Category Archives: Notable Discussions

This week we have two discussion threads, from the thread on conceptual challenges, I am re-thinking language, visuals, and assessments.

Academic vs. Colloquial Language

There were great discussions connected to shortcuts. Something that was pointed out was the use of “lazy language”. I don’t know if I agreed with this word choice, but essentially it could include cases where students and teachers use colloquial (everyday) language to explain academic concepts that require technical and discipline specific terms. Colloquial language can be problematic because its context is not always technical or can fit in contexts that are inconsistent with a discipline’s context.

Math and Science Examples of Academic and Colloquial Language

The above examples of academic vs. colloquial language are some that I have used before. After speaking to other colleagues, they pointed out that some of our word choices impact topics that they teach later (e.g., reciprocate vs. invert: using “invert” later causes confusion with “inverse functions”).

Strategy to approach the use of colloquial language

Shortcuts and colloquial language are not inherently bad. Starting with colloquial language to engage students can be a useful entry point. However, teachers need to remember that the end goal is to get students to recognize and use academic language. Colloquial terms and incomplete academic language may be linked to other parts of a students’ schema, which can impact the development of alternate conceptions.

Like with English Language Learners, I don’t think it’s appropriate to stop the learner at every point they make an error. Instead, it would be more effective to:

• Ask for clarification about what a student is trying to say
• Model academic language by paraphrasing the colloquial language into academic language
• Praising students when they use academic language
• Use praise and scaffolding to shape behaviour
• Make connections between colloquial and academic language and how they are different

Using colloquial language as an entry point and as an analogy can also be helpful:

• Domain: for this function, where does it live? What x values can the function take?

Visuals and Examples

Another area that was discussed was the examples that are seen by students and how technology can facilitate multiple representations of content and exploration. There are no perfect visuals when trying to represent abstract concepts. In the Private Universe, it was pointed out that the alternate conception about seasons being formed due to the distance between the sun and the earth partially comes from the perspective drawing of earth’s orbit. In addition to this perspective drawing, it’s important to show the orbit from the top view, highlighting that the orbit is approximately circular, and by using animations. These multiple representations are important to highlight the flaws in some representations and to develop a better understanding of a concept.

Similarly, it’s important to carefully select examples. A variety of examples is important in contextualizing that the concept is not an exception. As well, the examples should highlight the skills necessary in understanding the concept.

Assessments

Assessments are where students make their learning visual. Even if students have access to great scaffolding and modelling for academic language and a wealth of strong examples and visuals, they may still form their own alternate conceptions. Students need to practice strengthening their schema, discarding incorrect conceptions, and creating connections between schema. This can be done through assessments.

There were some really excellent examples of assessment questions that would reveal if students have a deep understanding of the topic. These included determining the climate of an unfamiliar place based on ocean currents, longitude, and latitude, and explaining in what circumstance squirrels with yellow feathered feet would increase in population.

The auto-eography discussion has been generating a lot of diverse experiences with technology! It’s been so interesting to read about how some of my colleagues have transitioned from little to no technology when they were young learners to where our world is now.

I’ve become more aware that I often think of using technology as how can the teacher, rather than the students, use technology. In the discussion connected to my original post, there has been a lot of healthy discussion about technology as a substitution and if/how technology should be used. I think our personal learning theories and frameworks have a strong impact on how we want to include technology in our classrooms.

Technology as a substitution

If we examine just direct instruction, technology has many roles, but I don’t think that the cost is worth the effort if the learning effectiveness is at the same level. This cost may come from the technology, learning how to use it, and the amount of time it takes to orient students to it. I use the SAMR model as a shortcut to decide if technology would be useful in a situation or not. If it only results in a substitution, it’s not worth it.

This commentary about the potential use of substitution from Professor Boksic has been challenging my original thinking. Perhaps I’ve been neglecting how using technology impacts learners and their feeling of learning. Regardless, the SAMR model is not my preferred framework for the selection, design, and application of technology. I much prefer the SECTIONS framework because it facilitates a more nuanced and critical approach to justifying the use of a tool.

Technology integrated into assessment

Some of the most recent discussion is tied to using technology in assessment to build digital skills. This is definitely important and I wonder about how the big ideas of a discipline impact these choices.

As an example, I’ll share what I think would be two big ideas and technology choices in a Careers Exploration course:

• Career development is lifelong: in Ontario, this course is open so students in it may be interested in a variety of pathways. Regardless, there may be a time when students are not affiliated with an educational institution and will not have access to the same resources.
  • Leverage resources that are available to the public (e.g., open education resources, MOOCs, library resources, government resources)
• Orientation and transition to post-secondary education can start earlier: a challenge I’ve observed that students have is that they aren’t sure what resources are available to them when they are in post-secondary education. As well, the resume and cover letter activities I’ve seen (in 2019) are the same as what I got as a student. When my students showed me their resume assignments, I was so annoyed that they had not been given examples of resumes or access to useful resources!
  • University and College career centres often have great resources. A task could be to get students search: [post-secondary institution] career centre / resume resources / cover letter example and see what comes up
  • This can help students recognize that there are resources available at this level that can also be freely accessed

Tiered assessments

With the push for authentic assessments and having students engage in multiple methods of expression, I’m still leaning towards tiered (by weight) assessment. I’ve never had the opportunity to implement this, but I imagine it working something like this:

• Higher weighted assessments – students can choose the method of expression: Students can stay in their comfort zone while working on whatever the assignment is.
• Lower weighted assessments – students must choose a method of expression they would not normally pick: The lower weight encourages exploration and should emphasize that trying new things is positive.

A challenge with multiple methods of expression is the teaching and learning of the digital skills. Not everyone has a production background or access to specialty software. In this case, it would be really helpful to leverage the community (e.g., media arts or communication technology teachers) as well as the internet.

Current thoughts

I’m excited for the Week 2 discussions because we’re exploring alternate conceptions. This will be a good opportunity to think about the big ideas in Chemistry and Mathematics and how that informs technology tool selection. Moving into Week 2, I want to think more about what technology looks like in the classroom (what the teacher does, what the students do, how students engage in activity/assessment) and how my personal learning theory and frameworks connect back to this.