Growing Together: Technology, Emotional Intelligence, and the Modern Classroom
How can we, as educators and a society, support the integration of technology in the classroom? We live in a technological world, yet, as educators, we struggle to change, to adapt, and worst of all, to fail. Why is it so hard to try new things? After reading “Fostering Emotional Intelligence With and Without Technology”, an interview with Jeff Hittenberger, as well as a few others, a lot of technological leaders have struggled with supporting educators, teaching them to accept the change, building their confidence in the change, and developing instructional procedures where this fusion of a technology-based classroom appears fluid because if the teachers can’t teach it, how can the students learn it?
In Hittenberger’s interview he addresses the challenges he faced growing up and how this influenced his “sense of responsibility that I wanted to be involved in providing possibilities to people who hadn't had the kinds of opportunities that a public education would afford” (Stachowiak and McClay, 2024). This emphasizes Hittenberger’s sense of responsibility to find new and improved opportunities for educators to integrate technology within their classroom. In a modern classroom, technology can create endless opportunities for teachers to support their students as well as build their own knowledge on these new devices. As educators, it must be a team effort, he says “We then choose the technologies based on what is going to help us advance the mission, build the team, and accomplish the thing that we share as our common ‘why’”(Stachowiak and McClay, 2024). This emulates the idea that educators, as a whole, need to support each other when transitioning into a technological based classroom. If we look at the big picture, and everyone works together, then everyone can grow together.
By working together, and looking at the big picture, Hittenberger can be compared to the ISTE Standards as being a visionary planner. For Hittenberger, emotional intelligence is an important skill to obtain when implementing technology into the classroom. Throughout his interview he repeats this idea that we are trying to complete a mission, he says “but unless we are functioning with emotional intelligence, we are not going to get to the ultimate mission that we are trying to accomplish. Emotional intelligence gets at what makes people tick. It gets into the core” (Stachowiak and McClay, 2024). In order to achieve this shared purpose, or vision, it is essential to have emotional intelligence. By having this, Hittenberger is displaying characteristics of a visionary planner. As long as everyone obtains the correct skills to reach the same goal, then they can be successful with technology integration. However, obtaining these skills and reaching these goals takes a little more than talking about, they have to put it into action. Professional development played a role in this “call to action”. Hittenberger says working in this way“has been a really important journey for our team. We have used Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence and Carol Dweck’s Mindset, which are foundational in this field and for a growth mindset” (Stachowiak and McClay, 2024). Hittenberger has educators working together to build up themselves in order to have a better connection with technology, which allows for an easier integration process. Despite participating in professional development and taking all of these initiatives, there were still challenges faced during this transformation process.
A real-world challenge Hittenberger faced was meeting people with the lack of emotional intelligence, which would cause a struggle when faced with technology. If you lack emotional intelligence, it can cause you to react irrationally when dealing with technology, such as reacting with frustration or resistance rather than curiosity and growth. Hittenberger believes that “The lack of emotional intelligence can have devastating effects. It can undermine the things we are trying to accomplish. It can alienate us from the people we need to be working with” (Stachowiak and McClay, 2024). Poor emotional intelligence can lead to the misuse of technology, causing us to harm work relationships, reducing a teamwork effort and potentially making it harder to reach that primary goal.
When reading Hittenberger, and thinking about my personal experiences, I resonated with the idea that we should build our emotional intelligence to set the baseline for technology integration. If we lack the ability to empathize and understand how could we deal with understanding and implementing such complex ideas. By empathizing when it comes to technology, we also show a closer connection to our classroom overall. In “The Components of Authentic Learning” Rule says “Research related to effective instructional practices emphasizes the need for greater personalization and individualization….” (Rule, 2006). If we, as educators, are unable to use technology appropriately how can we expect our students to do the same. Developing emotional intelligence allows educators to respond thoughtfully, effectively collaborate, and integrate technology in ways that enhance learning in the classroom.
References:
Rule, A.C. (2006). Editorial: the components of authentic learning. Journal of Authentic Learning
Links to an external site. 3(1), 1-10.
I think it's pretty interesting that the interview starts with talking about him as a youth. Our experience as a kid has a lot more to do with who we are as teachers than I often think we realize. I think most people worthy of being interviewed had to be a visionary planner at some point. Success is impossible without vision. I like your connections with emotional intelligence and technology. Tech is so emotionless it is even more important we are bringing that emotion into the classroom.
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