No Tech Tuesday: Teeland Middle School finds a way to take a break from the screen time, incorporate more hands-on learning

Teeland Middle School has added something new to its weekly calendar.

No Tech Tuesday.

It’s an idea that was tossed around as a group of Mat-Su Borough School District principals met ahead of the 2026-27 school year. Teeland Middle principal Brandt Bowen heard it and immediately loved it. Now, every Tuesday Teeland staff and students are taking a little break from Chromebooks and Promethean boards. Less screen time, more hands-on activities.

“The last couple years, I’d walk into classrooms with Chromebooks open. Some kids are on task. Some kids are doing whatever they want to do,” Bowen said.

Schools nationwide were forced into a new way to teach students by the pandemic in 2020. Educators relied heavily on technology for pure necessity. It was a way to continue to teach students while the world was flipped upside down, and social distancing became the new normal of the COVID era.

Staff and students eventually returned to the classroom. The added technology in teaching stayed and continues to evolve. But in recent years educators like Bowen are asking questions.

How do we create engagement?

How do we increase student involvement?

How do we get to those hands-on experience lessons instead of what’s just on the screen?

“Kind of bring that pendulum back,” Bowen said. “COVID took us all one way, and now we’re coming back and we've got to do a mix of hands-on in what we offer.”

It’s not just the staff asking.

“Even the kids are like, we need to do something besides this,” Bowen said.

Now, Bowen said, teachers have been asked to come up with a list of hands-on activities that still meet curriculum standards.

“The kids can get up out of their seats and do something,” Bowen said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Teeland social studies students were outside on the fields learning how to use maps and compasses.

“When you are actually out there doing it, the kids, I think, get more out of it,” Bowen said.

David Childs teaches eighth-grade civics and U.S. history at Teeland.

“I agree with it,” Childs said of the concept. “It’s important for us to meter the time between direct instruction, movement activities and also spend time on screens.”

Childs is in his 32nd year as an educator, spending the bulk of his career in the classroom pre-pandemic.

“We spent a lot of time training ourselves a while ago for how to use the online platforms out of necessity, because we had to. So pulling back away from that is maybe a challenge for some, but I think it's pretty easy,” Childs said.

Childs said it might be different for a teacher who launched their career in education after the pandemic.

“I don't feel like there's resistance to this change. It's just making sure that everybody has the right tools,” Childs said.

Childs said teachers see the need to find more of a blend in the strategy.

“We're recognizing through studies that this is what's best for kids. Obviously, there's courses that are going to lend themselves easier to this pivot rather than others,” Childs said. 

Teeland teachers are also getting creative. In language arts, Bowen said, a teacher has brought the old-school typewriter back to life and into the classroom.

“It’s a totally different way of thinking than when you have a computer,” Bowen said. “They don’t have autocorrect. They have to go back and they fix it.”

It’s still early in the school year, but both Bowen and Childs said it’s already something students are looking forward to.

“Students are super excited. They're actually the ones reminding the teachers there's no Chromebooks today. They're the ones letting them know, and I love it,” Bowen said.

Rory Warner is an eighth-grader at Teeland.

“I like it,” he said. “It’s mostly paper assignments, and you get to talk with your friends while you work in the classroom. It’s not just looking at promethean boards and slideshows all day.”

Caleb Richardson is a sixth-grader.

“It feels good to not be on our computers,” Richardson said.

Bowen said there’s room to expand the concept. It may not become just a Tuesday thing.

“It’s making sure that we're doing a good job of covering those standards again. It can't just be activities for fun. It can be fun. But I want activities to really tie into the standards that they're supposed to be learning at each grade level. And I think we will get there,” Bowen said.

The concept is not a step backward or revolt against advanced technology in education, he said.

“I still think differentiation with technology and AI is pretty amazing, and we need to be using that. But we need to use it meaningfully, not just free reign,” Bowen said. “Kids will create using that stuff. But are they creating something that's useful or just entertaining?”

There is an opportunity to embrace technology. Teeland has an afterschool program that offers students the opportunity to use 3D printers and learn how to code. That’s great for students, he said. But educators are working to find the right balance.

“I just think it's gone so far in the mainstream classroom that we should be able to walk into a classroom and not see Chromebooks open, see kids doing something,” Bowen said.

Jeremiah Bartz is the community relations coordinator for the Mat-Su Borough School District.
Video by Brian Mead