Tag Archives: Inquiry

Word Power

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The innate human drive for connectivity is a cause for hope in education; we can turn interactions from confrontational to conversational.

Today in our inquiry groups, Charlotte, Brianne, Kristin and myself dove head-first into processing and sharing the mass of research we’ve discovered and linked through Mindmeister. Each one of us was interested in finding substantial research and pedagogy for the use of social media in the classroom, not just its uses. Through our discussion and research exploration it became apparent: social media in education is useful, so use it! The research outlined numerous fundamental reasons for its purposeful and innovative use in the classroom, such as:

  • social networking is ubiquitous and students need to learn to use it purposefully
  • increased student engagement
  • increased student self-confidence
  • authentic learning experiences
  • to facilitate multiliteracies, especially critical literacy
  • opportunities for problem-solving skills and judgement
  • to foster connections, with world experts, with divergent ideas, with peers and community

However, social media use is not without its hazards as numerous educational articles warned, such as “Pros and Cons of Social Media Use” from Syracuse University. We identified two major concerns:

  1. lack of face-to-face time, potential deterioration of social skills
  2. use of social media for complaint , rather than purposeful connection, communication and action

But these are problems with our current curriculum and pedagogy. There is an undervaluing of social skill development in the curriculum. Further, although there are over-arching mandates such as schools are required to foster social responsibility, there are no clear mandates that require and promote authentic, purposeful action in the world-at-large. These are significant skill-sets and values that need to be addressed, but in the current institutional isomorphic system, whether through physical or virtual classroom practices, the underlying necessity of meeting the needs of essential new competencies is not addressed. This is where linguistic cognitive holds power and hope.

Numerous proponents of using social media and digital environments/platforms in the classroom explain that it fosters numerous necessary competencies and opportunities. As a small inquiry group we also noted that numerous advocated skills, such as judgement, play as a form of learning, critical literacy, problem-solving, inquiry and collaboration are all possible through ICT, but not entirely required. If one explored and collaborated with colleagues they would see that there are numerous “old-school” methods that also promote these competencies and bring them into the classroom in other physical, flesh and bone ways. For example, in the following “Education Next” publication, it expresses the reality that social learning has been utilized for centuries. True, as a system we are not yet meeting the needs our students’ futures require, yet through the linguistic cognitive domain there is hope. Numerous “new literacies” already have a place within individual classrooms and individual teacher’s practices. Rather than confronting with phrases that evoke a sense of demand or inability, we need to use our language to show the present connection and empowerment. We need to ensure that through our language, we use it as a connective force, to other educators, to administration, to the community, to politicians, and beyond. According to the biologist Mark Pagel in the TED Talks video “How language transformed humanity,” we as a species evolved our complex system of language, our “piece of social technology” to access a powerful new tool: cooperation. I for one agree, and continue to respect and hope through this powerful “social technology” that is language.

Inquiry and Change: More Than the Sum of the Parts

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Yesterday felt wonderful, like fresh air breathed straight to the brain. I believe this is because my small group was fully engaged in the “connect and wonder” stage, or “tuning in” stage. This is where passion and percolating questions flow freely. Today, at the outset of our class, we as a group realized that we have started to investigate, gathering research links like a jackdaw, but we have now very clearly stalled. We need to construct, to process, venturing as individual entities, and sync our understandings for a greater composite unity. We are still making meaning for ourselves, yet it is through the continual praxial process of wonder, investigate, construct, express, share, reflect, and repeat (, and repeat, and ….) that meaning is made individually and collectively. One of the most harrowing struggles within the education system is the lack of this time, this process for inquiry, composite unity and individual meaning making as we have experienced in two short days. I believe inquiry and collaboration time/processes could have the most profound impact on the system, teacher practice and all participants’ learning, more so than another projector or cart of ipads.

Today’s lecture and corresponding forum discussion articulated what I have struggled with throughout this course: my frustration at the disconnect between needed change, and the system’s inability or superficial misguided practices of change. Dynamic conservativism, besides being a delightful oxymoron, is slowly being recognized in my school. Many colleagues in the Socials department fell into the trap of “powerpoint karaoke,” simply administering a traditional history lecture but attending to their visual learner needs by having it displayed. Teacher was still the provider of knowledge and student the recipient. Recently, our school Professional Learning Committee, which occurs informally every Friday morning, has been burgeoning with teachers looking to collaborate and re-create their practice beyond “powerpoint karaoke.”

Furthermore, our discussion of sociocultural homeostasis peeked my conception of educator responsibility. We clearly have a significant responsibility to facilitate students’ learning in all modes, of all literacies (digital, critical, print, visual, and aural and many more), yet this day’s discussion brought up the issue of sociocultural literacy and practice, of our students’ necessary EQ. According to Forbes it is not only our students’ ability to “know” and think, or their IQ,  that must be nurtured. It is equally, if not more important that students be able to read people, connect, communicate, empathize and be self-confident. This is what our students need from us, and yet the sociocultural environment hinders necessary change to allow for growth of practice, and as such, we all lose out. Another interesting factor is that our unique sociocultural environment hinders change. Yet, in many ways the digital world confounds and subverts any traditional boundaries. It’s hard to keep out. As such, I would like to continue to explore (with my inquiry group) how social media can act as a tool for change, within sociocultural environments as fixed as our current education system. I would also like to add the inspirational clip from the slums of Brazil and India. Here Charles Leadbeater shows that educational innovation is possible anywhere:

Going down the rabbit hole, but Not Alone!

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Over the past week, the learners in LIBE 477B have been assisting each other in timely instances, but have been largely endeavoring alone. Today felt different. Today, with the time and the open forum for small group discussion, a sense of purpose was renewed. Collectively, with Charlotte, Kristine, Brianne and myself, the beginnings of ideas were formed and distinct areas of inquiry were established. We decided that our starting point would be research into why technology, particularly social media, should and could be utilized in education. Research can often be a daunting task, a potentially crushing bulk of information that individuals are often left to sift through alone. Although each learner then processes it themselves and then carves their own path, the tapestry of learning is much richer and deeper when created together. In 15 short minutes each of us had accessed and shared numerous pieces of research for each group member to consider and to bring their ideas and critiques for tomorrow’s ongoing discussion.

This opportunity to seek, question, discuss, share and grow knowledge together is incredibly vital. According to the report Technology in Schools: What the Research Says, the choice to implement any classroom technology should be based on sound learning theory and should support a specific aspect of the curriculum or skill development (Benefits of Social Media in the Classroom”). Unfortunately, when endeavoring alone, or when prompted by break-neck pace tech integration mandates, there is often little time or forum for the inquiry and establishment of “sound learning theory,” particularly as our learning theory struggles to keep pace with the technological and cultural dimensions of practices in our lives. This is an issue that I often see in the school system, and as I understand it, is connected to “institutional isomorphism.” DiMaggio & Powell, from the American Sociology Review define institutional isomorphism as the “constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions.” Often within the educational system there is little time or platform for true collaboration, co-creation and inquiry. I believe that this is a dangerous aspect of the system that allows for it to continually slip into stagnation and “institutional isomorphism” as what is done, what has always been done, or what is haphazardly decided without “sound learning theory” becomes a subtle but evasive norm.

In education it has often been grass-roots change and pods of educational leaders, investigators and collaborators who have lead the way out of the factory-model of education. Today’s small group inquiry time is a small sampling of this process, and how it is often the life-blood of professional growth. I am optimistic and eager regarding what me and my small group can collectively discover and execute. Now if only there was such time and support for all educators in the field. I think that the changes could be potentially, and necessarily, revolutionary.