Crossing the Canyon

The implementation of higher level skills into lessons is the key to student growth and SAMR offers such a useful insight into what this looks like. Being able to recognize the benefits or potential drawback of technology uses allows for constant evaluation regarding what is best for our students. Simply replacing traditional methods with technological ones offers minimal benefit to a lesson and often is more a hindrance to learning. Evaluating our own teaching techniques using SAMR allows us to continually be improving and crossing the monumental canyon standing between enhancement and transformation. Being able to reach a kind of technology usage that reinvents what it means to learn is how we truly transform a classroom. Of course the stages of SAMR are sequential and not everything we do will be categorized as ‘redefinition,’ but striving to hit these higher order of learning is how good teachers become great teachers.