Month: November 2020

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C4,W3: Learning Deeply, Digitally

Reading about deep learning from Monica Martinez, I found it very good defined those 6 strategies.

6 Powerful Strategies For Deeper Learning In Your Classroom

 

  • How might the classroom/school environment impact learning partnerships?

Parents, teachers, and children are creating a partnership. They are all contributing to the learning experience.

  • Design deep learning tasks that are made possible by technology.

We created Winter Themed postcards and we advertise per Seesaw to the parents creating online shopping opportunities for the parents before Christmas. The funds were donated to the Angel Tree. This project was a planned collaboration for a fundraising activity between the homeroom teacher and the art department.

 

This project gave to the students was embraced by the students with great creativity and big learning leadership, to advertise their idea as they wished for their purpose.

Another deep learning tasks that I tried to design was to combine printmaking with animation. However, we are still in process of creating the linocut prints, it took us longer, (carving is a hard process at this age), and later on,  we will print and we will apply the digital tools to try to create an animation.

Thinking about other deep learning tasks: recognizing images, motion, voices, I found some great examples from our everyday life. Did you know that deep learning is used for new cars that are driving on autopilot?

https://www.mathworks.com/discovery/deep-learning.html

  • How might human connections make deep learning possible?

The success of a learning experience is often based on a great relationship between student and teacher. If first is nurtured a good relationship of trust, mutual respect, and empathy, afterward the student gets confident and takes serious his learning goals, becomes empowered and gives his best.

Another example is from my PLN.

Recently I could reach one of my goals to become a seesaw Ambassador. It was very inspiring to get connected to the community of educators around the world who are using seesaw for learning.

Especially during online learning, the strong connections between parents and teachers made it possible for the little ones to use the media to participate in the learning experience. Also due to Twitter, the seesaw community of teachers, COETAIL, and other platforms we were able to communicate more easily with other educators around the world and to exchange ideas, and improve our practice as educators.

  • Reflect on how invisible bias impacts the learning environment.

In Romania, the children are learning through the online system because the schools are closed due to coronavirus. Talking to my peers in Romania, I realized how difficult it is for many children, who don’t have a computer at home and therefore cannot participate in the learning process online.

It is quite paradoxical, but many Romanian people are very talented and good at computer skills. I think along the years the lack of some equipment made the people become more creative on how to use the minimum of technology tools and they are very eager and curious to learn about technology. Many found it very important to have a mobile phone but they are limited to afford in many places a computer, especially in rural zones.

However, it is impressive how many young people chose IT for their career and they immigrate abroad for better opportunities for working.

I am sure that this situation could be even acuter in other countries, and people at first glance misjudge what a person from a non developed country would be capable of.

The Economist:  In poor countries technology makes a difference for education.

How could we educate our students to think objectively?

There is a great exercise with an example/form about how can we teach the students how to recognize the invisible bias.  This is great training for critical thinking.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-09-04-everyone-has-invisible-bias-this-lesson-shows-students-how-to-recognize-it

 

  • “It is imperative that we make deep learning tasks accessible to all learners.”(Enduring understanding)

I know that lots of deep learning examples are happening in international schools(especially the IB systems, as far as I know), but how can the regular students from the state education system reach those new methods of learning? Would be possible in the future that state institutions to collaborate with private schools to get inspired by those concepts and practice of deep learning? I know that in South Korea, we have guests teacher from the Korean Education Program who are observing us and collaborating with us to understand those new approaches. How about other countries in the world? Are they also opened to this model?

 

Researching about “Knowledge Construction”, I found out from some Finnish authors that:

“Knowledge construction is a collaborative process which aims to produce new understanding or knowledge which exceeds something that anyone alone could not achieve. It is also essential that knowledge construction is based on each others’ ideas and thoughts.” ( Learning from Social Collaboration: A Paradigm Shift in Evaluating Game-Based Learning)

 

  • Re-structure students’ learning of curricular content in more challenging and engaging ways made possible by digital tools and resources?

Use digital media (like Stop Motion or  Movie Maker)  to animate a drawing or a print with the help of digital tools. For this task, I will definitely partner with the students in designing the structure or process of the task. Some of them have already great experience using animation programs.

I am thinking even about creating an afterschool activity club where they could use the digital tools directly in their projects.

Another important idea for me of using the digital tools was to create a self-assessment method and peer assessment technique.  A reflection at the end of their project, that they could fill in, write their thoughts, and evaluate themself and their peers. We could collect, analyze, and speak about their growth, their classmates’ growth, and their needs within the art class program.

So, the ISTE for students that I chose, was the Empowered Learner.

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

See the Empowered Learner standards in action.  Empowered Learner Playlist

What kind of digital tools and resources did you use in your practice? Could you please share with me some examples from your experience? What are the simple digital platforms/ apps, programs that children from elementary students could use? Thank you.

 

 

 

 

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Alone or Together for a Better Education?

“Helping Humanity with Deep Learning” was a sentence that stuck with me since I was exploring this material about Deep Learning by Michael Fullan and his partners.

Image abstract from the video of the lecture of Michael Fullan.

Thinking about the aspect “Life and learning merge” from “Deep learning”, I could give a clear example from my classroom teaching practice.

One example of entrepreneurship and taking action in the real-life was:

Greeting cards to create and to sell as a fundraising plan.

This is a great example of creativity the way how the 3rd Graders explored based on the star structure, to create a snowflake or a winter celebration ornament, for their cards.

I often support student agencies, and lately, the children took an initiative to create greeting cards, crafts, and other artworks for sale to make a fundraising event at our school for “The Angel Tree”. This is a direct example of how the children think beyond the classroom and apply in real life the skills that they achieved to take action.

 

Traffic signs for our biking paths at our school

Another collaborative plan is for the next unit of G1 about “How the world works?” and particularly transportation.  Because the children at our school love to ride a bike and they have restricted areas, they made a petition to the school principal where they would like to ride the bike in a wider area and it was approved. We decided together for our safety we need to create “Traffic Signs” where we should stop, park, bike, turn left or right, forbidden, etc.  We would like to create those signs during the Art Class. The signs will be in real size and we hope to integrate them at the playground at our school in the near future after we will finish the project.

 

Planning a Museum at our school.

Another idea was to create a museum at our school.  The children and we were frustrated that we cannot go on field trips and we thought why not create a museum at our school where different classes could visit and explore the different collections and the travel idea to a museum.

This would be a bigger collaboration project with different classes (EY2, KG, G1, G3) which takes more time and preparation for making a successful project. We thought about how can we integrate technology at this young age with the interactive idea of museum exploration.  We came with the idea of how to use a special app where they can choose the picture of a highlighted piece and they could receive a voice message about what is that object about. This would be a good challenge for “Communication”  and “Critical thinking” as a concept as well.

Talking about communication, we might like to create some emojis cards to help to express our feeling and communicate better with each other. Especially for the lower elementary students that might help very much in the future.

Thinking about character education, we revised the profile learners two years ago and we created new banners based on our original artworks from different students across the elementary school during the art class. This was a school-wide collaboration project and the original ideas of our little citizens are printed on the big banners and seen by everyone around the school.

 

A wonderful example of creativity: 

Last week we created with students from Kindergarten racing tracks and racing cars. First, they learn the letter “R” in their classroom, and afterward, they drew with oil pastels the racing car tour and other details around.

We were applying the scientific approach of an explorer, thinker and tried to explain to us how the forces work and how could we express that speed and motion on a racing track.

 

To resume from Michael Fullan some of his main concepts are the:

Impressive 6C

 

Deep Learning

“The goals of deep learning are that students will gain the competencies and dispositions that will prepare them to be creative, connected, and collaborative life-long problem solvers and to be healthy, holistic human beings who not only contribute to but also create the common good in today’s knowledge-based, creative, interdependent world.”

 

What are the New Pedagogies?

“New pedagogies are a new model of learning partnerships between and among students and teachers, aiming towards deep learning goals and enabled by pervasive digital access. Most instructional elements of the new pedagogies are not ‘new’ teaching strategies, although we would say that active learning partnerships with students are new.”

 

Old pedagogies style-based only on the ability to deliver content in a subject.

“New Pedagogies”

“The foundation of teacher quality is pedagogical capacity – teachers’ repertoire of teaching strategies and the ability to form partnerships with students”

“The explicit aim is deep learning that goes beyond the mastery of existing content knowledge. Here, deep learning is defined as ‘creating and using new knowledge in the world.’

  • * Technology has unleashed learning, and the potential for students to apply knowledge in the world outside of school; new pedagogies leverage all of this in the formal learning process. •Teaching shifts from focusing on covering all required content to focusing on the learning process, developing students’ ability to lead their own learning and to do things with their learning.
  • *Teachers are partners with students in deep learning tasks characterised by exploration, connectedness and broader, real-world purposes.
  • • Learning outcomes are measured in terms of students’
  • * 1) capacities to build new knowledge and to lead their own learning effectively,
  • * 2) proactive dispositions and their abilities to persevere through challenges, and
  • * 3) the development of citizens who are life-long learners”

 

Why?/ New models

“Today, our economies are shifting.”

The new models are ones of

  • learning and innovation
  • entrepreneurship
  • creativity 
  • global collaboration.

A wonderful experience of global collaboration was our final project inspired by Halloween created with Cindy(Vietnam) and Melanie(Jeju Island) my COETAIL colleagues, when we planned our unit together we taught and we exchange opinions and got reflections from each other. Please see the final project of Course3.

“These factors are combining to establish groundbreaking conditions for deep learning to take off on a massive scale”. Michael Fullman

 

In New Pedagogies “New Change Leadership” is very important.

New Change Leadership

“They cultivate social capital and leadership,

not only among other leaders but also

* among students,

* teachers,

 *parents

*and the broader community of stakeholders, making everyone a participant in the new learning.

They use ubiquitous access to technology to enable and accelerate all these things, and they keep learning at the forefront of all digital strategies. “

“Many current curriculum standards, alongside standardized assessments that primarily measure content reproduction, are the greatest barriers to the widespread adoption of new pedagogies”

 

New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (long video)

 

 

Essential Question(s)

  • How might human connections make deep learning possible?

“Everyone becomes a teacher in the new pedagogies, and everyone becomes a learner.”

Sometimes when I teach origami classes, some students amazed me with higher skills in folding origami of new creations. Then I tried to take the place in the classroom as a student and to give the agency to that person to teach their peers new skills in origami. Like this children feel more empowered and share knowledge with confidence with their community. Then I become a learner and my student become a teacher.

Why?

Goal- “Ultimately, these pedagogies foster a new kind of learning that is more engaging and more connected to real life and that better prepares young people for life and work in today’s world.”

  • How might the classroom/school environment impact learn partnerships?

Learning in Partnership

“Effective partnering is built on principles of equity, transparency, reciprocal accountability and mutual benefit”

Learning to learn and Peer Tutoring

“Learning to learn, where students become meta-cognitive observers of their own and others’ learning processes, is a fundamental goal in the new pedagogies. ”

Learning to learn requires that

  • students begin to define their own learning goals and success criteria;
  • monitor their own learning;
  • critically examine their own work;
  • incorporate feedback from peers, teachers, parents, or simply other people in general;
  • and use all of this to deepen their awareness of how they function in the learning process.

Peer Tutoring

  • students teach their peers and their teachers are, in our view, a powerful vehicle to assist students in developing awareness and mastery of the learning process.
  • peer tutoring requires that students become involved in the process of defining learning goals, providing assessment criteria, and so forth.

 

The repertoire of new pedagogical strategies in new pedagogy from teachers.

“Project-based learning through direct instruction to an inquiry-based model.

But the key is that the teacher takes a highly proactive role in driving the learning process forward, using whichever strategy works for a specific student or task (and analyzing which strategy works best). In the new pedagogies, this means interacting with students to make the students’ thinking and questions about learning more visible.”

 

The New Pedagogies – Learning Partnerships

How new pedagogies work in practice?

“1. New learning partnerships between and among students and teachers.

2. Deep learning tasks that re-structure the learning process towards knowledge creation and purposeful use.

3. Digital tools and resources that enable and accelerate the process of deep learning.”

“Students today want to be actively engaged, they want to determine the path of their own learning, chart their own learning journeys. Technology tools have exploded the way they interact with the world around them, and it’s changed how they want to be in the classroom. ” Pauline Roberts, 5th and 6th Grade Teacher, Michigan, USA

Strategies of Learning in New Pedagogy- The Teacher as an Activator

New Pedagogy Teachers are those teachers who play dynamic, interactive roles with students.

How?

  • pushing students to clearly define their own learning goals,
  • helping them gain the learning muscle to effectively pursue those goals
  • supporting them in monitoring how they are doing in achieving those goals
  • helping them gain the learning muscle to effectively pursue those goals, and supporting them in monitoring how they are doing in achieving those goals
  • help them master the difficult and demanding process of learning.

New System Economics

“We share a body of evidence that suggests how the new pedagogies model, when implemented effectively, can lead to dramatic breakthroughs in learning outcomes. We outline the economic and policy realignments needed to achieve this. Ultimately, the new pedagogies deliver because they provide greater overall value for societies’ investment in education.

They develop the

* learning capacities,

*creative experiences, and,

*‘know-how’

our young people need to gain a solid foothold in the onward trek through life and work in today’s world.”

Here is an important take on, a summary of tips for your teaching for the emerging roles of teachers and learners.

How do you apply the new pedagogies concepts in your teaching practice?

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Frameworks for Learning

Reading about all the pedagogical concepts like TPACK and SAMR ( in relation to technology), it took me a while to understand and digest all the new terms, which sounds sometimes so similar but their are so different and specific.

But a good start was to understand first Shulman’s idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)

“Shulman (1986) claimed that the emphasis on teachers’ subject matter knowledge and pedagogy were being treated as mutually exclusive. He believed that teacher education programs should combine the two knowledge fields. To address this dichotomy, he introduced the notion of pedagogical content knowledge that includes pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge, among other categories. His initial description of teacher knowledge included curriculum knowledge and knowledge of educational contexts.

Shulman also claimed that Sesame Street was the very best resource for teachers for expanding their pedagogical content knowledge. “(Wikipedia)

  • What does technology integration mean to you?

I think while we were on VLE, technological skills were vital to communicate with each other,  to create and facilitate learning experiences.

A very important role plays technology when we are at distance for collaboration around the world with various teachers. Recently I read a very inspiring article “Creating a Culture of Collaboration Through Technology Integration”  by Kim Cofino.

Luckily because I started COETAIL, I was encouraged to use technology in my teaching practice. So in one of my early experiences combining digital tools and pedagogical skills, I used the trailer program to film our beautiful stage set which was created for the Musical “The Pirates”.  It was a very important collaboration between Music and Art dep. The musical unfortunately couldn’t take place due to the closing of the schools from the covid 19 pandemic. But we still have the documenting pictures and the trailers and we could keep some evidence and memories of our complex and collaboration project.

Technology integration to me means to use the tools of technology, like researching with a computer, preparing your structured lesson plan with a computer, creating educational videos (on youtube learning purposes), posting our works via seesaw. Feedback from parents, peers with the help of technology tools. Presenting a video material as an introduction to the class, the lesson taught.

Using a scanner, printer to help to prepare teaching materials.

But what is TPACK in detail with all the components explained? (the big picture)

 

  • Content Knowledge (CK) – “Teachers’ knowledge about the subject matter to be learned or taught. The content to be covered in middle school science or history is different from the content to be covered in an undergraduate course on art appreciation or a graduate seminar on astrophysics… As Shulman (1986) noted, this knowledge would include knowledge of concepts, theories, ideas, organizational frameworks, knowledge of evidence and proof, as well as established practices and approaches toward developing such knowledge” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
  • Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) – “Teachers’ deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning. They encompass, among other things, overall educational purposes, values, and aims. This generic form of knowledge applies to understanding how students learn, general classroom management skills, lesson planning, and student assessment.” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
  • Technology Knowledge (TK) – Knowledge about certain ways of thinking about, and working with technology, tools, and resources. and working with technology can apply to all technology tools and resources. This includes understanding information technology broadly enough to apply it productively at work and in everyday life, being able to recognize when information technology can assist or impede the achievement of a goal, and being able to continue to adapt to changes in information technology (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
  • Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) – “Consistent with and similar to Shulman’s idea of knowledge of pedagogy that is applicable to the teaching of specific content. Central to Shulman’s conceptualization of PCK is the notion of the transformation of the subject matter for teaching. Specifically, according to Shulman (1986), this transformation occurs as the teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials to alternative conceptions and students’ prior knowledge. PCK covers the core business of teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment and reporting, such as the conditions that promote learning and the links among curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
  • Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) – “An understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence and constrain one another. Teachers need to master more than the subject matter they teach; they must also have a deep understanding of the manner in which the subject matter (or the kinds of representations that can be constructed) can be changed by the application of particular technologies. Teachers need to understand which specific technologies are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even changes the technology—or vice versa” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
  • Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) – “An understanding of how teaching and learning can change when particular technologies are used in particular ways. This includes knowing the pedagogical affordances and constraints of a range of technological tools as they relate to disciplinarily and developmentally appropriate pedagogical designs and strategies” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
  • Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) – “Underlying truly meaningful and deeply skilled teaching with technology, TPACK is different from knowledge of all three concepts individually. Instead, TPACK is the basis of effective teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).

 

  • How are the different frameworks for technology integration similar to and different from each other?

One of the frameworks for technology is TPACK.

What is TPACK on a short description?

Workshops PD,  Common Sense Media, Flipgrid, webinar, padlet.

 

Another one is SAMR.

 

 

A great example to understand how SAMR is applied in practice is this one.

  • Are there other frameworks that you have used in your school?

Seesaw

  • Do you prefer one of the frameworks over the others? Why?

Seesaw

  • What does technology integration look like in your classroom/school?
  • Using a projector, Seesaw, etc
  • Using one (or multiple) of the frameworks, how would you evaluate your own practice of technology integration?

I am trying hard to integrate and use it when necessary. (Otherwise,) I feel nervous using it.

  • How has your practice changed over time?

It has been improving a lot. More and more. Especially during VLE.

  • How do your beliefs and practices fit into your school’s vision for learning?

My school encourages technology integration as much as possible.

Setting the standard by Kim Cofino.

How do you integrate technology into your teaching practice?

Technology integration for me is an extension of the application of art knowledge in a digital form.

Using technology tools to help children to express further beyond their traditional skills of painting, modeling, drawing, etc. Technology is a new method to transmit the content of their ideas in another form. Technology should help to continue the application of their basic skills in a digital form(contrast, colors, proportions are also basic elements within the tech visual language).

I think technology should help students in the reflection process.

Technology should mediate easily to the public the content.

But what is the purpose of those frameworks for learning?

I think both methods SAMR and TPAK help in the process of creating the lessons.

SAMR is a wonderful tool especially for planning and reflecting.

Especially for planning, SAMR is a great structure to follow.

S- Substitution-tech acts like a tool substitute without changing the function.

A-Augmentation- tech acts as a substitute for functional improvement.

Especially M-Modification and R-Redefinition are using the tech to create the content in a new way.

TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge)  on the other side is a great guide for us to see us as an educator how can we balance the content with the knowledge, using a pedagogical method, and with the help of technology tools. Which pedagogical method we would use? How can we design the lesson in a way that technology helps the students to explore further the content and absorb, and apply the knowledge that they learned?

 

How would you use those frames of learning?