By: Dayshia Stratton & Ariana Moreno
OwlFeed Journalists

Teachers are seen as the foundation of the school system. They have the biggest responsibility to educate us while the world is evolving.Teachers have dealt with many changes within their classrooms and teaching styles because of the advancing technology.

Teaching has changed in some ways in the sense that technology has forced classrooms to be “up-to-date.”

Now that technology is in the classrooms, that means that so much work is done on the computer, especially through Google Classroom. Google Classroom is basically an online classroom run by the teacher which allows students to upload their work from documents and also edit documents and complete assignments over the internet.

Teaching has also stayed the same over the years because of the way students learn. Each new year that class of students are ready to fill their noggins with the information that is going to be taught to them.  Students absorb the information each year and the information is always new to them. The teachers use the same methods they used the previous years for their other students and pass it down each year to every new batch of students.

Students are always ready to learn each subject that they are placed in and by the end of the year they have more knowledge in the subject than they had before they had started.

When I think of all of my teachers throughout school I remember that they all built some kind of relationship with the students in their classrooms. That is something that always stays the same. Teachers want to be seen as someone that their students can go to and build a relationship with the class.

Many teachers believe that technology within the classroom is for both better or worse because it is harder for teachers to get the full attention of students without having to tell them to put away their electronic devices. For example, Jennifer Brannock Cox (assistant professor of communication arts at Salisbury University) explained in her article Reclaiming the Classroom with Old Fashioned Teaching that she spends “too much time repeatedly asking the same students to stay on task,” but she also claimed that she does not want to take away computers and electronics due to “those who actually benefit academically from the ease of online access.

“Teachers nowadays recognize students’ strengths and weaknesses compared to when I was in school,” said Stephon Jackson, 31, Sous Chef at The Fountains At Lake Pleasant, who graduated in 2005. “Now they realize students could be surpassing the whole lesson or just simply doesn’t understand and needs the extra help. There was never a one on one basis.”

“My first classroom had chalkboards, then white boards, then we reached projectors, then we had the projectors that showed up on the walls and then in the early 90s came computers,” said Raymond Karvis, Agua Fria High School chemistry teacher.  

Raymond Karvis, one of the many long lasting and beloved teachers here at Agua Fria, believes that “great teaching is on your feet not on your seat.”

This is something that a majority of teachers still believe in even though they are usually seen sitting at their computers throughout the day. Instead of sitting at their desks and paying no mind to their students, they actually walk around and are still on top of what is going on in their classrooms.

The modern way of teaching is more activity based. Teachers use questioning, explaining, collaboration with other students and sharing ideas unlike the traditional way of teaching.

There are many different types of teaching, unfortunately some are more effective than others . While research in Shanghai, China, suggests some practices are more effective than others— such as their use of traditional teaching or the ‘Chalk and Talk’ method. Still, however, teachers and their own knowledge of the content also needs to be accounted for.

One last thing that has stayed the same within classrooms is that despite the fact that teachers have a lot on their plates that they have to deal with, they still love teaching. They chose to be a teacher for a reason and at the end of the day they still love it because of the impacts that they create on these students and their futures.