Egbert expressed, "instead of content knowledge being only the forebear of other types of thinking, gains in content knowledge are a result of those types of thinking" (2009).

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.