More than Words... Applying What I Learned in Enhancing Learning Materials Through Technology

Pick a cliche, "Put up or shut up," "Actions speak louder than words," "Walk the walk," "Put your money where your mouth is," "Do or do not, there is no try." OK, that last one may just be an antiquated Star Wars reference, but you get the idea. After five weeks of studying ways to integrate technology to enhance proven learning strategies, it was finally time to apply that conceptual knowledge to evaluate and improve an actual class lesson. This was a daunting task for someone like myself who has never developed a classroom lesson plan before, let alone a good one that incorporates sound learning theory supported by technology. However, emboldened by the support of my small group members, I felt I was up for the challenge.

I used the only lesson-type presentation I have developed myself - an orientation session for students participating in the Test Drive iQ Academy program. You can view my presentation at https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbU9x8j6YWIgZGQyNnpxbTRfMThjNHg1NWh0&hl=en&authkey=CJCBu3M

So what did I learn from this exercise? Quite a lot actually. Throughout this class we have demonstrated that incorporating technology to support proven learning strategies can greatly enhance student achievement. To that end, this should be happening for every lesson in every classroom in America. What I found out is that enhancing learning materials through technology is really not all that difficult - at least in theory. If I can do it, anyone can. The realities of classroom practice may present some additional challenges, but the effort required to overcome those challenges is certainly worthwhile.

Related to that point is the realization that many teachers could do the same thing to their lessons if they knew how, which brings me to the real revelation I experienced by taking this class - that I want to help facilitate this transformation. I will start with the teachers at my school. I may have to spend some time in the classroom (physical or virtual) myself to fully comprehend the situation. But somehow, some way I want to help bring the American education system kicking and screaming into the 21st century. To do anything less would be a disservice to the next generation.

This class has really motivated me to do some more research and study of technology enhanced learning. A recent federal government report on technology in education points out that, "The challenge for our education system is to leverage the learning sciences and  modern technology to create energizing, relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners that mirror students’ daily lives and the reality of their futures.” One really interesting concept I came across was the "flipped classroom" (see http://youtu.be/2H4RkudFzlc). The concept is simply that the teacher assigns the traditional lecture as homework and has the student do homework (or projects, or group work) during class time. The lectures are presented as podcasts that student can watch online or on a mobile device. The benefit is that the teacher can spend more time working with students individually and the students are more engaged.

Another fascinating example is the Kahn Academy which the founder explains in Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education Video on TED.com. He basically created thousands of free videos that explain individual lessons in math, science, economics and various other subjects. Then he developed a self paced, interactive program to teach the concepts online. If a student gets stuck, they link to the respective video for help. When they master 10 questions about the topic in a row, they can move on the the next one.

Both of these revolutionary ideas were developed within the past 5 years and made possible by technology. Imagine what we will be able to do 10 years from now? I want to be a part of that.

Changing the Odds for Student Success (and other Week 5 CEDO 525 stuff)

When I was 18-years old and trying to decide what I was going to be when I grew up, my parents pulled me aside and told me, "Son, you can do whatever you want to do, just don't be a teacher." Want to venture a guess as to what they did for a living? You got it, they were both public school teachers. Don't get me wrong, they both loved teaching, they just knew all too well how difficult the profession had become (even 30-years ago) and they figured I had to be able to find an easier way to make a living.
I mention that story because I recently finished reading Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works by Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, and I can't help but wonder if I received some well-intentioned, but misleading advice. All the learning strategies in this book make perfect sense to me and I am mystified that every teacher in America is not making a conscious effort to apply these principles in every class they teach. 
Some thoughts about the last three learning strategies:

Identifying Similarities and Differences
Crucial for connecting prior knowledge and for broader understanding of concepts in context. Can be either teacher directed or student-directed. Technology supported diagrams and graphic representations are particularly effective in this exercise.
Homework and Practice 
Homework can't just be busy work - it must have a clearly defined and communicated purpose and relation to the learning targets. Allows students to extend their learning outside the classroom. Use of web-based resources is helpful because they can be accessed both in and out of the classroom.
Generating and Testing Hypotheses
Not just for science, this strategy really speaks to accessing those all-important higher order thinking skills. Students should be able to explain their hypothesis and what evidence they use to test it. Computer-based simulations are a great way to test hypotheses because it is relatively inexpensive and students get immediate feedback.

Digital Technology's Power to Transform Traditional Institutions

This week, I enjoyed watching several videos featuring NYU Interactive Telecommunications Professor Clay Shirky. According to his website, http://www.shirky.com, he studies the effects of the Internet on society and has recently written two books on the subject. I found his TED Talks videos very thought-provoking and while he does not talk specifically about education, his ideas are certainly applicable to education in general and virtual education in particular. 

Institutions vs. Collaboration

In this video, Shirky talks about how the Internet and various digital communication tools are changing the way organizations are structured. 21st century tools facilitate the formation of collaborative groups in which cooperative communication strategies are built into the structure of the organization. Anyone can become a member of these groups and they can contribute as much or as little as they want. Shirky cites the Flickr photo sharing web community, Linux, open source software, file sharing and Wikipedia as examples of cooperative systems. This model flies in the face of traditional 20th century institutions.

Education is one such institution. According to Shirky, as organizations move toward the new collaborative model, institutions are going to come under increasing pressure and the more rigidly managed and the more they rely on information monopolies, the more pressure they will be under. Conversely, loosely coordinated groups are going to be given increasingly high leverage. The more those groups forgo traditional institutional imperatives like deciding in advance what’s going to happen and the profit motive, the more leverage they will have.  Imagine the transformational leverage of an educational system based on a collaborative social model rather than a rigid institution. 

Shirky points out that the rising popularity of blogging has the potential to make professional journalism irrelevant. If that is true, then the development of cooperative social learning communities as an alternative to traditional educational institutions has the potential to do the same to the teaching profession.

This week, we also examined two more teaching strategies to enhance student learning.

Cooperative Learning

I learned quite a bit about the pros and cons of cooperative learning strategies from the two classroom teachers in my small group. Cooperative learning can certainly lead to successful academic outcomes under the right circumstances; like when students with diverse learning styles can be grouped together to take advantage of each group members' strengths and mitigate their weaknesses. However, difficulties can arise when not every student puts forth the same amount of effort, they disagree on goals and strategies or they have personality conflicts. Groups can also be difficult to manage and coordinate and pose certain challenges for assessing each student's grade based on their contribution to the final product.

Reinforcing Effort

It stands to reason that reinforcing effort will lead to better academic achievement. The classroom teachers in my group have anecdotal evidence that even seemingly small gestures of encouragement can have considerable impact on student participation and performance. However, I recently attended a meeting where a virtual school leader related a pilot program where an extrinsic motivation program was implemented. Students could earn points by completing assigned work and scoring well on tests and could then exchange those points for prizes or turn them into a donation to charity. The program seemed good in theory, but the school found it difficult to get students to participate and those that did saw very nominal academic gains - certainly not enough to justify the $19,000 price tag for the program. So it seems that intrinsic factors have a greater impact than extrinsic motivators when it comes to reinforcing effort.