Final Reflection: "Did the use of technology lead to deeper learning?"

"Did the use of technology lead to deeper learning?" In asking myself this question, I wanted to answer 'yes' but also wanted to discuss the question and my perceptions with others. Unfortunately it's 11 pm at night and bar waking someone from bed I was alone. I turned to Google to search and find other's answers to this question online. My online search for discussion and reflection on the question led me to the following sites and articles.

Deep Learning with Technology in 14- to 19-year old learners - Final Report from the University of Bristol (July 2009)

It was helpful to find a definition here of 'deep learning':


"The term ‘deep learning’ was first conceptualised by Marton and Säljö (1979). ... They found two different conceptions of learning, namely a reproductive conception – which gives rise to a surface approach where the learner is intent on simply understanding the content and coping with the task – and a deeper level of processing where learners are engaged in meaning-making and identifying the significance of what they are studying." (pg 3)

"Simms (2006) describes a deep learner as an articulate, autonomous but collaborative learner, with high meta-cognitive control and the generic skills of learning, which suggests that deep learners have developed a certain kind of learner identity." (pg 14)

There were three key themes that emerged from their study:

• Subject culture is one of the main drivers for how students use technology. There is some evidence for features of deep learning in different subject cultures.
• The issue of emerging adult identity is very much connected to how young people select and use different technologies.
• The ways in which technology bridges the formal and informal learning contexts – and their implications for deep learning – are complex and require further study. (pg 5)
  

There were a range of factors and conditions the University of Bristol found in their study that support deep learning with ICT for the 14-19 age group:

• engagement and participation in the subject discourse and practices
• sufficient time to engage in the task and in the subject discourse
• a high level of control over task, time, and ways of working
• appropriate level of maturation for the requirements of the task
• relationship and engagement with peers and others, including tutors
• relationship between personal identity and the subject discourse and practices
• easily navigable communication and tasks which bridge the formal and informal, including bridging the school/college setting and the home setting. (pg 26)
  

Considering my initial raw answer to the question posed at the start of this blog as well as what I read online and reflected upon, I would still say "Yes, the the use of technology lead to deeper learning in my classrooms." In their language and science studies with embedded technology standards students went way beyond mere recitation. Students were indeed engaged in meaning-making in and indentifying the significance of what they were learning by the end of each unit. I feel this success was met to a certain degree by unknowingly establishing the factors and conditions set forth in the Bristol study as conducive of deep learning with ICT in my science and ESL classrooms. As with much of educational pedagogy, the conditions and factors conducive of effective learning cross disciplinary boundaries. As an experienced teacher I am well aware of the benefits and need to establish these conditions in my classrooms. Best practice for literacy, whether scientific literacy, linguistic literacy, or technology and information literacy, transcends disciplines at its core and where met supports deep learning.

See Mind Over Matter: Transforming Course Management Systems into Effective Learning Environments (November/December 2002) for an interesting read on course management systems such as PantherNET and deep learning.

Crossing the finish line

My blogs (and feelings) tend to be cautious and perhaps skewed towards a discussion of the hurdles rather than victories resultant from my growing use of technology in my high school ESL and science classes. I decided at the end of this, our last of five COETAIL courses for the ISB Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy Program, to share some of the victories along the way in my 15-month journey. My goal and the goal of the program is to enable students with the skills, knowledge, understandings, and habits of mind they need to become more effective learners, communicators and creators, and global collaborators in today's digital world.

Reflecting on these three goals, I would say the embedded use of technology in my class units and lessons has allowed my students to first and foremost become better global collaborators and creators, followed by better communicators, and then learners. I feel this ranking shows a key benefit to students of embedding TAIL standards in our high school curricula. It fills in gaps and provides a necessary balance of skills, knowledge, understandings, and habits of mind needed by today's digital natives. While I feel our ESL (and science curricula) is already strong in its ability to create effective communicators and learners, drawing upon and embedding TAIL standards into these curricula provide greater opportunities for students to develop into effective global collaborators and creators.

Effective global collaborators and creators...

The other day in class, students were working in groups of two to three on revising a drama they had jointly created. Not being a digital native as are my students, I had asked for printed copies of their scripts and had provided feedback in written pen on the printed page. (It's still easier on my eyes than the computer when there are many papers to mark.) Given 40 minutes at the start of class to revise their five-minute scripts, students in one group, then the next and the next said "Google Docs! Let's use Google Docs and we can get it done twice as fast. You work on page ... and I'll work on page ..." and they were off. Having introduced Google Docs to the students early in the year, it had now become part of their personal tool set—they knew what it was, its benefits, how to use it, and the appropriate time to use it. As the drama developed and the writing process utilized, students used Google Docs to collaboratively share, work on, and save the dramas they created both in and outside of class.

Effective global collaborators and creators...

Another class. Another day. Setting up a shared online glossary of high frequency words with my beginning ESL students I wanted each student to link their Word Maps to the glossary entry they created for each word in order to share with each other additional information they had learned about each word while working on, revising and finalizing their Word Maps. I came to class prepared to show the students how to use Google Docs. To my surprise, students had already used Google Docs in another class and with a quick review of the basics and new instructions on how to share and link documents uploaded to Google Docs, students were quickly posting and sharing their Word Maps as a Google Doc link through our online glossaries.

Effective communicators and learners...

Online every day. Emails from students arrive nightly. Seeking clarification on assignments and content material. Asking for feedback on their labs and classwork. Turning in work and sharing information. Students know how to "find and use information to construct meaning and solve problems". Students must "communicate effectively and responsibly"

Effective communicators and learners (and creators)...

PantherNET. Student resources. Assignments. Forums. Glossaries. Wikis. Latest News. We have tried them all. Place for sharing information and resources. Creating, discussing and posting evidence of learning. Connecting and learning from each other during class and at home.

My students and I have crossed one arbitrary finish line together—the conclusion of the ISB COETAIL Program—as better global collaborators, creators, communicators and learners. However, the end of the course is not the end of the race. For the race continues. The goal of preparing students to meet the content and TAIL standards essential to become fully functioning members of today's digital world will always remain unmet as it is a moving goal on a continuum of students' developing knowledge, skills, understandings and habits of minds. More hurdles and successes are expected. But the path we must take is clear if our goal is for our students to become effective learners, communicators, creators and global collaborators of the 21st Century. The path for my students and I must be one of integration and synthesis: a curriculum that draws upon and links the standards of scientific literacy, linguistic literacy, and education technology and information literacy.

First Experience as Teacher of a Virtual Classroom

Due to a two-day school closure immediately preceding our spring break and subsequent to many earlier cancellations of after school activities, our school finally asked teachers to conduct classes online on Friday April 9th. Given the current political instability in Thailand, the onset of virtual classes on Friday had been preceded by many messages (or warnings to those teachers not yet ready to go online with their classes) from the school's administrators to be ready to continue learning online via PantherNET (the school run Virtual Learning Environment) in the case of a school closure. The day had arrived.

With equal amounts of excitement and trepidation I began to rethink my day's lessons and outcomes for an online medium. Using PantherNET daily with my students, I felt well prepared in the midst of the warnings of a school closure to seamlessly continue my classes online. As it was the last school day before spring break, I as had most teachers (to the chagrin and likely detriment of our overburdened and stressed students—the majority of our students?) had planned to give summative assessments in my classes Thursday and Friday (we see each class every other day for 85 minutes). On Friday I was to have seen my EAP 10 classes and on Thursday (the 8th) my Foundations Physics 9 and Communications classes. By SMS, the school website and email, teachers, students and parents were informed Thursday night and Friday morning that learning would continue online K-12 via PantherNET. Whether this would be retroactive for Thursday's missed classes was not clear to me; however, wanting to try out various options for continuation of learning online, I posted work for both my Thursday and Friday classes.

'Real' (f2f) Class Plans
Foundations Physics: (1) Section Quiz, (2) Return and reflect on Lab Activity Note, (3) Lab Activity
Foundations Communications: (1) Return and discuss 2 formative language assessments, (2) Graded Discussion
EAP 10: (1) Summative Vocabulary Quiz, (2) Collect final draft of group drama script (with earlier drafts and conference notes)
Biology In-class ESL Support: (1) Help students with language accessibility of unit exam

Virtual Class Plans
Foundations Physics: (1) Read over new Lab Activity CD "Question", "Help" and "Resources" files (students have CD of physics 9 labs); (2) Work through additional practice problems in "Assessments" file to review and prepare for section quiz to be given on the 21st (as spring break is an assessment/assignment free week)
Foundations Communications: Correct 2 formative assessments (grammar pre-test and vocabulary word map) and complete a second word map
EAP 10: Write a short composition using their vocabulary words

It's notable how radically I had to rethink my day's lessons for an online medium. While I felt learning did continue online for those students who submitted the work (only 20% or 2 out of every 10 students after posting the work over a week ago!), it was not the scope or sequence of learning I had planned before school was closed. Learning did continue online, but learning that entailed additional practice of 'old learning' and preparation for 'new learning' with all summative assessment of learning postponed until 'real' school reopened again after spring break. I made these choices to not introduce new learning and to not assess old learning as (1) I assume virtual school will be a one off two day affair (rightly or wrongly we will see on the 19th); (2) I am concerned about academic honesty taking a test online; (3) I am not confident when I am in the classroom again on Monday that students will have gone on PantherNET and completed the work / learning assigned there; and (4) it would take longer than I had and tools and experience my students and I lacked to do more.

Switching between a 'real' and a 'virtual' classroom does not seem to me to be a switch that can be easily made day by day. In preparing a lesson, the medium of instruction matters greatly. As teachers we were given a couple of hours the morning of the 9th to get lessons up on PantherNET for students to access. Were we able to post lessons (instructions, resources, links, etc.) for up to four classes in a couple of hours? "Yes." Were they of comparable quality (scope, sequence) and effectiveness as what we had planned f2f? I daresay "No". So why is such a quick switch between a 'real' and 'virtual' class lesson difficult? As with other K-12 online teachers (See Going Virtual: Unique Needs and Challenges of K-12 Online Teachers, a Boise State University national survey of 884 K-12 online teachers designed to identify the unique needs and challenges of K-12 online teachers)—albeit my online experience was only of two days—I found technology tools, facilitation, online content development, digital etiquette, assessment, leadership (management), special needs to be a challenge.

These seven areas posed unique and specific challenges. In terms of technology tools, my students and I were challenged to hold our planned graded discussion online. We could have used on online video chat for our discussion but neither the students nor I have yet to utilize such a tool for such a purpose. As a summative graded assessment I would first want to practice holding a discussion via an online chat prior to grading any such discussion. We could have also held our discussion on a forum or chat (sans video) but that would affect what is graded /the unit outcomes as body language, voice and pacing are found on the discussion rubric. As I stated earlier, it's not a simple switch between 'real' and 'virtual'. It could be done, but would require more than an hour to prepare and conduct and assess.

As for online content development, the Foundations Physics 9 course has an online CD of labs and activities (a CD lab textbook). However, conducting the labs require equipment such as motion detectors, interface, and probes that students do not have at home. Again, the labs could be adapted so that the set up could be done out of materials found in most households; however that would again conceivably affect unit outcomes and require more time than we were allotted.

In terms of digital etiquette and assessment I did worry about academic honesty and having students take and submit the Physics 9 section quiz online and the EAP 10 vocabulary quiz online. Both tests were designed to be given under traditional testing conditions; students were to have no access to their notes, books, electronic dictionaries, the Internet or other people. I could have set out conditions to ensure comparable testing conditions for the students at home as they would face at school (See Harvey Hinsz' blog on the same topic), or I could have rewritten the test so that the testing conditions would fit the students being at home with access to all the above help; however, I chose to postpone the test and give the students additional practice. Again without previous experience giving tests online and without the time to prepare a test designed to be given online, I changed the scope and sequence of my unit lesson.

As for assessment and special needs, the planned student-teacher conference and discussion of the Foundations Communications students' word maps continued; however, given the level of English of the students, a face to face discussion with the teacher is the most effective means of providing such feedback. Written feedback was already provided for each student's word map; yet, students at this level often have difficulty understanding teacher feedback (whether due to conceptual or syntactic understanding of written feedback, familiarity with editing marks or even teacher handwriting itself). While I did scan and post each student's word play with my handwritten feedback on PantherNET for them to revise, I know I will have to go back in person and explain parts of my previous feedback as students at this level are greatly aided by teacher-student one to one discussion and feedback.

In terms of management, my students were unprepared to find a lesson on PantherNET. My students typically access PantherNET for resources and a copy of their homework as assigned in class. PantherNET is a supplement to our class, a place to go to find a copy of resources and homework given out in class. As a result, only 20% of my students have completed the assigned lesson after a week (the due date set by the administrators is Monday the 19th, recognizing that students may not have known there were lessons waiting for them on PantherNET) . Just as it's hard to switch a classroom from a 'real' to a 'virtual' classroom in a day it's hard to switch an online tool from a 'resource room' to a 'classroom' in one day. All of these challenges were further compounded by the fact that students did not know school was going to be closed (that they were switching from a real to virtual classroom) so some students did not even have the materials they needed for their Friday virtual classes at home with them.

The day came. A virtual class. Two days...a start. What have I learned? Lessons are designed for a 'real' or a 'virtual' class, rarely will they do equally fine on both. An effective online unit should be designed for a virtual class from the onset...looking at assessments, outcomes, activities, and instruction. We (students and teachers) are all creatures of habit and while we can expect the unexpected we are never prepared for what we expect. ~James A. Michener

Final Design: HS ESL Independent Vocabulary Study

For this second blog reflecting on the process of implementing the Independent Vocabulary Study Unit for my Foundations Communications students I have chosen to provide an overview of the final unit design in order to provide a context, a clarity, for my course five blogs.

As described in my first blog of course five and my final blog of course four, for my final coetail course project I chose to create an independent vocabulary study unit for my beginning ESL students in order to help students achieve or exceed their expected annual learning progress in vocabulary acquisition and to develop their technology and information literacy skills as appropriate to the proposed unit of study (See ISB K-12 ESL Speaking and Listening Outcomes, ESL and TAIL Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions from UbD plan linked at start of this blog). The unit is a fairly self-contained unit on our school's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), pantherNET. All the instructions to get students started, to understand the scope and sequence of the unit, and to guide them through the teaching and learning cycle for this unit are located on pantherNET. There is a one page Introduction / Overview (Instructions) / Main Resource Page attached to an Online Glossary students will create with the words they independently select to study from self-assessment of the their level of understanding of the high-frequency words found on The Brown Corpus. Unit resources are linked on this page (through Google docs) as well as found as attachments on the main entry page for our course. From the main page, it can be seen that the course utilizes in addition to the online collaborative glossary (which includes embedded comments for shared discussion of each glossary entry), an online forum where students can share their reflections and learnings, and a wiki to share and link students' words throughout the course of their vocabulary studies. The online work is supported and reinforced by in-class (teacher-student, peer-to-peer, and independent) work, discussion, practice, assessment and reflection.

This unit is designed to (1) bring vertical alignment and coverage to our HS ESL curricula (Foundations 8/9/10, and EAP 9, 10, 11 and 12)— to introduce, reinforce and refine our HS independent online vocabulary study units in these five courses—and to (2) pilot additional Technology and Information Literacy (TAIL) Standards embedded in the unit so that our students' efforts to increase their vocabulary, and develop their vocabulary learning skills and strategies along with their technology and information literacy skills are introduced and scaffolded with our youngest and least proficient English language learners.

To this end, I redefined, modified, augmented, or substituted learning experiences and activities in the unit to develop students' technology and information literacy skills as appropriate to the proposed unit of study. I embedded opportunities for online collaboration between teachers and students and peer to peer through a redefinition of glossary comments and the addition of a class vocabulary study forum. The online creation of a shared glossary of student-selected words selected from The Brown Corpus along with the online comments and forum will substantially expand learning opportunities and experiences for the students as the time for such creation, sharing, collaboration, feedback and discussion would be hard to fit into current class structure and curriculum. I also embedded additional use of visual literacy strategies with the addition of a Word Map Graphic Organizer (which replaces simple answers to questions using the words as the students first formative task using the words) as well as addressed issues of copyright and fair use guidelines with the Word Maps and Online Glossary Entries. The Word Map Graphic Organizers are submitted online so that proper citation through active links to images found on the Web can be assessed.

I have also, following upon (adapting) the work of Vygotsky, included additional teaching and language learning activities and scaffolding at the earlier stages of the teaching and learning cycle as he proposes is necessary for students to become independent language learners:

Stage (1) Building the Field—extending everyday understandings (of the meanings of the words)

Stage (2) Modeling/Deconstruction—developing understanding of the structure (parts) and uses (of the words)

Stage (3) and Joint Construction—(teacher-student and peer-peer construction of meaningful discourse using the word)

Stage (4) Independent Construction—(student construction of meaningful discourse using the word)

By again redefining, modifying, augmenting, and substituting various elements from the independent vocabulary study of the older, more proficient ESL students, I have brought the HS ESL Independent Vocabulary Study Unit within the zone of proximal development for the Foundations students. Notably, I have provided more opportunities for modeling, sharing, feedback, collaboration, discussion (more formative learning experiences) before the final summative assessment. Specifically, I chose to replace the AWL with The Brown Corpus as the source from which students (upon self-assessment of their understanding of the words) draw words for their independent vocabulary studies. I have provided more model questions and answers using the students' chosen words. With the Word Map Graphic Organizer, students are asked to deconstruct the words more fully before attempting to use the words. And through increased opportunities for teacher-student and peer-peer collaboration through the online glossary, comments, forum and in class opportunities as outlined above, there are more opportunities for joint construction before students' independent constructions and understandings of the words are assessed.

All of these changes, both those related to technology and information literacy as well as research-based best practice for English language learning, have enlarged the scope and sequence of the unit as currently taught in the other ESL classes both in terms of the addition of TAIL Standards and the necessary scaffolding for rank beginners new to the English language. At the end of the year, I hope to share my work at embedding TAIL Standards into the HS ESL independent vocabulary study unit for my Foundation students with the EAP 9, 10, 11, and 12 teachers in hopes of embedding the same or similar standards in their own course-specific independent vocabulary study units.

The First Hurdle: Unreliable Technology (Yes, this is a rant!)

In designing and implementing the UbD unit planned in course 4: HS ESL Independent Vocabulary Study for the current coetail course I quickly encountered my first peril, unreliable technology—a critical challenge as the unit required the use of embedded technology to enhance student learning. Student learning was delayed by this first hurdle both in delaying the design of the online unit and in delaying student access to the online unit created.

Our school has seen a growth in the use of various technological media in education such as school blogs, panthernet (the school run Virtual Learning Environment that would host the online vocabulary study unit), powerschool and other Intranet and Internet based sites over the past three years. This growth has increasingly burdened the school server. As traffic increased, access to the school server and its Intranet based sites became increasingly unreliable. In the last three months, this burden on the server was made clear to users as students, teachers and parents were often unable to access these sites as they were timed out when trying (as the traffic was heavy) or the servers and connected sites were simply down and inaccessible. Fortunately, the school server was upgraded to handle this increased traffic just three weeks ago and all appears to be working well again. Unfortunately for my students and I, our online vocabulary study unit was designed and is lodged on panthernet so the time to design and implement the unit was unfortunately delayed by a good month.

But that is not the end of my technology woes in starting up this project. Did I mention I live in Bangbuathong, the village of the golden lotus. We have many temples, klongs, and open markets but reliable and fast Internet connections have yet to reach our small Thai village. Compounding the overburdened school server I had the weak IT infrastructure for web-based learning (or any use requiring broadband Internet) in the provinces to deal with when working after school hours. When traffic gets heavy across the lines in our village, connections time out, connections are dropped, and the Internet goes down about every twenty minutes. Patience and an optimistic nature are needed to attempt web-based learning in the village of the golden lotus!

Did I mention I live in Thailand? The recent Thai political unrest, red shirts on the streets of Bangkok demanding the ouster of the current PM, has resulted in (among other actions such as a declared State of Emergency and school closures) the government stepping in to block Internet access to sites used by the red shirts to communicate online. However, the government hand that came down on the Internet was heavy and affected access to many sites...educational sites...sites used for this online project, especially during the design stage.

Could there be any more technological trials? How about three new students? In the past three weeks, three new students have entered our class. We have bee working on panthernet, on the vocabulary study unit, where all the instructions, resources, and assessments are compiled online in one place for the students. With the new students, our first challenge was to get them logged on to the school computers/the school network. We had immediate success with two out of the three students. After trying (the 'old' students and I) all that we knew to do, we called and sent the unlucky new student denied access to Ed Tech. The next challenge was to get the students on panthernet. No success. After another call to Ed Tech, we were informed the students were too 'new' to be in the system yet, and that the system would sync around 3 pm at which time the students should be able to access the panthernet. To summarize this class, ... Time spent on technological problem solving: 40 minutes ... Targeted language learning time: 0 minutes ... Frustration level: High.

Reading Perils and Promises of Educational Technology, I saw myself in the following excerpted quote "... challenges are that computers break down in ways that the teacher nor student can fix immediately. ... Any breakdown can cause a class to waste valuable time, ... In this scenario, it is equivalent to not having enough books for the students to study." I felt helpless. All that I needed to show and give and work together on with the new students was in a place we could not access. Not confident these new students would know how or be able to access the site that night, I printed the various pages and resources they needed that day.

So perils, challenges, hurdles, woes, and trials a plenty in the design and implementation stage of my final course project; however, if indeed "the end justifies the means" than all the time and effort was well-spent as all the students are now off and running (jogging? speed walking?) through their independent vocabulary study.