As I reflect on our school’s journey with 21st century learning, technology as well as professional learning to support it, has played a key role. Our school was a recipient of a federal magnet grant in 2010 and we invested a good portion of the funds on bringing technology to the classroom. We moved away from a computer lab model (which always seemed to me to be limiting for students). But along with the technology, we were also on a journey to take a more innovative approach to teaching and learning. We worked as a team to help our students develop the 4 Cs, particularly Critical thinking and Collaboration. As is described in the ACOT project report, our teachers fell into the various stages of integrating technology into the learning in the classroom. We had a couple of strong leaders who reached the innovation stage and were able to help grade level teams begin to see technology as a tool for our students to develop their skills. Our goal continues to be that we get to the place where technology is “an ever transparent part of the curriculum.” We’ve made some good progress over the years but still have work to do. I do appreciate that we’ve come to a place where students use technology as a tool for learning. They will grab a chromebook or ipad to do a task just like they would get paper and pencil or sticky notes. In 2017, several of us went to the ISTE conference and attended many sessions with Apple Educators and learned how to use apps like Clips for student learning. A couple of years ago, our students had the opportunity to learn Adobe Spark in a partnership with New Tech High students. As the students become more familiar with the possibilities, it is not surprising that they come up with new ways to use technology to communicate and demonstrate their thinking.
However, like with all teaching practices the key is to be intentional about the instructional decisions we are making. I would like to see us think about how we can create the conditions for our students to grow as thinkers and inquirers and also use technology resources when they are in service of that goal. Or in other words, finding the balance described in the TPACK framework. As an IB school, in addition to promoting the 4 or 6 Cs, we also have a pedagogical goal to make our units of inquiry - significant, challenging, relevant and engaging. This requires us to plan with the end in mind for students to be actively engaged in rich discussion, exploration, problem solving, etc. and finding ways to make their thinking visible. Part of that is to make sure our units and our classroom environments are invitational. If students are curious, they are more likely to actively engage in finding answers. Technology can be a great tool for engaging our students but it has to be coupled with promoting student thinking and creativity. I think of some of the gaming apps that we use and I’m a bit cautious. Our 4th and 5th graders recently started using Gimkit (on my suggestion from our 702 class) to better learn their multiplication facts. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to find a tool that helps our kids know their math facts to automaticity and I’m all for it, but we shouldn’t mistake that for deeper learning. It’s just a more engaging and interactive way to do what is pedagogically rote practice.
Our new reality with distance learning and our huge reliance on technology has given us an opportunity to explore new tools and take some of the learning engagements that we normally do and find a tool that will work virtually. I met this week with our 4th grade team and they were planning for their next unit on migration. Usually, we open this unit with a super engaging provocation where students come to school and are told they will be moving to a new classroom. We have them pack their things and we direct them to their new teacher, with a new mix of kids, and a new classroom. As you can imagine, this generates strong emotions in the students and we can usually only maintain it through lunch time. But after lunch, we have an amazing discussion about how it felt to be displaced and this starts our unit with an experience that makes the content real for them. But how can we create a provocation when half of the students are at home? We are still working on a way to use technology either to mimic the experience or to find something completely different. What I recognized during our planning was that the exercise of asking questions, exploring tech resources, and discussing options as a team was exactly the work that we need to continue to do. It has always been our practice to plan instruction in this way but I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to seamlessly include technology as part of our design for learning.
However, like with all teaching practices the key is to be intentional about the instructional decisions we are making. I would like to see us think about how we can create the conditions for our students to grow as thinkers and inquirers and also use technology resources when they are in service of that goal. Or in other words, finding the balance described in the TPACK framework. As an IB school, in addition to promoting the 4 or 6 Cs, we also have a pedagogical goal to make our units of inquiry - significant, challenging, relevant and engaging. This requires us to plan with the end in mind for students to be actively engaged in rich discussion, exploration, problem solving, etc. and finding ways to make their thinking visible. Part of that is to make sure our units and our classroom environments are invitational. If students are curious, they are more likely to actively engage in finding answers. Technology can be a great tool for engaging our students but it has to be coupled with promoting student thinking and creativity. I think of some of the gaming apps that we use and I’m a bit cautious. Our 4th and 5th graders recently started using Gimkit (on my suggestion from our 702 class) to better learn their multiplication facts. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to find a tool that helps our kids know their math facts to automaticity and I’m all for it, but we shouldn’t mistake that for deeper learning. It’s just a more engaging and interactive way to do what is pedagogically rote practice.
Our new reality with distance learning and our huge reliance on technology has given us an opportunity to explore new tools and take some of the learning engagements that we normally do and find a tool that will work virtually. I met this week with our 4th grade team and they were planning for their next unit on migration. Usually, we open this unit with a super engaging provocation where students come to school and are told they will be moving to a new classroom. We have them pack their things and we direct them to their new teacher, with a new mix of kids, and a new classroom. As you can imagine, this generates strong emotions in the students and we can usually only maintain it through lunch time. But after lunch, we have an amazing discussion about how it felt to be displaced and this starts our unit with an experience that makes the content real for them. But how can we create a provocation when half of the students are at home? We are still working on a way to use technology either to mimic the experience or to find something completely different. What I recognized during our planning was that the exercise of asking questions, exploring tech resources, and discussing options as a team was exactly the work that we need to continue to do. It has always been our practice to plan instruction in this way but I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to seamlessly include technology as part of our design for learning.