One Hundred Posts Later: Highlights from the Blog Archives
Ever since 2017, Tech-Based Teaching has been sharing ideas on educational technology, computational thinking, evidence-based teaching practices and more. Today, we’ve reached the one hundredth post! Thanks to all our readers and to those who share posts from the blog with their fellow educators and learners.
To celebrate, here are some highlights from the archives.
“The Case for Writing in Math Classes”
In 2017, a student made a case for including more writing within math classes. That post stands as one of the most celebrated on the blog to this day. It’s no wonder: mathematics isn’t a discipline to be set apart from rhetoric and communication. Math is communication.
The use of notebooks, such as those used in Wolfram Mathematica to process and annotate calculations, shows the value of writing within a mathematical context. Having composition blended into the math curriculum encourages students to think of writing and math as complementary, rather than as opposites. This post inspired a companion post a couple years later, “The Case for Math in Writing Classes.”
“If Curious, Then Learn: A Brief Intro to Algorithmic Thinking”
This 2018 post is part of the “Brief Intro” series, each of which shares information about a concept relating to computational thinking. While later posts would cover such topics as abstraction and decomposition, this first post on algorithmic thinking started it all.
This blog has always aimed to share information on computational thinking, of which there are many facets. The Brief Intro posts are designed to explore concepts in a way that’s engaging and easy to read. Ideally, those concepts can then be implemented into lessons, regardless of the field.
“Don’t Reread, Retrieve: The Benefits of Retrieval Practice”
In 2019, the blog started to focus on more evidence-based teaching practices, including retrieval practice. Retrieval practice, which uses active recall as a learning strategy, has been explored in research and covered in books. This post gives an overview of retrieval practice, from its inception to its implementation.
Tech-Based Teaching has two main focuses, each of which are found in the name. Tech(nology), of course, is a strong area of interest, and it can be seen in previous posts on code and on computational thinking. But teaching is important too. The blog will continue to share ideas on teaching not only as theory but as praxis.
“Using Podcasts for Remote Learning”
Much has been written about the way that education changed in 2020. The shift to remote learning was abrupt, and teachers had to adapt their teaching to fit changing paradigms. Certain words sprang up: pivot, HyFlex, hybrid pedagogy. Everyone was learning what worked and what didn’t.
Remote learning was a focus on the blog throughout the year, and this post in particular seemed to resonate with readers. Podcasts are a wonderful learning tool. Previous posts had explored them as a way of providing professional development. In this post, that idea is flipped, allowing them to enrich students’ interests.
It’s hard to say what will be the most-read posts of 2021, as the year isn’t even half over. If you want to see what posts you might have missed, check out the archive here. You can also browse through commonly assigned tags on the header.
Whether you’re a longtime reader or just found this blog today, thank you for reading. We hope you continue to enjoy posts to come. Look forward to more tech, more learning and more computational thinking!
About the blogger:
Jesika Brooks
Jesika Brooks is an editor and bookworm with a Master of Library and Information Science degree. She works in the field of higher education as an educational technology librarian, assisting with everything from setting up Learning Management Systems to teaching students how to use edtech tools. A lifelong learner herself, she has always been fascinated by the intersection of education and technology. She edits the Tech-Based Teaching blog (and always wants to hear from new voices!).
