K-12 Teaching and Learning in the ICT Era

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K-12 Teaching and Learning in the ICT Era
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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Overview

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

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Facilitating effective learning processes

• SWoRD Schunn and Cho (http//ladybug.lrdc.pitt.e
  du/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

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Suthers Collaborative Knowledge Construction Tool
Hypothesis
Can have disconfirming relationships too
Data
Supporting relationship
Unevaluated relationship
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Simulating instructive environments Yarons
Virtual Chemistry Lab
Graphs show additional data
Cognitive realism of key artifacts
Meters convey key information
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Instructor Authoring Tool
www.chemcollective.org
Select reagents
Define reactions
Assemble Glassware
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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

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The Importance of Interoperability
Agile little guys do well while the slow-moving
big guys run into trouble!

• See Tom Friedmans 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!

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Use of XML Base to Permit Interoperability

•   lt?xml version"1.0" standalone"yes" ?gt
• - ltVIRTUALLAB version"1.4.8"gt
•   ltTITLEgtGravimetric Determination of
  Arseniclt/TITLEgt
•   ltAUTHORgtJordi Cuadroslt/AUTHORgt
•   ltDESCRIPTIONgtDetermine the amount of arsenic
  present in soil samples.lt/DESCRIPTIONgt
• - lt!-- ltSOLUTION_MODELLERSgt ltMODELLER
  property"waterConcentration" model"waterFinite"
  /gt ltMODELLER property"liquidVolume"
  model"evaluated" /gt lt/SOLUTION_MODELLERSgt  --gt
• - ltSOLUTION_VIEWERSgt
•   ltVIEWER honorSignificantFigures"false"
  name"Solution Properties" enabled"true"
  driver"irydium.vlab.viewer.PropertiesPanel" /gt
•   --gt
•   ltVIEWER sEnabled"true" aqEnabled"false"
  name"Species Viewer" enabled"true"
  gEnabled"true" driver"irydium.vlab.viewer.Specie
  sViewer" /gt
•   --gt
•   ltVIEWER name"Thermometer" enabled"true"
  driver"irydium.vlab.viewer.Thermometer" /gt
•   ltVIEWER name"PH Meter" enabled"false"
  driver"irydium.vlab.viewer.PhViewer" /gt
•   lt/SOLUTION_VIEWERSgt
• - ltTRANSFERBARgt
•   ltMODEL name"Precise Transfer" enabled"true"
  driver"irydium.vlab.transfer.PreciseTransferModel
  " /gt
•   ltMODEL name"Significant Figures Transfer"
  enabled"true" driver"irydium.vlab.transfer.Signi
  ficantFiguresTransferModel" /gt
•   ltMODEL name"Realistic Transfer" enabled"true"
  driver"irydium.vlab.transfer.RealisticTransferMod
  el" /gt
•   lt/TRANSFERBARgt

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Tutoring

• Tasks
• Student modeling
• Coaching
• Progress monitoring

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An Example (Van Lehn et al.)
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Richer Example
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How a Vector is Entered
Derivative Variables Are Defined Automatically
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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 VanLehns tutors with other tools by
  other people, but even now, interoperability
  helps make the project work!

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Self-Explanation Tutor
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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

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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

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Alternatives

• Open Source Model
• Package

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KEEP Portfolio Editor
Developed by Knowledge Media laboratory (KML) of
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching
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Portfolio as Diary or Notebook
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Portfolio for Teaching

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

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Lessons Learned Collaborative Technology to
Support Learning of Professional Skills

• The Mission
• The Process Followed
• Lessons Learned

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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

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The Principles of Learning

• 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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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Problem

• Teachers dont just start using the CDs that
  their principals distribute

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Solution

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

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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 cant understand attachments
  and refuses to use them

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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!

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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

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My Video Experience First Time

• Staff Resisted
• Complaints about cost
• Complaints about quality of staff efforts
• Need for continual motivation of staff

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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
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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