After reading Pratt (1998), I find that I choose to be a different teacher and use a different perspective to view the teaching depending on a variety of factors that affect me at the time. For example, the topic that I am teaching may require me to view the teaching from a more transmissive perspective in certain circumstances, whereas at other times the topic I am teaching may allow me (or even require me) to take a social reform perspective. I find this more the case now that I am a homeroom teacher and teach across a larger variety of curriculum strands, compared to when I was a Science and Biology teacher. As a Science and Biology teacher, I still changed my perspective on the teaching depending on the topic that I was covering and the extent of the content that I was “required” to get through in a limited amount of time - many topics allowed for teaching that involved getting the students to think about the status quo, and right and wrong (eg genetics).

Although I feel that I vary the perspective that I look through depending on the context in which I’m teaching, I think I also try to maintain a nurturing perspective and a developmental perspective as much as possible, because I strongly believe that students must feel confident in their learning in order to be engaged by it to the fullest extent and must also be able to be fairly autonomous in their learning if they wish to move into higher education, where the ability to be autonomous is crucial. As an adult male, I also do my best to model appropriate behaviour in a variety of perspectives for the boys that I teach, as for many of them I am the male they spend the most time with in their lives, and for many I am also the first male teacher that they have had; therefore, for many of the boys this is the first year where they regularly have a male in their day-to-day lives. In this way, the apprenticeship perspective is an important lens which I look through as a teacher.

I guess that what my previous musings point out is that although I see Pratt’s five perspectives on teaching as lenses through which I view the educational process I am engaged in, I see those lenses as overlapping in the sense that I may be looking through more than one at one time. This makes me consider whether or not my teaching is grounded; does looking from more than one perspective at one time muddy the waters and at times lead to confusion in my practice? Or does this demonstrate personal and professional growth which exemplifies movement towards becoming a better teacher? I am reminded of teachers I had who seemed able to “get under my skin” and excite me as a learner while also coming across as a role model and social reformer. They were rare, but they were there. These are the teachers that I would consider to be the most influential in my life. How would they view Pratt’s perspectives? I believe in much the same way that I have - that in different situations we wear different hats, and sometimes more than one.

Pratt (1998) provides an activity for exploring one’s personal intentions and beliefs (p. 39) which involves finishing the sentence starter: “I know my teaching has been effective when…” ten times in order to garner a clearer understanding of one’s current perspective on teaching. If I finish the sentence just once, it is to say that I know my teaching has been effective when the student(s) that I am teaching are better able to contribute to the society in which they live. With that in mind, I think the perspective/lens I value the most is that of the social reformer; however, in order to succeed with this perspective the “means” I employ seems to always involve viewing the learning through one or more of the other lenses as well.

I have a set of monocles in my pocket, each one representing one of the five perspectives of learning identified by Pratt. At all times, at least one monocle is in, allowing me to gain perspective on my practice; however, more often than not, other monocles are in as well, refining and refocusing my practice, subtly shifting the perspective I take with my students in order to create the best contributor(s) to society that I can.

References:

Pratt, D., & Associates. (1998). Alternative frames of understanding. In Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education (pp. 33-53). Malabar, FL: Kreiger.

My question comes from a concern very close to my heart.  Many schools are facing declining rolls because they are losing students to other schools for a variety of reasons, many of which are related to the destination schools having strong academic records when measured against national assessments.  Parents perceive these as indicators that the schools have better teaching and learning processes embedded in their practice; however this perception may be founded on a poor understanding of what constitutes quality teaching and learning, combined with a simple measurement of academic success that in many cases might actually be skewed results.  Recent media outlets have directed focus on this and personally it is an issue in the learning community in which I’m involved.  Students and parents are not necessarily making well-informed decisions about which is the best school to attend.

New schools recently on the academic scene are utilising new paradigms in their approach to educating students which align with those methods discussed in chapter 1 of Meaningful Learning with Technology (Howland, Joanssen & Marra, 2012), yet these schools are not necessarily perceived in the right way by their local community and suffer from small rolls, as parents continue to send their children to other schools that might not even be in their zone.

Howland, Joanssen and Marra (2012) point to the need for “enormous collaborations” (p. 17) in order to change these entrenched beliefs in the community.  They refer to a “gigantic diffusion-and-adoption-of-change problem” which is “fostering that paradigm shift” (p. 17).

My question then is how do we undertake these “enormous collaborations” in order to foster this “paradigm shift” in the community, so that parents are more well informed about meaningful learning with technology and don’t shy away from schools that employ new-age, 21st-century approaches to learning?

A related question I can’t help but ask:  How do we get older schools with entrenched testing and memorisation cultures to shift toward newer educational paradigms such as those described by Howland, Joanssen and Marra (2012)?

References:

Howland, J. L., Jonassen, D., & Marra, R. M. (2012). Goal of Technology Integration: Meaningful Learning. In Meaningful Learning with Technology (4th ed., pp. 131-159). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Read responses from other course participants and the ensuing discussion:

http://goo.gl/DB2XEJ

Posted on: http://stream.massey.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=194796

Avoiding the Technology Trap

Howland, Joanssen and Marra (2012) discuss the shift in the conception of educational technology and computing use from the historical -- with technology as mere repositories and distributors of information -- to a modern view where technology are creative tools in the learning process.  These tools should be employed to allow learners to “represent what they know rather than reproducing what [they are told] … [and] communicate their ideas with other students in collaborative groups” (p. 6).  This represents a more personalised learning process, where students’ use of technology sees them participating as producers in the new internet.  

This stress on the importance of learning with technology rather than merely learning from it, and on being creators rather than just consumers is supported by McLoughlin and Lee (2008) who focus on the necessary pedagogies they say need to be employed by teachers in the modern web 2.0 learning environment to connect today’s learners and create the “prosumers” of tomorrow -- consumers, yes, but producers also.  They argue very effectively that the affordances of new cloud-based technologies require us to shift our pedagogy to one they term ‘Pedagogy 2.0’ which focuses on using tools that “leverage what our students do naturally -- socialize, network, and collaborate” (p. 20).

These readings support my position that when discussing integration of technology into teaching and learning programmes one must first consider the pedagogy which will be employed to achieve the learning objectives.  Rather than simply getting excited about new and emerging technologies and rushing their use as replacements in ‘old’ activities, a teacher must consider how the new technologies provide new affordances that fit with exciting new pedagogical approaches, such as those proposed by McLoughlin and Lee (2008).  

The implications for teachers of first considering new pedagogies when employing emerging technologies includes avoiding the technology trap, making learning meaningful for their students, and increasing the efficiency with which the curriculum is delivered.  Firstly, avoiding the technology trap refers to the trap that I see my institution in, and which I have witnessed many other schools falling into as well.  As a BYOD school, the majority of students have a device at school and may even use it on occasion to assist them in research, calculations etc, but generally they use it to game and socialise (not around school work either); students look busy on devices, but not much meaningful learning is going on.  What’s worse is that the school touts itself as being successful with e-learning when the reality is far from it.  They are in a trap of their own devising and maintain the delusion that meaningful learning with technology is taking place -- perhaps to avoid the harsh criticism that they should be directing at themselves, that they aren’t actually the leaders in e-learning they make themselves out to be.  Not an easy thing to admit.

If the school did admit that they were stuck in the ‘technology trap’ and work to get out of it then they might make learning more meaningful for the students by employing the technology using new pedagogical awareness and a more effective and efficient delivery of the curriculum.  This would likely have serious implications for student achievement as well.

References:

Howland, J. L., Jonassen, D., & Marra, R. M. (2012). Goal of Technology Integration: Meaningful Learning. In Meaningful Learning with Technology (4th ed., pp. 131-159). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. W. (2008). The three P's of pedagogy for the networked society: Personalization, participation, and productivity. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(1), 10-27.

My general impression of the article:

For me this reading was another example of a paper as relevant today as it was when it was published almost a decade ago.  Even though technology has come leaps and bounds since then, the conclusions of the paper are as fundamental to successful e-learning today as they were before the explosion of some of the cloud-based technologies which are transforming teaching and learning as the Web 2.0 revolution gathers momentum.  Building successful relationships (between all stakeholders in the learning process) and individualising (personalising, customising) the learning experience  continues to be a key component in motivating and engaging learners today as it was at the turn of the century.

Things that resonated with me:

Given that this paper was written while the nature of web 2.0 was only beginning to be understood, it hits the mark when it discusses the scarceness of context and meaning making in what education today; this is the important commodity which our young learners must have, and again this comment is relevant a decade on when information is cheap -- it’s what you do with it that counts.

Perhaps an element of technology that was just burgeoning at the time and which is explosive today is that of the learner as ‘prosumer’ (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008) where learners can impact the online environment as never before, creating content that is meaningful to them and changing the very content of the internet during the learning process.  The technology that facilitates this affordance is virtually free to consumers (producers?), such as the range of apps available as part of the Google Apps for Education suite.  It would be interesting to know how McCombs and Vakili would see this technology fitting within their learner-centred framework. Speaking from experience, this ‘prosumer’ technology is revolutionising teaching and learning as students are quickly and easily able to create and share content that allows them to have a direct, immediate impact on their world through the learning process.  The impact on engagement in e-learning is obvious: students are able to become the creators of the internet.  While there is often trepidation to begin with, students quickly grow confidence as they share their content with larger and larger audiences, achieved through reducing layers of security settings on the content (Google Apps for Education is great for this) as well as through the students expanding their audience base from small groupings (school, district) through to larger audiences (country, region, world).

References:

McCombs, B. L., & Vakili, D. (2005). A learner-centered framework for e-learning. Teachers College Record, 107(8), 1582-1600. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9620.2005.00534.x

McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. W. (2008). The three P's of pedagogy for the networked society: Personalization, participation, and productivity. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(1), 10-27.

Gibbs and Poskitt (2010) critically analyse key factors for engaging students in those unique middle years of schooling where students are at the most risk of disengaging from the educational process.  They identify from the literature the most important factors as: relationships with teachers and other students, motivation and interest in learning, goal orientation, academic self-regulation, self efficacy; and -- to a slightly lesser extent -- relational learning.  They discuss the associated pedagogies which support improvement of these factors for students; specifically: nurturing trusting relationships, engaging students in fun learning activities and making learning meaningful.

When comparing Gibbs and Poskitt (2010) to McCombs and Vakili (2005) what is clear is that there are overlapping themes which both papers identify as critical in supporting student engagement.  Those identified by Gibbs and Poskitt are similar to McCombs and Vakili, or in many cases identical.  Both papers take a learner-centred approach, which isn’t surprising given that ultimately it’s about discussing those factors which help students learn.

With regards to e-learning, while McCombs and Vakili (2005) focus on e-learning as it relates to student engagement, Gibbs and Poskitt (2010) mention technology only with regards to how it might engage students in fun learning activities; although it also can support all of the other strategies, such as cooperative learning, learning discussions etc.

The Gibbs and Poskitt (2010) paper is particularly relevant to my context as a year 8 teacher in a junior high school serving students from years 7-10 and I have taken a lot from reading this paper and will continue to use it as a reference as I look to better develop the e-learning taking place in my school.  However, given that my focus is on improving e-learning in my school, I will ensure that I use the McCombs and Vakili reading as well to ensure that I am considering how technology can be used to increase engagement for my students as they pass through that particularly risky period of their lives which are the middle school years.

References:

Gibbs, R. & Poskitt, J. (2010). Student Engagement in the Middle Years of Schooling (Years 7-10): A Literature Review. Wellington, NZ:  Ministry of Education

McCombs, B. L., & Vakili, D. (2005). A learner-centered framework for e-learning. Teachers College Record, 107(8), 1582-1600. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9620.2005.00534.x