I have always considered myself fairly “tech-savvy” and someone that colleagues went to for educational technology resources and ideas. However, as I reflect on my learning throughout the ETEC 533 course, I realize just how little I really knew or understood about the availability and application of educational technology for math and science. I took this course to expose me to a variety of tools and ways that I can meaningful use technology in math/science – but also with an eye to how I may apply it across the curriculum. I started this course as a teacher, but have since become an administrator. I am now looking at this course through a slightly different lens – not so much how I would embed technology in my personal classroom, but how to impart my knowledge and support colleagues. Throughout this course I have felt that we were not just exploring the physical technology available – but learning how to facilitate a shift in the use of technology for the benefit of all our students.
The vastness of technology available to educators at all levels can be overwhelming and as we have seen this can frighten some educators from even wading into this territory. Others grab hold of one or two platforms and use them consistently, some without depth of pedagogy to support its use or to maximize its potential benefits. Others use technology in a way that perpetuates misconceptions in math/science. Juxtaposing the technology with learning theories can be a challenging, but necessary, step.
What do you notice about what you were paying attention to?
Throughout this course I was paying attention to the importance placed on hands-on learning in math and science. This is something that I value greatly and practice as much as possible, but didn’t necessarily equate with technology. Technology often seemed passive, sitting in front of a screen, being a consumer of information rather than actively engaging with it. My perception likely stems from my own experiences with technology as a student – but ETEC 533 has shown that approaching technology from a different framework, and utilizing the correct pieces of information can actually incite extremely hands-on and experiential learning. The inquiry nature of much of the technology we examined, from the Jasper Series (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1992) and anchored instruction to SKI/WISE (Linn, Clark, & Slotta, 2003) and T-Gem, include students actively engaging in educational technology, in addition to excellent teaching pedagogy.
As the course started off addressing misconceptions I found that I was tuned into possible misconceptions in my own thinking and those that I have noticed with my students. In hindsight it is frustrating to notice that in some cases, we as educators, haven’t done a better job addressing these misconceptions with our students and sometimes our colleagues or ourselves; moving forward this is an area that I will continue to focus on.
Finally, much of my attention was spent figuring out ways to link math and science content with the new ADST curriculum and other curricular areas. Coming from my Makerspace background, I strive to give students as many hands-on opportunities as I possibly can, through both high and low tech means, and tie their learning across curricular areas. Whether we were investigating mobile technologies, embodied learning or T-GEMS, I tried to be cognizant of how these could meshed together for a cross curricular experience.
Module A – What’s Important and Why in STEM education and technology?
Module A had us take an indepth look and really examine our assumptions regarding our use of technology in our teaching and learning of math and science. Why do I want to use technology in my courses? What can it add to the experience? I have never wanted to use technology just for the sake of saying that I was “using technology”. I have unfortunately seen the case where educators are substituting technology as a “digitized worksheet” with no value being added by its use. I had to delve into how I was currently using technology in my classroom and where I wanted to go. This is no easy task, but one that I take seriously. I lacked an awareness of what role technology could actually take in science/math – so I didn’t know for sure what I wanted. However, I knew what I didn’t want. I wrote, “Good use of technology is not the substitution of technology for worksheets. Technology is also not a substitute for poor teaching. It is how we can make learning more effective.” This is something that I believe in even more so now that we have looked at material and academic literature in this course.
My personal assumptions were seconded by my colleagues during the interview. This video further served as a catalyst to make change not only within my grade group at school, but perhaps within the whole school. I started conversations with colleagues after watching “A Private Universe” and completing readings from Driver, Guesne & Tiberghien (1985). How do our students, and how do we, acquire knowledge? These discussions and subsequent responses helped inform my Framing the Issues Assignment – “ Supporting Teachers in Technology Integration”.
Module B – Tools of the Trade
I was excited to embark on the TELE journey, but found myself quite overwhelmed with the the number and depth of the activities, readings, and reflections. The notion of designing a TELE or analyzing the features of TELEs is challenging for someone who has little in depth experience in this realm. I have used technology to enhance learning experiences to be sure, but the depth and breadth of some of the platforms we examined were intimidating. I appreciated looking at them from cognitive and social perspectives. Robyler’s (2012) recommendation that each teacher take a position as a “scriptwriter” was especially helpful when visualizing the future of education and constructivist in its description. I wrote that, “My definition of technology is similar to that of Roblyer & Doering (2012) in that technology is anything that we use (our tools) to solve problems in our environment, in conjunction with the skills needed in the application of these tools.
Sometimes postings by classmates help make something that appears overwhelming at first glance more manageable. A fellow classmate posted an excellent WISE project titled “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” (Leo, 2017) that spoke to two of my passions: science and social responsibility. This particular posting really resonated with me because it addresses exactly what we have been looking at – getting our students learning and involved in solving real world problems in math and/or science. As I wrote about in one of my e-folio reflections, “What an amazing opportunity to combine a number of curricular areas (Social Studies, Language Arts, Science, Math, ADST) and fuse high and low tech learning”.
Module C – Adding to the Mix
Module C had my mind racing! Taking the concepts from both Modules A and B and adding in embodied learning, knowledge diffusion and information visualization really got me thinking. Embodied thinking in particular (Winn, 2002) struck a chord with me. I am fascinated with virtual and augmented reality, and moving forward would like to explore this area more fully. I didn’t find there was enough time in Module C to look at all the areas of embodied learning in depth, and my practice nature focussed on “mobile technology” as this was an area that I thought I might be able to realistically implement in our school within the next school year.
Conclusion – Putting It All Together
What changes might you be willing to make in how you view, practice, or share your ideas about math or science education?
I have found this course to be both intriguing and overwhelming but have doing my very best to take the time to process and reflect on the material. This was definitely challenging. However, the message is important and will benefit my students. The biggest shift in my pedagogy in teaching math and science has been to utilize TPCK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) to more fully enable student learning.”Underlying truly meaningful and deeply skilled teaching with technology, TPACK is different from knowledge of all three concepts individually. Instead, TPACK is the basis of effective teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
I am willing and excited to share my newfound and expanded knowledge base with fellow staff at my middle school. By understanding some of the needs and challenges of teachers who want or are unsure of how to meaningfully implement and utilize technology into their STEM classes, I can help to facilitate change. Finding the time to educate teachers around technology implementation and introduce them to the variety of TELEs that will enhance the learning experience of their students will be a priority for me as we move into the new school year. We are fortunate to have collaboration time built into our school calendar and I have already started conversations with interested educators – especially regarding a “Jasper-inspired” TELE for our middle school. Opportunities such as this will enable learners to be involved in collaborative, constructive, technology enhanced learning activities putting student learning at the center.
I will continue to question my practice and am looking forward to the feedback I receive from my colleagues, our students and their families about the implementation of technology into their STEM subjects.
References
Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1992). The Jasper experiment: An exploration of issues in learning and instructional design. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 40(1), 65-80.
Driver, R., Guesne, E., & Tiberghien, A. (1985). Children’s ideas and the learning of science. Children’s Ideas in Science, pp 1-9. Retrieved from http://staff.science.uva.nl/~joling/vakdidactiek/documenten/driver.pdf
Kohler & Mishra (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70.
Leo, C. (2017). Padlet to the Rescue: Taking action to Reduce Plastic in the Ocean. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/stem2017/2017/06/30/padlet-to-the-rescue-taking-action-to-reduce-plastic-in-the-ocean/
Linn, M., Clark, D., & Slotta, J. (2003). Wise design for knowledge integration. Science Education, 87(4), 517-538.
Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. (2012). Integrating educational technology into teaching. (6th ed.). Pearson Education.
Winn, W. (2002). Learning in Artificial Environments: Embodiment, Embeddedness and Dynamic Adaptation. Tech., Inst., Cognition and Learning, 1, 1-28.