K-12 Teaching and Learning in the ICT Era

K-12 Teaching and Learning in the ICT Era

Five Instructional Design Principles (from Brenda Sugrue) • Learning is not performance • The medium is not the method • Match external and internal conditions • Authentic practice makes perfect • One size does not fit all

Learning is not Performance • Performance depends upon • Knowledge • Capacity • Available tools and information • Motivation • Learning requires • Generalization • Reflection • Self-testing of scope of what is learned

The Medium Is Not the Method • Some learning environments support performances substantially more or less than the worlds in which those performances ultimately will be needed • Media afford opportunities to use various instructional approaches but are not, per se, the source of learning

Match External and Internal Conditions • Allow for initial verbal learning followed by automation through practice • Allow for reflection opportunities that can support transfer • Be sensitive to issues of perceived difficulty and perceived value of learning tasks, as well as student preferences for features of the learning environment

Authentic Practice Makes Perfect • Since so much of schooling is verbal, it is easy to confuse verbalizing of concepts and principles with the ability to apply those principles and to confuse describing performances with doing them • Cognitive authenticity is sufficient as long as the cognitive scope matches the expected realm of applicability for what is being learned

One Size Does Not Fit All • For example, newcomers to a field need simple text, with no gaps in explanations, or they get confused; old hands need enough loose ends and missing details to keep them from going on autopilot • In general, • Compensate for weaknesses • Leverage strengths • Remediate weaknesses

Overview • Why use technology? • Facilitating effective learning processes • Simulating instructive environments • Tutoring

Facilitating effective learning processes • SWoRD [Schunn and Cho](http://ladybug.lrdc.pitt.edu/sword3/) • Peer critique of writing • Manage the process • Provide incentives by evaluating students via comparison to other students • Cumulate the feedback and make it available • Support reviewee reactions to feedback • Works as well as or better than instructor feedback and allows much more use of writing assignments

Suthers’ Collaborative Knowledge Construction Tool Hypothesis Can have disconfirming relationships too Data Supporting relationship Unevaluated relationship

Simulating instructive environments – Yaron’s Virtual Chemistry Lab Graphs show additional data Cognitive realism of key artifacts “Meters” convey key information

Instructor Authoring Tool www.chemcollective.org Select reagents Define reactions Assemble Glassware

Key Aspects of Simulations • Cognitive realism • Ease of understanding and use • Recordkeeping • Instructor modifiability • Compatibility of timescale and nature of simulation activities with the school day • Direct links to curriculum

The Importance of Interoperability Agile “little guys” do well while the slow-moving “big guys” run into trouble! • See Tom Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat” • School systems need to have integrated curricular components • Artifacts must work with other artifacts, gradebook systems, curriculum management systems, etc. • Offering a proprietary “seamless” package is no longer sufficient – the marketplace has been clear about this. The connection to other vendors’ packages must be seamless!

Use of XML Base to Permit Interoperability <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?> - <VIRTUALLAB version="1.4.8"> <TITLE>Gravimetric Determination of Arsenic</TITLE> <AUTHOR>Jordi Cuadros</AUTHOR> <DESCRIPTION>Determine the amount of arsenic present in soil samples.</DESCRIPTION> -  - <SOLUTION_VIEWERS> <VIEWER honorSignificantFigures="false" name="Solution Properties" enabled="true" driver="irydium.vlab.viewer.PropertiesPanel" /> --> <VIEWER sEnabled="true" aqEnabled="false" name="Species Viewer" enabled="true" gEnabled="true" driver="irydium.vlab.viewer.SpeciesViewer" /> --> <VIEWER name="Thermometer" enabled="true" driver="irydium.vlab.viewer.Thermometer" /> <VIEWER name="PH Meter" enabled="false" driver="irydium.vlab.viewer.PhViewer" /> </SOLUTION_VIEWERS> - <TRANSFERBAR> <MODEL name="Precise Transfer" enabled="true" driver="irydium.vlab.transfer.PreciseTransferModel" /> <MODEL name="Significant Figures Transfer" enabled="true" driver="irydium.vlab.transfer.SignificantFiguresTransferModel" /> <MODEL name="Realistic Transfer" enabled="true" driver="irydium.vlab.transfer.RealisticTransferModel" /> </TRANSFERBAR> <KNOWLEDGEBASE reactions="arsgrav/reactions.xml" species="arsgrav/species.xml" driver="irydium.textRealm.TextKnowledgebase" /> <REALM name="arsgrav" driver="irydium.textRealm.TextRealm" filesystem="arsgrav/filesystem.xml" /> - <STOCKROOM> <MOUNT realm="arsgrav" path="/Irydium Solutions">Irydium Solutions</MOUNT> </STOCKROOM> </VIRTUALLAB>

Tutoring • Tasks • Student modeling • Coaching • Progress monitoring

An Example (Van Lehn et al.)

Richer Example

How a Vector is Entered Derivative Variables Are Defined Automatically

Building Blocks • Standard components • Model of expertise • Domain simulations • Student Modeling Tools • Dialogue Tools • Interface Components • Eventually, it should be possible to combine tools from VanLehn’s tutors with other tools by other people, but even now, interoperability helps make the project work!

Self-Explanation Tutor

Facilitating effective learning processes • Better connections to past experiences • Digital video • Support learning by doing • Novices seldom notice everything of importance in a situation • Video replay better ties coaching to experience • Make coursework more case-based

Electronic Portfolios • Needs • Provide basis for mentoring • Document student learning for accrediting and certifying bodies • Give student a sense of what has been learned • Provide objects for reflection • Provide basis for video resume

Alternatives • Open Source Model • Package

KEEP Portfolio Editor Developed by Knowledge Media laboratory (KML) of The Carnegie Foundationfor the Advancement of Teaching

Portfolio as Diary or Notebook

Portfolio for Teaching • Lesson plans • Video of classroom activity • Student products • Reflections • Interactions with mentors

Lessons Learned: Collaborative Technology to Support Learning of Professional Skills • The Mission • The Process Followed • Lessons Learned

The Mission • Stimulate reform in school districts • Nested learning communities • Driven by principles of learning • LearningWalk™ as central to process • External quality assessment • Content-Focused Coaching™ • Focus on urban districts • Focus on building “high performance learning communities”

Accountable Talk™ Clear Expectations Fair and Credible Evaluations Learning as Apprenticeship Organizing for Effort Recognition of Accomplishment Socializing Intelligence Self-management of Learning Academic Rigor in a Thinking Curriculum The Principles of Learning

LearningWalk™ • An organized visit through a school's learning areas • Participants move in and out of several classrooms looking at student work and classroom artifacts, and talking with students and teachers • Between classroom visits, participants gather to discuss what they learned in the classroom by making factual statements and generating questions they have about what they observed which, if asked of teachers, could stimulate them to think more deeply about practice • At the end of the LearningWalk™, participants work with the principal to refine observations and questions and to look for patterns within the school.

External Quality Assessment • Provides school districts with an external assessment of the quality in teaching and learning in their schools. • Objectives • determine if the quality of instruction supports achievement of rigorous academic standards by all students • guide principals and instructional leaders in supporting their teachers to improve practice • guide teachers in analyzing their teaching and learning to improve instructional practice.

Content-Focused Coaching™ • Training coaches to work individually with classroom teachers to design, implement, and reflect on rigorous, standards-based lessons that promote student learning • Coach and teacher work together • during a pre-conference to refine lesson design • during the enactment of the lesson in which both the teacher and coach are co-accountable for student learning • during a post-conference in which they reflect on evidence of student learning and plan for subsequent lessons. • Coaches use a set of 'moves' designed to focus the dialogue with teachers on a set of core issues derived from the research on teaching and learning.

Nested Learning Communities • All members of the school district are learners--students, teachers, principals, and administrators. • Learning is the work of both students and professional educators • Continuous learning in pursuit of educational improvement is the norm. • The "glue" that holds the community together is two-way accountability between layers. • A school system that is a learning organization must treat upgrading of instructional competencies as a key part of its definition of professionalism. • It should be structured to inspire and require continuous learning on the part of everyone in the system, from teachers to senior administrators.

The Process • Stimulate the development of the higher levels of nested communities, so that they in turn can stimulate development at lower levels. • Study groups • In person • Supported by hypermedia tools • Over networks synchronously • Supported by discussion tools

Problem • Teachers don’t just start using the CD’s that their principals distribute

Solution • Approach dissemination of technology as a task of leveraging existing cultural support and shaping cultural change to make promising new tools “fit”

Cultural Support Is the Key • No one takes a course in making telephone calls! • We only learn the aspects of a tool that our culture supports • Grandma uses email attachments to see pictures of the grandchildren • Professor X says he can’t understand attachments and refuses to use them

Technology Failures • The clock on a generation of video cassette recorders still says 1200! • I flew to New York for a 1-hour meeting recently, instead of using NetMeeting! • The paperless office now has more paper!

Academic Conferences – An Example • Electronic submission • Common today but a failure in 1995 – even with Computer Scientists! • Electronic review • On-Line abstracts and papers • On-Line programs that can build a personal schedule and download it to a personal digital assistant (Palm) tool

My Video Experience – First Time • Staff Resisted • Complaints about cost • Complaints about quality of staff efforts • Need for continual motivation of staff

The Second Time • Camcorders are part of our culture • Minimal training needed • Moderate enthusiasm among a less techie staff than last time • Staff add their own extensions The Moral: Enculturated commodities get used; the best choices do not get used if outside our cultures

Summary • The world of instructional technology is moving toward collections of interoperable components that come from multiple sources and permit a coherent overall approach to curriculum • A key role for technology is to bridge the gap between didactic and learning by doing • Cognitive realism is always important; physical fidelity is only important for special purposes

K-12 Teaching and Learning in the ICT Era