Teacher Change and Technology Integration

Too many ideas are running through my head this morning I will try however to stay coherent.

This week we had a visiting group of teacher educators from India. The always energetic Del Harnisch  invited and hosted the group. I met with the four teacher educators to share the work we have done on technology integration and used a new set of results that you can view here. One of the major questions that followed was the one I get the most. How do you help change the way practicing teachers (who work with our preservice teachers)? 

The answer is incredibly unsatisfying: multiple exposures, with small groups at a time, and with attention to differentiated needs. For example we have been working with one Elementary school on iPad integration. As we planned our sessions we asked to work with 1-2 grade levels at a time making sure that the staff to teacher ration was low. This ensures that even the most frustrated member of the group gets the attention they need. We all preach differentiated instruction to students attentive to their needs but forget the same principles when we work with adults. The results of multiple visits and individual attention are undeniable. Just yesterday one of the teachers told me that the iPad provided a breakthrough with an autistic student. The student refuses to engage in school. Being a thoughtful educator she kept looking for ideas, after our training she used Educreations to create a math lesson. The student watched the lesson and then recorded his own understanding to demonstrate mastery. It is a small step, or is it? One student and one teacher found a meaningful way to use technology, this for me is the only way to move forward, until the critical mass of teachers using technology will simply overwhelm the tendency to replicate past practices.

Little Priest Tribal College

Monday and Tuesday Laurie and I traveled to Little Priest College to teach a class on iPad integration to  preservice educators in the Indigenous Roots program. The story was the same seven teachers were at different levels of comfort with technology but at the end of the three days they all created educational materials for use in their classroom. I cannot wait to see what they use next. 

I know we want a revolution but, change will most likely happen after multiple exposures with small groups with attention to differentiated needs.

The End of Textbooks as I knew Them and 5 Reasons it is Democratic

It seems that I got to the end of textbooks in my classes. This week I had an email from my contact at the book store. "What are your book orders for next semester". I almost sent an email saying, keep it as it is (that is no textbooks). But then I stopped myself. I wanted to hear what my students have to say. As I have said before my students and I have worked through half a no-textbook semester so far. The reaction was mixed and we have set a better infrastructure for making it work. So I went back to my class and asked. I felt I could ask and get honest answers because the answer has no direct impact on my current students AND I think we have developed an open rapport. When I pose a question like this we usually go around the room with each student weighing in. This time they all just said almost in a chorus- digital resources rule. The tone was a "you've got to be kiddin me" tone.

As an instructor this is plainly the better (though more labor intensive) approach. I choose my own materials, can present divergent point of views AND I must take the lead in presenting the underlying structure and way of thinking that connects everything. In a way this is the opposite of teacher proofing. Textbooks are easy in a deceptive way because they take away our need to unpack what it is we are trying to teach. So out they go.

At this point for full disclosure I would like to add that my students are asked to buy a few books, practical guides that have usable materials (Teacher trade books), but no textbooks. That is I am not anti-books, just pro making good instructional choices. And this is first and foremost an instructional choice with side benefits.

I also think that most of the current models for textbooks are obsolete and most of the companies simply do not get IT. The change is not just in format or even in the media included. There has been a shift in the way we consume all media. I am not sure I would like to see textbooks in the future, but if we do, it would probably have to follow a model like Netflix more than the traditional bookstore or even iBooks.

I am also wondering how this choice is linked to democratic education. I don't want to push it too far but here are a few ideas:

1. No textbooks make my classes effectively cheaper, thus more accessible. More likely I am simply releasing students with less debt. It is my small contribution to decreasing the cost of higher education. It is about $100 for each class (if you take into account that students sell their books back, more if they keep it). If we all did it, it would represent a savings of about $4000 to an undergraduate in our program.

2. A significant portion of the materials I use were developed as part of federal and state efforts. Such these efforts belong to all of us. Reading Rockets, and the Education Northwest are two great examples.

3. Using digital resources allows me to present divergent view and critiques that are presented with the same passion and expertise. This will force students to weigh the evidence and make up their own mind as budding professionals.

4. Most textbooks are currently rented for a period (especially if consumed digitally), or resold. The cost of textbooks forced most students to have only temporary ownership of the material. This creates two classes of students, those who will have access to quality materials (could afford to keep the books) and those that don't (had to resell). Since the resources are digital students can save them for future use.

5. It is more environmentally sound- less dead trees.


Since I am thinking about democratic education

Six Lessons about Textbook Digital Alternatives- from Students Perspective

I've been working without a textbook this semester and discovered that my students do not read/ consume the media I included. My students are preservice teachers and I teach them teaching methods for reading and writing- a key area.

I decided to take Tricia's idea (more about that in a future post) and open the topic for discussion with my students. We set up a circle around the room and established rules for discussion: open, respectful to all, no grade repercussions, everyone has to contribute. I actually found it hard to phrase my concern about media consumption and what I wanted out of the discussion so I used a sort of a think aloud
sharing my goals and hopes for the no books approach but also reminding them that this innovation and it simply might not be optimal practice.

My students reaction was interesting. They made a few points:
1. They really prefer the digital resources. They all said that the variety of resources and the practical application examples are extremely helpful. I include high quality websites (e.g. ReadWriteThink.org, reading rockets) and articles from practitioner journals (e.g. The Reading Teacher).

2. They like classroom example videos the most. This was one of the main reasons I wanted digital resources the peeks at models different than their cooperating teachers can open up new ideas and break the first axiom of pre service teachers that states: When there is a dissonance between method classes and student field experiences the impact of method instructors is positively correlated with pre-service teacher achievement. Classroom videos help bring more evidence to the alternatives I am trying to bring to their attention.

3. They would like more chances to discuss and organize the information in class. The set of materials do not connect like a well organized textbook. Frankly they are not used to making these connections especially when different sources use somewhat different vocabulary. I believe that it is an important skill to learn as a professional but it requires some practice.

4. Sometimes they just "forget", or prioritize differently but that is true of traditional materials as well. We always knew they weren't always reading but with digital resources I have evidence. I do not want to turn the evidence into grading though- mostly because it can be easily "gamed" by opening files without actually engaging students.

5. Some often print out shorter pieces so they can comment. Students have obviously not used digital commenting options for consuming different media. This is something that they need to learn (and we must teach) since they will most likely have to teach this skill to their own students!

6. Some find long written pieces (in PDF) hard to follow digitally. (goes back to point 5).

So...
Together we came to some ways we can improve learning using these resources.
       I go over the assigned media in the class session before it is due. I briefly explain emphases and what I expect them to gain and provide some key vocabulary. This has been hard to remember but since then I have done it in 2 out of 3 meetings.
       We established a discussion board for questions about the reading to be posted before beginning of class. Students can either post their own questions or vote to support others questions. I have used this method extensively in my summer classes that I flipped to create "just in time" teaching.  I spend 10-15 minutes at the front end of class responding to questions that emerged from media consumption (for example- "the video showed how to do think alouds with fifth graders, how can you do it in first grade?"). The questions that I do not have time to respond to in class will be answered online through direct responses to posts (potentially too labor intensive) or a short video summarizing ideas.
      I will also try to avoid very long pieces (text or video) and establish a way for my students to evaluate the content and their satisfaction with it (still working on that one). The last piece is helping students find ways to comment on digital resources electronically maybe through a student user group...

Still work to be done.

   

iPads Pre-service teachers and Technology Integration

We are now summarizing our first (funded) year of Tech EDGE- Educating in Digital and Global Environments. The premise for Tech EDGE was to create a new generation of teachers for the 21st century by combining professional development for Teacher Education faculty, cooperating teachers and preservice teachers while providing access to devices in our case iPads.

While we have a lot of data about different aspects of the projects I would like to start by sharing the results of a Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge instrument that Angie Wassenmiller created two years ago. The results for the preservice teachers stunned me- so much that I had to check it multiple times. The chart shows the difference between the cohort graduating in 2011 and the cohort graduating in 2013. The average difference is an effect size of more than 2 standard deviations (presented as the error bars). This is a huge difference far outstripping what we initially expected.

I do not claim that the project is the sole reason for this change, in effect I believe that the project accelerated many processes that were already operating and gave substance and direction to the efforts of many individual teachers, teacher educators and preservice teachers. Part of the success was our ability to move all elements of our program including practicum. Another part was the integration of iPads. iPads were most visible in our Reading Center where all preservice teachers were able to use them intensively. I would argue that the devices do matter- and they make integration much more effective and impactful.

Arts Integration in a Preservice Class- log

In my literacy methods class we went through an accelerated Arts LINC cycle today. We started with a Taylor Mali poem- reminding everyone that poems are often meant to be read out loud. We then proceeded to poetryfoundation.org where each student chose a Thanksgiving poem (their search engine is awesome and now they have a ipod app).
Students joined with1-3 others who chose the same poem and practiced reading it out loud (mini readers theatre). Then we followed up by creating visual art based on the poem- using pastels. The results were stunning and diverse. After the art was completed each student generated 5 vocabulary words (no one cent or nickel words please) to describe the art (and not the poem). Finally they used the words to create a poem describing their art.
Results wer engagement, achievement and deep understanding. We finished with a few minutes of research results from Arts LINC long live arts integration.

It's the first time I've had this much fun with this group.

The Place of Integrated Arts Courses in Preservice Elementary Education

This week Deborah Loewenberg-Ball visited UNL and gave a talk on the place of Schools of Education in Research Universities. You can access the powerpoint of the talk here, and soon we hope to have a video up.

One notion that I find very interesting now, as I coordinate our Elementary Education preservice program at UNL is the notion of our programs as "labs of practice in which we explore and research new and innovative ways to educate the next generation of teachers. This approach is very much in line with my thinking about the role of formative or design experiments in which rigorous curricular design and assessment are intertwined to create an innovative self- correcting structure that is focused on development not as a result of external pressures but instead of growing understanding of process and product as well as influenced by the research we do in schools.

So what that has to do with the arts? Well we have a unique opportunity to leverage what we've been learning in the field into our preservice program. In the last few years we shifted from a domain approach in arts education (a class on music, visual etc.) to an integrated experience focused on aesthetic experiences. Our masters in elementary education (MAET) program has an integrated arts education course that integrates the arts, science, and literacy in the context of place based education (in our case the prairie). We are now ready to make the arts more prominent throughout our program. I am not yet sure of what form it will take but the possibilities are truly exciting.