With all the acronyms flying at us in education it is easy to get confused with all of the IPPS, PLNS, POS, SLOs each day in and out, now throw in designing a TELE with some LfU, SKI, WISE, TGEM and you will find a teacher ready to lose their MIND. Designing a Technology Enhanced Learning Environment (TELE) is crucial to supporting students learning with and through technology in a way that elevates their new learning and understanding. As we compare the 4 TELEs we can begin to see the puzzle of this design come together.
When we compare and contrast these four pieces of the puzzle, a bigger picture of learning with technology becomes clear. Despite being four separate and unique learning environments with innovative technology found in each. There is a commonality between them all that can impact our own TELE planning. There are three main considerations that we can see when these pieces of the puzzle are together.
- Student Centered Inquiry – in each of the environments the student is at the center of the inquiry process. The environment is planned around their learning needs, interests and passions. We focus on creating a curiosity for each learner, building a new knowledge structure for each student, and allowing the individual to lead the way to discovery. Students are active knowledge creators and not passive recipients in these environments.This reversal of a traditional student in the classroom has also redefined the role of the teacher as an important guide and facilitator to the learning experience. Students in all of the scenarios take on the role of a problem solver. No matter the age, grade, or ability of the student we need to shift the focus and allow for inquiry if we truly want them to learn the science and math of the real world. The fact of the matter is that the jobs of the future do not need “scientists who have memorized the periodic table”, they need creative and independent problem solvers (Libow Martinez & Stager, 2013).
- Technology is a catalyst. In each of the environments the technology is not used to simply digitize the traditional task that would have been done with paper and pencil. Technology transcends knowledge consumption for the purpose of repetition in these classrooms…aka no more Google info followed by a copy and pasted PowerPoint. The technology in these environments is necessary because it acts as a lightning rod allowing for possibilities of collaboration, interaction, and encounter with new information and scenarios that would not have been otherwise possible. Technology allows for these activities to “take place somewhere between the extremes, where students are guided, through a process of scientific investigation, to particular answers that are known to the teacher( Furtak, 2006, p.454).
- Knowledge is constructed not memorized. In each of the TELEs you can see the importance of creating an environment where students interact with and encounter information in ways that allow them to tear down misconceptions and build a new understanding through hands on activities and action taken in a collaborative, co-constructed environment. “If institutional education is to remain relevant we must first acknowledge that we have entered upon a very different world in which informal learning communities are now a major part of our students’ lives. They represent nothing less than a paradigm shift in education. We must acknowledge that students now come to us with the expectation of being able to employ their own agency in exploring the world they are to inherit and change” (Duncum, 2014, p.35).
When constructing my TELE for professional development I am ensuring these three features are front and center to the design. After reading and researching all of these TELEs I wonder how long can we allow for this type of environment to remain optional in our schools before our traditional classrooms become obsolete?
Trish
References
Duncum, P. (2014). Youth on YouTube as Smart Swarms. Art Education, 67 (2), 32-36
Edelson, D. C. (2001). Learning for use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities. Journal of Research in Science Technology, 38(3), 355-385.
Furtak, E. M. (2006). The problem with answers: An exploration of guided scientific inquiry teaching. Science Education, 90(3), 453-467
Khan, S. (2010). New pedagogies for teaching with computer simulations. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 20(3), 215-232. DOI 10.1007/s10956-010-9247-2
Khan, S. (2007). Model-based inquiries in chemistry. Science Education, 91(6), 877-905.
Libow Martinez, S., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to Learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Torrance, California: Constructing Modern Knowledge Press
The Jasper Series as an Example of Anchored Instruction: Theory, Program Description, and Assessment Data. (1992). Educational Psychologist, 27(3), 291-315.
Dear Trisha,
Thank you for highlighting three themes about the TELEs. I agree with the idea that these TELEs support that technology is not a magic bullet for learning. Rather, it is actively utilized in the learning process. Technology, as written in your post can be a catalyst. As a tool, digital access reduces communication challenges. Students are also able to manipulate and dissect representations of constructs to develop stronger understandings of the relationships between variables.
In your diagram, I noticed that you fit anchored instruction with WISE & SKI and TGEM & LFU. Is there a specific reason for this configuration? For example, why might anchored instructions fit on top of TGEM or LFU is placed under WISE?
Alice
Hi Trish,
I love the image you chose to highlight the critical features of each TELE! Like you, I think it is important to note that with each one of these instructional designs, the teacher is no longer the center of the classroom. In schools today, students have so much more ownership over their learning than in traditional classes and these TELE’s all lend themselves to that mindset. While thinking about any of these pedagogical frameworks and implementing them in the classroom, I wonder how much of the required content can be covered. I personally feel like we have too many curriculum outcomes and my teaching team and I find it hard to cover them all and sometimes end up explicitly teaching some as stand-alone lessons just to tick boxes. Do you think that with these innovative classroom designs and models we can move away from a content-driven curriculum to more of a student-driven one, where, as you say, is more informal in all areas?
Cheers,
Sarah
Hey Sarah,
I wondered the same thing. These frameworks clearly allow for students to engage in some intense knowledge construction, and dive quite deep into a given subject or topic. To me it seems like it would require a stronger focus on depth as opposed to breadth. It seems to me that some of the “required content” would have to be sidestepped in order to allow these more elaborate, student-centred yet time-consuming lessons to be explored. I’ve never found a good balance here, despite the many, MANY discussions I’ve had on it.
I do think this connects to the excellent question Trish posed – “I wonder how long can we allow for this type of environment to remain optional in our schools before our traditional classrooms become obsolete?”
I absolutely see the benefit to “drinking to Kool-Aid” on this one, but how deeply can we go into these frameworks while still adhering to the massive list of curriculum outcomes? Surely we require buy-in from the higher-ups, and an accompanying adjustment to their mindset?
Oh, and Trish, thanks for an amazing post. I’d write more but I’m absolutely exhausted and I’ve just clocked in my “two posts” for the week, but I want you to know I’ll certainly be referencing this one going forward if I need a refresher for my TELE! Perhaps it will help me from losing my MIND, as you suggested 😀
-Scott