Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts

Monday, August 31, 2015

Educational Theories

Question: Why is teaching that relies solely on conventional didactic instructional strategies considered ineffective teaching? I was taught that way and achieved a Masters degree and consider myself to be at a somewhat higher than at an intermediate level of technological expertise.

Exactly what are we searching for? I wonder if is there is no there, there. Just seems as though every paradigm, theory and model proposed between then and now has had little if any positive influence on learning.
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Monday, July 6, 2015

Teaching is Easy and You Have the Summer Off

Copied from the Education and Mobile Learning web site July 6, 2015 (http://www.educatorstechnology.com/p/blog-page_7.html). And when you're done reviewing these and have made your decision regarding which you will be using this school year. . . .  What, you don't have time?

                      21st Century Teaching Resources

                        Teachers Web Tools

                                Google Tools for Teachers

                                 Educational iPad Apps

                            Content Area Resources

                          Educational Social Networking

                                  Teacher Resources
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Thursday, June 25, 2015

Too Much or Not Enough High-Tech in Classrooms

NOTE: I use the term "high technology" to recognize the many non-digital forms of technology, e.g., the printed word, ball-point pens, etc.

This raging debate has been pretty much overshadowed by Common Core and high-stakes testing, but I believe we should revisit it periodically rather than just going with the flow which appears to be the status quo. Lacking definitive research we still forge ahead spending big bucks. "Just what if technology really does enhance learning?" "Do I, the teacher, the administrator, the board member, want to be responsible for denying students opportunities to achieve, gain a college degree, get a good job, succeed in the future digital world?" The answer: "We can't take the chance, we must spend the money." Or as is in many one-to-one schools, "We will dictate a BYOD policy and let the parents/guardians spend the money." Maybe we don't need to speed up, slow or stop the momentum, maybe we need allow the direction of the technology momentum to be guided by the practitioners, the teachers.

SmithSystem.com does a fairly good job of capturing the more common valid reasons behind too much or too little (http://smithsystem.com/smithfiles/2014/10/20/classroom-technology-much-enough/). Reasoning for more: eBooks, post-school tech use, gaming develops spatial skills and inductive reasoning, collaboration/communication, deeper engagement/broader learning, teacher tools, and support for PLEs. Reasoning for less: meaningful engagement comes from people, too much too soon, distracting, cost and obsolescence, taxes teachers' expertise, and classroom management. I can agree with both sides.

So my answer (too much, too little?) is both. We are all aware of the technology resource "gap" between wealthy and poor community schools. (A short aside: this gap also exists within Catholic schools systems, particularly in urban areas where many schools are dependent on donors for the majority of their technology resources.) This is without doubt a too little situation. I don't pretend to have an answer regarding how to close this gap without spreading the wealth which would mean lowering the amount of technology available to wealthier schools in order to raise the amount of technology available to poorer schools. Or without increasing taxes. Either solution requires more big government involvement, ala Common Core and high-stakes testing and I'm a firm believer in locally controlled schools, among most other things.

We are also aware, although we seldom admit, that gaps exist among teachers within even the better-resourced schools. Recent research points out that the teacher gap is not so much due to age and the digital native/digital immigrant thing but more to the pedagogical maturity and content adeptness of teachers. And that the gap is not so much regarding how much technology is in play but more so about how successful it is employed whatever the level of integration. In short, well-grounded teachers, if allowed, do their homework, select and implement the technology that works best for them. That's not an easy chore. There are many hardware choices and tens of thousands of educational apps and applications. Each teacher can't vet them all and obviously a certain amount of standardization is necessary. The standardization should occur at the lowest possible economically viable level but no higher than school level. Full collaboration among all stakeholders is essential. Technology budgets should be built from the bottom up beginning with individual teachers. Teachers should have full reign over the software applied within their classrooms. Again, not easy decisions, however, help is available through PLCs; individualized, non-workshop-based PD (please!); the Internet; mentorship; and the technology department.
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Sunday, June 7, 2015

The Changed Roles of the School/District Tech Director/Manager

Ten years ago, the guy in charge of IT had a relatively non-collaborative and straightforward job. Broadly we were responsible for the traditional management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Specifically we oversaw the procurement, installation and repair of hardware and software, the network and servers. We seldom interfaced with faculty and staff other than to take direction, respond to service requests or request funding. Given the hundreds of tasks involved in successfully performing those functions, we were busy and, if we were lucky enough to have them, our staffs were busy.

The truth has changed. What we do less of and what we do more of, more or less cancels each other out. We still are very, very busy. In most institutions, we are well beyond integrating technology into our classrooms (provisioning with operable computers and interactive whiteboards). A major change, the main goal of the modern IT director/manager, is to facilitate (read "manage") the successful integration of technology into the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities. The ideal approach is through coaching/mentoring, professional development and learning communities. A great discussion about these approaches is at the Center for Public Education website. I couldn't say it better but I will emphasize that we're not talking about traditional workshop-based professional development, which as been shown by numerous studies to be ineffective. Please read the article.

Other affective truths are the changes (I hesitate to use "advancements"--I'll wait for validated results) in educational technology, the students, and pedagogies including:  the shift toward mobile technologies; cloud computing (SaaS -software as a service; PaaS-platform as a service; and IaaS-infrastructure as a service); all students are now "digital natives", many being technologically sophisticated; open source software; the need to ensure that students remain familiar with technologies that they might be using after school; learning management systems (LMS) (e.g. Moodle); online courses (MOOC); staying ahead of the available apps and software to support each content area; one-on-one computing in the classroom; bring your own device (BYOD); the flipped classroom; blended learning; learning partnerships; game enhanced learning; project-based learning; peer teaching; brain-based learning; differentiated instruction; just-in-time teaching; deep learning (whatever that is); etc.

Educational technology changes are accompanied by fear and operational and resource problems: privacy, security, safety, available band width, available funding, qualified technicians, committed administrators and board members, and push back to name a few. The technology manager/director must become an expert in change management and an integral part of the change planning and execution team. As technology becomes more infused into administrative and management functions, the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities, the more involved the educational technologist should be.

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Thursday, May 21, 2015

Obstacles to K-12 Student Success

In yesterday's post, Diane Ravitch references a survey of the nation's teachers of the year http://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/20/teachers-of-the-year-say-that-family-stress-and-poverty-are-biggest-obstacles/). She quotes Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post:

The greatest barriers to school success for K-12 students have little to do with anything that goes on in the classroom, according to the nation’s top teachers: It is family stress, followed by poverty, and learning and psychological problems.

So the problem isn't due to "low expectations, bad teachers, teachers’ unions, tenure, seniority, and the need for competition and accountability" (Diane's words). Duh! Any of us who had even the vaguest interest in education knew or suspected this all along. Ah, but Arnie and the states won't go down easily. They will argue that, of course, teachers will deflect blame.

At the end of her blog, Diane asks, "Why don’t Congress and the states listen to the experts?" Yes, why? Members of the medical profession are not held accountable for increasing incidents of cancer, maiming automobile accidents, gunshots wounds, and on and on. Yet we listen to them when they site causes. Lawyers (those practicing law, not those writing laws) are not held accountable for the crime rate, yet we respect their opinions. We don't blame architects for the destruction caused by an earthquake, yet we listen to their ideas on building earthquake resistant structures. Go ahead, name another profession whose members' opinions are at least respected. OK, maybe law enforcement recently but I can't think of another.
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Saturday, April 25, 2015

The Various Aspects of Educational Technology Support & Integration

There was a time when performing as a Director of Information Technology I realized that educational technology support demands could and should be categorized so as to better prioritize, organize and focus technology staff and efforts. I came up with four distinct categories and a subcategory: 1-the interactive education learning process; 2-the unilateral learning process; 3-technology as a separate content area; and 4-school administration and management. Faculty/staff technology profession development is a subcategory integral of the four categories. These can be readily integrated into the ITIL framework. Note that the focus, while on the institution, does not address the constant back room support required to keep the systems running smoothly.

Faculty/staff technology professional development. I believe that if anything has held back classroom/curriculum technology integration, student self-directed learning and efficient use of school administration and learning management software, it is the insufficiency of technology professional development.  I would encourage establishment of a technology professional development program that took into account the personal situations, learning styles and instructional needs of each teacher/staff member and one that included a teacher/staff/administrator individual learning plan agreement consistent with the school’s mission, goals, objectives and budgetary constraints while maximizing use of internal expertise (technologists and teacher/staff-technology leaders from within teacher learning communities and staff offices). Though research has shown that traditional, workshop-based professional development is ineffective, I would not hesitate to lobby the administration, board and community for additional funding to take advantage of select commercial programs that have a proven track record. A bit of aside gripe coming. Remember when Microsoft Office switched from the traditional menu interface to the "ribbon"? Or when your administrators pushed to change out the teachers' desktops for laptops? Or when the Board decided to implement a one-to-one computing program in the next school year? Yep, the techies were expected to develop change management skills overnight, design appropriate instructional sessions and execute.

Given finite technology resources, the interactive learning process should be the highest priority. Basically, it's all about integrating (infusing, if you must) technology into the teaching-learning dynamic within the classroom. Enough has been written and said by others and me in previous blogs. For now, let's just say that success in this category lies at the confluence of curricular content, constructivist pedagogies, and technology—that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning and encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education. Technology support in this category is on ensuring that classroom hardware is available when needed and operates reliably, that required software and apps are installed and functioning properly and that each classroom has reliable access to the network and the Internet. Each classroom should have a primary and alternate method of rapidly reporting issues to the technology department.

More and more emphasis is being placed on the unilateral learning process. This learning process can be defined as one wherein students without the supervision or oversite of, or immediate interaction with, a teacher, school staff member or another student use a digital device while performing learning tasks. Homework is the most common, traditional example. The flipped classroom, one-to-one computing programs and BYOD efforts are placing more emphasis on student self-learning. Whether or not these initiatives are enhancing or will enhance student learning, the tech department is obligated to ensure that the system fully supports the process 24/7. Coming into play here are various compartmentalized servers, interoperative operating system platforms, security and backups, remote access, acceptable use agreements and policies, safety, policies and procedures and I'm sure many more that do not come to mind readily. If students are expected to perform online research, analysis, synthesis, etc. from their own or family computers and the computer or their Internet is not functioning, what then? What if they don't even have access to a computer outside of school? How does the institution accommodate them? If the school provides them, how does a tech department maintain as many as 2,000 tablets? The questions of expense and support are many and complex. If such programs are effective, I believe that the educational gap between the haves and have-nots will continue to grow.

The third category and priority, technology as a separate subject area, seems to have declined in popularity in K-12 schools. The decline in great part is due to perceived student familiarity with common use hardware and software from early ages. At the same time, STEM is being pushed at all levels. And surprisingly, the following is from the Business Insider, September 11, 2014: "This semester, a record-breaking 818 Harvard students — nearly 12% of the entire college — enrolled in one popular class, reports The Crimson. The course, Computer Science 50: "Introduction to Computer Science I" (CS50), pulled in 100 more students than the 700 that signed up last fall, making it the single largest class in the course's 30-year history, as well as the biggest class at Harvard College this semester." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-course-at-harvard-2014-9#ixzz3YMjsSDCt The course has little to do about hardware, instead focusing on such topics as algorithms, software engineering, and web development.  A reasonable prediction is that the success at the higher education level will shortly begin filtering down to at least the high school level. Support for technology courses is very similar to that for the interactive learning process, with the important exception of the addition of a highly technologically proficient teachers. Teacher content expertise and hands-on, project-based learning rules!

Lastly, on the priority scale is school administration and management support. Why last? Simply, it is not as close to the learning process nor nearly as time-sensitive. However, support is more complex involving uncommon software applications such as Blackbaud's suite of applications, one or more of the hundreds of school management, bookkeeping/accounting, curriculum management and mapping, lesson planning, grade book, report card and assessment software packages. Keeping these applications repaired and up-to-date along with the incumbent database and database server administration and management  (both back room and user) takes a huge slice of time, efforts, and budget from the tech department's resources. Not to mention the training required that needs to be scheduled and performed. Sure to take a big chunk out of the tech budget.
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Monday, March 2, 2015

Tech Integration - A Step-By-Step Process

SAMR

SAMR

A Google search yields more than a hundred graphical interpretations of SAMR, some as simple as Dr. Puentedura's original concept depicted above to those that appear overwhelmingly complicated.  There are models combining SAMR with TPACK, TPAC with Bloom's Taxonomy and here's one combining SAMR with Bloom's Taxonomy and iPad apps.

SAMR + Bloom's

Many of these expanded models lend guidance regarding why integration is essential and provide broad nebulous outcome expectations: critical thinking; communications; collaboration; 21st Century skills; problem solving; systems thinking; creativity; innovation; literacy in a multitude of subjects; analyzing, etc.   Is it possible that integrating technology is so complex as to defy a logical procedure? Maybe, but I'd like to give it a shot.

The process described below assumes adequate to superior teacher pedagogical, content, technological, student and curricular knowledge; that the teacher is ready to cross from Enhancement to Transformation; the availability of sufficient hardware, software and technical support staff to support a robust integration program; and that the teacher possesses the abilities to convert knowledge into practice and a desire that students achieve to an identified standard. Could it be that achieving a state as describe by the assumptions is complex and not the process?

  1. Is there a need, a shortcoming that needs to be addressed? Examples might include students aren't getting it, students are bored, discussions wane quickly or are captured by a select few or changes in policies or curriculum.

  2. Review learning goals and activities in consideration of the available technologies (if class is in session, this is a good student collaborative exercise) relating the advantages and disadvantages of each technology to each of the learning goals and activities. Scaling works well for this analysis. Identify any cross-curricular opportunities. The results of this analysis will facilitate the designing or redesigning of course and lesson instructional strategies.

  3. Prepare the classroom: hardware, software, classroom furniture and arrangement.

  4. Execute and continually evaluate and revise. Adjustments may be needed in any one or more of the ingredients: pedagogy, learning goals or technology. Beware the Hawthorne effect. Oft times initially the subjects perceive increased attention being paid to them thus producing a significant (maybe unrealistic) enhancement to transformation of performance. Persistent and consistent use will yield real long-term student and teacher change.

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Saturday, February 28, 2015

Do We Need to Revisit Why Once in a While

The following is the introductory paragraph to Steve Wheeler's 2/28/15 blog (http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2015/02/talking-tech.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FcYWZ+%28Learning+with+%27e%27s%29)"

"Do teachers have a choice about whether to engage with technology? Technology is already so embedded in the fabric of schools, it's probably unavoidable now. Whether it's teacher technology, including wordprocessors, electronic record keeping or databases, or student technology, such as laptops, educational software or personal devices, technology should now be viewed as a set of tools that can be harnessed to extend, enhance and enrich the learning experience. Add the exponential power of the Web into the mix, and the argument becomes compelling. Technology offers us unprecedented opportunities to transform education. The question is not whether teachers should engage with technology, but how."

I believe we may be so far into technology integration (infusion?) that most in education no longer question "whether" or why. As with any program, plan or procedure, technology integration needs a periodic is this worth the time, expense and effort? review. Dr. Puentedura's SAMR model, for example, seems to assume that before student learning is significantly positively impacted the teacher must redesign, or better, create new learning tasks using technology. Is the corollary to that assumption that deep student learning cannot be achieved without technology? Do all courses and classes need to be transformed through technology integration? Would it be possible for students to become successful in the 21st Century and develop a life-long love of learning if, say, only 60% of the their classes were infused with technology and 40% were taught by experienced, determined and engaging teachers who loved their students and subject areas? What about a 20:80 or an 80:20 split? Would any of those be more or less successful than 100% and how would we know?

I would venture to say that the majority of K-12 professional development programs focus on technology integration rather than pedagogy in general and that most are of the workshop model, a method shown repeatedly to produce poor results. As with the multitude of teaching strategies, methods, and skills technology is just one tool. PD programs need to be planned and orchestrated through learning communities, teacher facilitated, focused on method implementation and targeted toward individual teacher needs. This means one-to-one or very small group sessions and whole lot of classroom coaching and mentoring.
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Sunday, February 8, 2015

Just One Philosophy of Teaching...

or is it more a philosophy of learning?

I guess I am philosophically a constructivist or constructionist if you will. As pedagogy, constructivism appeals to me intellectually and practically and I make every effort to facilitate the learning experience according to those broad tenets. That is how I learn and that is how I prefer to be taught but I also respect the need for others to learn differently. I strive to develop a positive and open learning environment, to guide students toward understanding and developing their own learning styles and philosophies and to help them realize their potential as active, reflective, and evolving critical thinkers. However, on occasion, hopefully only when the situation dictates, I tend to revert to a more didactic approach, the result of my military experience, I am sure, wherein understanding often took a backseat to rote process memorization and practice. I find that this approach has its benefits, especially when teaching technology applications and processes which frequently involve sequential exactness.

My mantra when facilitating technology professional development sessions is that the key to enhancing student achievement lies at the confluence of curricular content, differential pedagogies and technology integration--that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning, encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education and consequently prepare them for success in the 21st Century. I believe that and I believe that my enthusiasm for learning, developing authentic, engaging curricula, customizing my teaching style to fit the situation and student and integrating appropriate technological tools has allowed me to have a long-term positive effect on students. It has taken me a while to figure out how to combine these. As a technology teacher, initially I naturally began by focusing on the technology (the tool) and proceeded to integrate the content into the technology. When I was teaching word processing, for example, the focus would be on the application--"click here," "click there"--and not on purposeful output. The tool (technology) was driving my teaching. I have long since learned that the focus belongs on communicating through writing and that the learning process should provide students with opportunities to express themselves by way of various technology tools. The results are exciting and rewarding. I am a firm believer in project-based learning. I experience great satisfaction from facilitating and encouraging students as they experience realistic self-discovery successes yet I remain aware of my obligation to guide them in their journey toward discovery of self.

More broadly, my extra-curricular goals as a teacher include helping students learn to be authentic, to accept who they are, to find the right career, to hold life, learning and their faith as precious, and to make the right choices. Students bring varying and rich cultures and experiences to the classroom. As a teacher, I believe that not only I am obligated to celebrate and build upon these cultural and experiential platforms but to help students to go beyond in order to develop a multicultural word view. As St. John Bosco wrote, "Instruction is but an accessory, like a game; knowledge never makes a man because it does not directly touch the heart. It gives more power in the exercise of good or evil; but alone it is an indifferent weapon, wanting guidance."
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