Category Archives: A. Video cases

I chose to analyze case 2 and case 4

Case 2: I found this case to be the most interesting of all for me because a) I am a math teacher myself and can relate to the content being discussed and b) because I have always been undecided whenever someone brought up the “allow calculators / don’t allow calculators” debate.

This video shows a passionate math teacher who has been teaching high school math for decades. He seems to be in the favor of using calculators in his math classroom unlike some math teachers out there who will not allow students to bring a calculator to class.

I think that the good use of technology in a math/science classroom is a) to make learning relevant to the current generation and b) to make learning efficient. I noticed that this teacher is achieving both of these goals by using the calculators in his classroom. As the teacher mentions towards the end of the video, the male students have poor work ethic compared to female students and when male students are given graphing calculators they tend to play around with them and figure out the problems. Therefore, the teacher is using the technology to making learning relevant for these students. This teacher is also making learning efficient for some of these students as they don’t do any work on the paper that saves them time that the teenagers would rather spend on other things than writing 20 math equations on a piece of paper. Students can simply plug in the value into the calculator and it gives them the image on the screen. Hence, the learning is made efficient by the teacher.

Drawbacks/issues: Some of the issues that came to my attention while watching these videos were: a) How old are these videos? I am guessing these cannot be very recent as it has been known that students can store a lot of data in their graphing calculators that can be used later in the tests. I am guessing these videos were made before it was discovered that they can store data.

b) The main issue I see arising, in this case, is that technology is improving and changing every day. There is always better technology out there every year. Does this mean that this teacher will have to invest money in new technology every year? Will he continue to use the old technology because it does the job? Instead of investing into calculators, which definitely seems like the right choice at this point as they are 1/10th of the cost of a computer, invest into computers where a new software or a program can be downloaded when available to help support students. Otherwise, technology can go out of date very quickly and lose its appeal to students to create relevance or making learning effiencent.

Case 4: I decided to look into case 4 as I was interested in knowing how can one use technology in a biology classroom, although there was not much offered in the video about that. However, it was interesting to hear pre-service teacher perspective on the matter of teaching technology in a science classroom.

One of the main issues I understand that came up while I was watching these videos was that the teacher was asked how does technology enhance learning in a biology classroom. And the answer that the teacher gave to this question was a bit problematic for me. He said,  “use of technology does not significantly increase their achievement, but it didn’t hurt them either”. We cannot be spending time, effort and money on resources and strategies in our classrooms that are only incorporated in lessons just because they don’t help students but they don’t hurt them either. We should only use technology if it enhances student learning or even enhances half of the students’ learning in the classroom. Like in case 2, mostly male students are attracted to the idea of using calculators more than girls as they like to play with technology. I believe that before introducing anything new in your classroom, you must make the benefits of this change clear to your students. Therefore, they understand the importance of it and can benefit from it.

Gursimran Kaur

I  chose to view video cases 1 and 4 because I felt these cases spoke to many issues I am now grappling with in my present context. Video case 1, which looks at a STEM approach, was of significant interest because in my locale we are trying to promote the STEM methodology, and since we are in infant stage of its adoption, I am always curious to see it in action. Video case 4 which looks at pre-service teachers was intriguing to me because in my present job I prepare teachers to teach chemistry at the secondary level.

Video Case 1

STEM promotes a collaborative approach to the teaching and learning process which came across in the videos. Both students and teachers relayed experiences of them having to lean on their peers when they did not possess the requisite skill set. One teacher pointed out that in today’s world there is to much information for any one person to know it all so we have to rely on others for their expertise. This collaborative nature has the benefit of allowing interaction across disciplines (the video showed the interaction among chemistry, physics and information technology) and thus students are able to see how they will be able to apply their learning to deal with real-life problems. It requires teachers to be comfortable with not having all the answers which can be unnerving for some. The other advantage of STEM that came across in the case was that the project-based nature of the activities gives students opportunities to develop critical thinking, creative thinking, organisational skills.

The main issues that I recognised from the STEM case had to do with time and resources. In one of the videos the teacher pointed out that he had a challenge of figuring out how the students would complete some tasks associated with their projects, or how they would do to sort out problems that cropped up because they weren’t give a significant block of time to work on their projects. In watching the video I was impressed with the resources the teacher had for students to complete their projects. In my particular context, an inability to provide the requisite resources may be one of the greatest challenges we face in trying to implement STEM education.

Video Case 4

In this case the issues relating to how teachers incorporate technology into their classroom were addressed. One of the key things that was mentioned was the need to support teachers as they try to use technology in their classrooms.  Some pre-service teachers indicated that were reluctant to jump in and use technology right way because they were afraid that they would not be able to deal with issues that arose. This level of discomfort could be eased with a proper support system. The video also pointed out how a teacher’s philosophy of learning and how their pedagogical content knowledge affected their use of technology in the classroom. Some of the pre-service teachers noted that they felt some of the software programmes would decrease their students competence in certain skills and hence they would be reluctant to adopt its use in some ways. While I agree with the hesitation these teachers have, I believe that they should focus on what ways would the use technology would prove to be the most beneficial in bringing concepts across to their students instead of focusing on the ways it would decrease their competences.

I chose to focus on case 3 and case 6 this week as they were the two most relatable to my current situation.

Case 3

What stood out for me in this video is teacher B identifying the fact that assumptions were made before the teaching began that likely affected the learning. As a teacher, I have experienced and have also witnessed it as an administrator. You look through lesson plans that appear to be perfect but you quickly realize there is no link to prior knowledge acquired and even the greatest of plans can bomb badly when this is the case. In her case, it was the assumption that students had some basic computer skills but this was never tested beforehand and it slowed things down.

The teacher also identified a key question when using technology, which is what if? If your lesson is based completely on a specific technology, what do you do when it fails.

Teacher A’s experience and comfort were more evident in discussing his method’s. He had a plan that facilitated helping the weaker students in technology, without his direct teaching. The concept of activity based learning is certainly an excellent one when it is approached correctly. Having proper knowledge and perspective are important, however, and it’s important that teachers are still constantly assessing their students and providing help where it is needed.

I also found the argument about hands on vs. simulations interesting. I would be interested to hear for about studies done on the benefits and drawbacks of each but I can certainly see the benefit of having a more blended approach. Cost is an issue for schools and the fact is you cannot experience the amount of things you would be able to on a simulator. While I don’t agree that simulators can’t simulate problems (when I did flight simulations I had plenty of preprogrammed failures built in that forced me to think on my feet) I do agree that there is value is live experiments and this should never be done with completely.

Case 6

This case also caught my attention because the teacher had a certain passion for using technology that was focussed on benefitting the students. Parent and teacher communication can be difficult through old channels but this has changed greatly and for teachers that take the initiative they can stay very connected. Doing so encourages interaction at home, which only strengthens learning.

I was also struck by the inquiry-based approach of trying to find what the students are interested in and building off of that.

What was most impressive to me was the teacher understood the reality that you “go to war with the army you have, not the one you want.” This is to say he understood he was not going to get all of the technology elements, at least not through standard means. He added components by being crafty in pitching ideas and showing results to back up his requests for more funding.

Both cases were interesting in their own right. Certainly, the context and approach differ slightly but the basic principle of using technology in the most efficient way possible was a common thread. I believe sincerely that collaboration among teachers is the key to expanding learning opportunities to all and it appears these teachers are very willing to share their experiences and learn.

The Middle School program at my school is arguably less developed than the Junior and Senior School programs. Like the middle child, its sense of identity is overshadowed by the younger and older siblings; the exciting, explorative Junior School Program and the creative, culminating Senior School Program seem more attractive, at least on paper. I chose Video Cases 5&6 because they were focused on grades that would be considered Middle School at my school. I wanted to get a sense of how technology was being integrated; as I talked about in my previous post, was technology being used at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and SAMR model?

In case 6, we see a teacher who has incorporated technology in the classroom in various forms including PowerPoint, podcasts, animated gifs, audiography, and videography. One of the underlying issues that came out of this video was the overall vision for technology in schools. The teacher learned most of the technology by himself and the tools were implemented primarily to connect with students and give alternate ways of learning content. Students played an active role in teaching and explaining content which helped to synthesize main concepts. The school seemed to have a grass-roots approach to technology implementation and arguably lacked an overall direction of what they wanted their students to accomplish through technology. This begs the question, do schools really need strategic plans for technology or will teachers implement technology in the higher levels of Bloom’s and SAMR organically? A comparison of schools with a well thought out technology plan and those without any plan might shed some light on whether it has any impact on how technology is implemented.

In case 5, we see a school where one teacher has embraced technology and implemented it in various forms; some of these forms are quite noteworthy as they accomplished tasks that were not possible before the introduction of technology (communication with RAWA in Afghanistan). Two other teachers, a retiree and a new teacher, expressed their apprehension with technology citing lack of time and lack of confidence with technology. Professional development was provided but that did not seem to encourage these teachers to implement technology in a concerted way. Is the underlying issue a lack of clear vision for technology? Is it a lack of prioritization by the school to give teachers the time and resources? How can PD be improved to ensure greater buy-in with teachers?

I chose to analyze video cases 5 and 8. I chose these two cases because they were from elementary environments and compared the experience and perspectives of technology integration from a master teacher, a new teacher, a retiring teacher, and from pre-service teachers. As well the students could be observed and heard from as well. What was striking in in watching these videos is how perfectly they captured the reality and discourse that I have experienced and observed regarding technology integration in classrooms here in my own district.

There are three key issues that arise in all of the videos:

Time

Teacher Mindset

Student Centered Learning

Time

In the videos you could observe learning environments that were noisy, boisterous, and moving. Students were working in multiple areas of the classroom with a variety of materials including a blend of no-tech and high-tech. In case study 5 the teacher described a very flexible, risk taking environment where multiple outcomes and curricular areas needed to be included in these projects to make them worth the time. The students of case study 5 spoke to the degree that they were invested in the project and how much time they took. This time was seen as valuable, worthwhile and effective to the student learning having impacted understanding. There is no one right way to integrate technology into curriculum, technology is best suited to be creatively designed into subject matter and classroom contexts as could be observed in case study 5 (Koehler, Cain, & Mishra, 2013).

On the other side of the coin in case study 8 the pre-service teachers unanimously described the immense amount of time the stop motion project was taking to which all of them agreed that even if the technology was readily available to them in their classrooms they would not use it. Both the retired teacher and the new teacher from case study 5 described the reason for not integrating technology as being a lack of time both in the classroom as far as time for student learning, and out of the classroom for their own learning.

These observations about time left me with these questions:

What is a reasonable amount of time for teachers to engage in professional development for learning a new technology? Should self directed learning be expected?

By what measure are teachers determining they do have time for paper and pencil (or any other traditional tool), but do not have time for technology? If the outcomes or task haven’t changed, how can we base time on the tool we are using?

How can we effectively help teachers reframe or re-plan the task to allow for the time needed for technology integration?

Teacher Mindset

This was a clear theme in the videos. In all of the scenarios the classrooms had a similar make up of student demographic including large populations of ELL students. The teachers all have access to technology with no lack tangible resources or infrastructure (despite this being the case in many other school scenarios). The interviewer at one point asked the pre-service teachers in case study 8 if they would integrate technology if they had no limitations to access…they awkwardly responded no. What is surprising (or perhaps not so surprising) is that the retired teacher, and the new, and pre-service teachers all had similar mindsets. They were rigid in their thinking that they could not integrate technology. This decision was made with themselves in mind with no reference made to the needs of students. The teachers in these case studies spoke of lack of understanding due to professional development opportunities and teacher preparation courses. If we take the time to understand the constraints of how these technologies influence what teachers do or do not do in their classrooms we have the opportunity to rethink teacher education and teacher professional development. If we fail to do this we run the risk of teachers having and inadequate experience with technology for teaching and learning (Koehler, Cain, & Mishra, 2013). Many teachers having not been educated in a digitally rich environment do not feel they are sufficiently prepared and do not appreciate or value technology as relevant to teaching and learning (Koehler, Cain, & Mishra, 2013). We are battling the changing of mindsets instead of changing technology.

These observations about time left me with these questions:

Can teachers continue to claim that technology is optional?

What does effective professional learning look like for teachers who need to learn about technology integration in a classroom context?

Student Centered Learning

In the case 5 video with the master teacher she uses an excited and descriptive language regarding technology in her classroom that has very little to do with her or the technology itself. She speaks about student learning, the impact on engagement, and the positive effects in the classroom. The chaos, noise, time, failures and frustrations are all described as worth it. The teacher speaks of the student needs in their language acquisition and the opportunity to level the playing field of learning with their peers. In case study 8 the teacher share similar sentiments and extends this to the practicality of technology being able to extend the learning and do what the textbook could not. The learning. Plain and simple. The Learning and Technology Policy Framework from Alberta Education puts at the heart of the framework goal number one for technology integration and this is Student Centered Learning.

“Technology is used to support   student-centred, personalized, authentic learning for all students” (Learning with Technology, 2015).

These observations about time left me with these questions:

How can we ensure that technology decisions are made based on student learning needs? Who should make these decisions?

How can we plan cross curricular activities that are authentic and use technology to enhance student learning?

How do we support the needs of the individual learner with technology?

Observing these case studies has inspired a direction for my own area of professional need and expertise focusing in teacher professional development to affect student centered learning.

References

Learning with Technology  |  Overview. (2015, September 23). Retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/learning-with-technology/overview/

Koehler, M.J., Cain, W., & Mishra, P.  (2013). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?

TPACK 101. (2014, July 14). Retrieved from http://www.matt-koehler.com/tpack-101/

Case 2: High school math teacher describes his experience with using technology in his grade 11 enriched math class.

Case 8: Elementary student teachers that are working on using images to create “slomation” creations.

I chose these two videos to describe the differences and similarities that became apparent to me when comparing an elementary perspective to that of high school.  It is important to note as well that Teacher F (Grade 11) has 28 year of teaching experience, where the elementary student teachers are just beginning in their career.

Case 2:

In my initial post, I stated that “good” use of technology is when educators are able to push students beyond a “googled” answer.  During his interview, teacher F explains that his yearly goal is to find questions that push students to greater level.  He describes it as “getting at math” not just a calculated answer.  He describes an example of a bonus questions provided to students that had students coming before and after school to work through this problem collectively.  They were learning from one another, working with previous knowledge, and integrating other disciplines to create models to help solve their problem.  He believes that by using the technology, the students felt comfortable to push their understandings and engage in the problem.

Limitations:

1. The largest limitation described by Teacher F was the funding required for a class set of computer. He realized that he was able to use a graphic calculator and resources from other departments to create an equally effective learning environment.  This was encouraging as it was an example of a teacher with similar resources to myself, and yet did not seem defeated by it.

Case 8:

During these interviews, elementary student teachers were asked to describe their “slowmation” creations.  Their goal was to move beyond the static picture in a textbook, and onto a moving animation to engage students.  It seemed that students had differing opinions about the task and the reality of using it in the classroom.  I believe that there are teachers that are effectively using technology in the classroom with their students; however, it seemed that these teachers felt that it was their role to create them and for the students to watch.  As well, it seemed that many were still relying on print/text to preload or review the information alongside the video.  I wonder if this is a “good” example of the use of technology.  I had stated that “good” technology needed to have a focus and a reason being used.  I get the feeling that they are doing this because they feel that they have to use technology (like a box that needs to be checked).

Limitations:

1. These elementary teachers identified the limitation of time. They felt that creating these videos with their young students (grade 2 and 3) would not be “worth it” as many of the roles would fall on the teachers.
2. One teacher also explained the lack of equipment available to them in the classroom. I compare this to the first case study (STEM Program) where students had access to building equipment, coding materials, computers, etc.

Shayla

One of the issues being faced in the videos that struck me are the same those faced now: reluctance to integrate digital tools. Early adopters tend to be way ahead of the curve, those in the middle are scrambling to learn the tools, and resistors simply don’t use the tools. In the videos for Teacher S both the teacher retiring and the new teacher cited the same barriers to using technology: lack of time to learn the tools and and lack of support.

In my previous courses, I explored the issue of teacher onboarding to the use of digital technologies and found that a major factor in convincing teachers to begin using digital tools is to show them the utility and to provide scaffolded support. In my position of learning leader, it is part of my role to provide support for teachers integrating digital portfolios in their classrooms, which I see as being an essential tool in the math and science classroom. Students reflect on what they already know and what their next steps are. Dylan William discusses the importance of effective student feedback as a tool for learning. Digital portfolios allow significantly eased work for teachers in the long run related to assessing, evaluating, and the ability to provide feedback and the ability to access to student conceptions related to math and science. In addition, there is significant learning for students as they are able to metacognitively reflect on their learning.

In my first year in the position, there was lots of whole-staff PD and some small-group support as needed. In the second year, the support has been more one-on-one and in the classroom with teachers. As I watch teacher uptake of the tools, I am not convinced this has been successful. Most teachers are still not using the tool with their students and those who have taken it up are those already using other digital tools in the classroom. In order for teacher uptake to be successful, I think there has to be more support for teachers. At present I have 60 minutes per 6 day cycle to support teachers, which is simply not enough.

I would be interested in hearing from others about how teacher support for technology use is supported in your contexts.

William, D. (2016). The Secret of Effective Feedback. Educational Leadership, 73(7), 10-15 http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr16/vol73/num07/The-Secret-of-Effective-Feedback.aspx

The videos show the importance of technology in exploring preconceived ideas and background knowledge. They point out that technology can enhance inquiry, critical, and creative thinking skills. Students gain problem-solving skills while exploring different theories and strategies with technology. This exploration helps to reinforce their understanding and it facilitates their decision-making abilities.

In general, technology-based activities or projects are multi-disciplinary and often require that students synthesize their knowledge and understanding. Because it is rare to see teachers who are experts in the use of technology in a multi-disciplinary way, students do not always receive support with this need to synthesize. It is also unusual to see teachers who have a deep understanding of how to effectively use technology within their own discipline or subject area.

We need teachers with deep disciplinary and technology understandings to guide and extend students’ intellectual and practical forays, helping them to improve their inquiry, creative and critical thinking skills through engagement in authentic tasks with clear, precise, and measurable learning outcomes.  We need teachers who can make the best use of technology in the classroom by developing their awareness of range of digital technologies and by considering carefully both how and why technology can be used to support students’ learning. Effective selection of software and devices is only part of the story. Identifying learning outcomes and deciding how technology may help is fundamental in deciding its effective deployment.

The videos also show that technology has not always been reliable. Things do not always work as predicted (e.g. a program will not run on a computer because an installed application is preventing to do so). Therefore, a learning experience could be transformed in a troubleshooting session. Although troubleshooting can be time consuming, both teachers and students can learn technical tricks that can be used in the future.

It is important to be flexible when using technology and explore other technology solutions. Being open to use different technology helps to develop the necessary awareness of the range of technology that can be useful for a particular learning experience.

Time has also been presented as a scarce factor in teaching. Indeed, time is a rare commodity in schools, and any new tip or initiative that squanders it and does not add real value to a teacher’s working day will inevitably fail. That is because the first priority for all teachers is to teach and to improve the prospects of the students they teach. We usually don’t have enough time to explore all aspects of the learning skills that we are teaching. However, teaching strategies such as flipped classroom and blended learning contribute to maximising instruction time.