“Where is there room in the curriculum?” – Teacher D
In the case videos, it is apparent that technology integration required more learning time and commitment. Students are spending time to explore technology and develop their competencies as they deepen their understanding of learning concepts. In preparations for standardized testing, educators have to be extra mindful to ensure that the projects cover expected curriculum objectives. Thus, allowing their students to be prepared for standardized testing.
Limited time to cover content area is also a consistent theme in the primary classrooms. Similar to the need of preparing students for standardized assessment, practicing basic literacy also competes for students’ time. As a grade 2 teacher, the students are just beginning to read and write. They are still in the early stages of developing and polishing their basic literacy skills. Should typing be practiced like printing? Given that it is more difficult to navigate a new communicative space students should be explicitly taught how to decode and navigate through digital information (Bolter, 2001). The important question is how can teachers balance these curriculum demands? It is likely that flipped learning is favorable in these situations in order to meet additional curriculum expectations. Teacher C in middle school life sciences remediates limited lab time by asking students to complete tasks as homework. Project-based learning requires time and commitment from educators to mentor and watch the students learn digital literacy competencies and to practice content knowledge.
Additionally, the lack of basic literacy skills makes it harder for them to solve problems when using technological tool. A pre-service teacher in learning environment 3 suggests that young learners may only be practicing ‘recognition based skills’. Some technological tools are substitution in disguise. Nonetheless, with a firm grasp of literacy, students are better at regulating their learning with technological tools. Students are also more able to independently troubleshoot and problem solve.
What other plausible solutions are available to assuage literacy gaps and limited time?
Strategy 1: Collaborating with Others
Interactive learning in a small group is ideal when students are exposed with unfamiliar technology. With technology, students can engage in “spontaneous helping and teaching”, turn taking and competition (Clements & Sarama, 2002). Together, students can also discuss and reflect about learning concepts.
Strategy 2: Utilising Personal Learning Plans
A rather radical plan, one plausible solution is the abolishment of grades levels and modifications of ‘standardize’ testing. Skill based and mastery based learning should be key pedagogical philosophy of current education system. Students should progress in various skill-based groups depending on their level of mastery. Consider Altschool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ZrUuZjsow
Strategy 3: Enhancing Digital Competencies
Literacy learning is as important as digital literacy. Therefore it should be taught at the same time as other basic skills. Some regional or national polices recognize this, thus making changes to the curriculum to assuage the need. Recent changes in the BC curriculum recognizes of the value of explicitly teaching multi-literacies. For example, the curriculum moved away from content-based learning to an inquiry approach that prioritizes viewing and demonstrating proficient use of multi-literacies. This may also explain why families feel that Altschool’s personalize learning is insufficient. Robinson (2017, November 21) writes that families are leaving Altschool due to the fact that their children are behind grade level expectations. Perhaps Altschool’s personalized learning should be coupled with STEM learning. This may also allude to the differences in the social understanding of student achievement.
Strategy 4: Developing Educational Reforms
Curriculum expectations may ease some expectation concerns. Since this changes how students are assessed, it should be reflected in national assessments. This refashions the fundamental understanding of learning, schooling and knowledge. Internationally, students are evaluated with standardized exams. This then is inconsistent with the notions that STEM projects promote. Students are developing a battery of skills to solve challenges. Instead of provincial exams, students should have the option to be evaluated through STEM projects.
Moreover, Knapp (1997) suggests that education alignment is key to successful reforms. More specifically, district level support and more targeted outcomes directly influences. Consider nation-wide e-learning reforms like ICT strategic plans in Bhutan and Nepal. Local and national support is also a key factor in ensuring a higher success rate of the strategies. Bhutan and Nepal budgeted over 16.5 million to support their strategies. Infrastructural upgrades and professional development opportunities for educators are key strategies that Bhutanese and Nepalese government uses in order to support their vision.
Conclusively, personalized learning coupled with educational reforms and a strong need for social learning is key for 21st STEM learning. While this may be a romantic notion of what education should be, it provides clear directions as to where education should be heading. It is evident that current education landscape has the potential to continue due course, however, without appropriate changes in the local and national level, current challenges remains unchanged.
Reference
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 3246, 7798.
Clements, D. H. & Sarama, J. (2002). The Role of Technology in Early Childhood Learning. Teaching Children Mathematics, Vol. 8, No. 6, Focus Issue: Learning and TeachingMathematics with Technology (FEBRUARY 2002), pp. 340-343
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41197828
Knapp, M. S. (1997). Between systemic reforms and the mathematics and science classroom: The dynamics of innovation, implementation, and professional learning. Review of educational research, 67(2), 227-266.
Government of Nepal. (2013). Information & Communication Technology(ICT) in Education Master Plan 2013-2017. Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.np/assets/uploads/files/ICT_MP_2013_(Final)_.pdf
Robinson, M. (2017, November 21). Tech billionaires spent $170 million on a new kind of school — now classrooms are shrinking and some parents say their kids are ‘guinea pigs’. Business Insiders. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/altschool-why-parents-leaving-2017-11
Royal Government of Bhutan.(2014). iSherig Education ICT Master Plan 2014 – 2018. Retrieved from http://www.education.gov.bt/documents/10180/10994/Education+ICT+Master+Plan+2014-18.pdf/00392bc0-0ed2-47c9-9e2e-ed30e23ccf8f?version=1.0
Hi Alice.
I think you have raised perhaps the biggest barrier to tech use in the classroom I have heard. Student centered and constructivist learning simply takes longer, so does the use of tech. Lecture is simply the most efficient which is why it has stood the test of time. Where it is lacking though, is in understandings, engagement, and knowledge retention. As teachers we are constantly making choices about the content and strategies for covering it in our classrooms. I believe it is not difficult to justify reducing the width of content to increase the depth – as well as engagement and retention. While this may mean certain topics may be covered more superficially, students will retain core ideas and understandings far longer as well as having long term memories of engaging learning experiences and products from the course which makes it all worth it.
Dear David,
Thank you for your thoughts. I truly believe that students should develop depth and breath about learning concepts. However, due to limited time, we can only priortize certain topics for in-depth learning.
In one of the videos, students were allowed to choose between doing a paper exam and or creating a project. While this is allowed in high school, universities have a difficult time accepting this as a form of assessment for its applicants. Personally, I find the social aspect of this most difficult to remediate as it pertains to a larger issue.
Alice
Hey Alice,
I agree, universities are quite a bit more strict about changing their form of assessment for applicants. For good reasons too – they’re often charging quite substantial tuition, have accreditation based on how they’ve operated things in the past, have larger student numbers resulting in a larger number of simultaneous assessments and work to mark, more “moving parts” in general than the average school, and so on. Paper-based summative assessments, quick, efficient, easy to adapt year-after-year and easy to mark. It’s likely not the case that every professor doesn’t want to provide these assessment opportunities that give choice, and I bet if we were to look into it (sorry – I didn’t for this post) we’d likely find many cases where individual professors ARE giving choice in their final assessments. But many professors are more focused on research, with teaching almost being a by-product of their position. While they should be following educational trends and provide the best learning environment for students, it’s unrealistic to assume this will be the case. Plus if a University has multiple locations it can be difficult to keep everyone on the same page, so to speak, when it comes to assessments and their style, leading to a hesitance to break tradition.
I do wonder if there is hope in the future for universities to slowly change their tune and come around to providing more choice in how one approaches a course. I mean, some are already doing it, just look at this course! We have choice in our Assignment #2… maybe it’s something that’s easier to start online before moving into the classroom…
Hmm. More questions now in my head than answers… but thanks for the food for thought!
-Scott
Hi Scott,
I think you gave a fair evaluation of current trend in post-secondary. Even the high school teachers offer the choice of traditional testing or a project-based evaluation. It is hopeful that these considerations has made changes in current educational landscape. In regards to acceptance policies, consider art schools, they require applicants to create portfolios to demonstrate their skills and knowledge. Perhaps all universities should require its applicants to create e-portfolios. It would be interesting to see this in action.
– Alice
I agree, Alice. With the shift to rubrics and collaboration (which I love and value), also comes the ability to float on others work. Many students are finding this frustrating and are becoming more resistant to collaborative work because of this. I have two students right now who have had very limited positive contributions, but are close to passing because of the amount of collaboration we do. I have started grouping them together to force them to produce and because it is a punishment to assign them with anyone else. 🙁 Rubrics make it so easy to get by with even the most minimalistic effort and engagement.
Hi Dave, I found it fascinating to hear your thoughts on rubrics as well as what strategies you’ve implemented to deal with those “coasting” students. We don’t use rubrics too much in our math classes, but they’ve slowly worked their way into the structure of the courses – mostly on my suggestion. Specifically, they’ve been implemented for the courses that involve coding where there are often many ways of doing the same things or, at lower levels, only one legitimate way of accomplishing the task. Rubrics help for both cases.
Even with the danger of rubrics making it easy for students to coast, what is it you love most about them? Secondly (and a question I’m more curious the answer to), what other strategies have you tried for these coasting students besides grouping them together? It’ll help me account for what we might expect if we start using rubrics more often…
Thanks! 😀
Scott
Hey Alice,
I’m back! 🙂
I was thinking about your comments on the AltSchool, and watched the video. I totally agree that skill- and mastery-based learning should be fundamental to modern educational philosophy. I had a (heated!!) meeting for my math department this past week where I tried to re-focused everyone on how to mark fairly when it comes to cases like “mistakes carried forward” or giving marks for the process of correct follow-through even when a mistake is made early in a question. Anyway, my point is there was some push-back, even though it clearly benefits the students more if they are helped to develop and master skills instead of getting a big red X down their page…
The problem I see – forgive me for being devil’s advocate here – is that a school like the AltSchool can’t function on philosophy and great tech alone. Tech is just tech, and will sit unused, or end up used improperly/ineffectively, without trained teachers to leverage it. The teachers need training, everyone needs to be on-board and working with a united vision, and that is EXTREMELY difficult to make happen at the average school. I’m not saying it’s impossible but it certainly would take very strong leadership. Also, it takes a lot of money. It seems the students at this school go on field trips every two weeks or so. That’s pretty intense – certainly uncommon, and trips don’t happen for free. Neither does a school get filled with great tech and fancy lockers for free. The tuition AltSchool is roughly $27,000 per student. That’s a far cry from even the average Canadian private school and certainly doesn’t compare to, y’know, “free”. That money is clearly being put to good use now to make waves in education, and to stay open and high-quality, but starting the school took considerable funds. Over $170 million had been rasied as of May 2015… so this new approach comes at a serious cost, and not one that most schools can afford.
Don’t get me wrong – I’d absolutely love to work at that AltSchool. However, it may be more useful for the average school to shoot a little lower if they’re looking to utilize personal learning plans than to model themselves after the AltSchool 😀
-Scott
Dear Scott,
Thank you for your continued support and desire to expand our discussions.
Recently I was expose to the GRASP technique in teaching problem solving and I admired how easy it was to isolate and exposed cognitive thinking and areas of weakness. G-give information, R-required information, A-analysis the problem, Solution – solve the problem, P – Paraphrase. This provides a clear picture and indicator of the students’ thought process and areas of improvements.
I think you shred light on the social-cultural aspect of education. The logitisical challenges remains unchanged while the philosophy in teaching has drastic changed. Remember, current investors experienced school in different ways than what the general research community agrees upon in term os best practices. The community has to support this mindset. The social-cutlural component is critical to any form of educational change. It is unfortunate that Altschool failed to attain the support of the general public. Perhaps they can look at how public policies support educational changes.
The case of Altschool highlights the importance of teacher-tech relationship. I appreciate the fact that the programmers have a personal relationship with the educators in order to better develop the educational tools. I think you are right, we have to start small and the changes will hopefully create a snowball effect.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Alice