Submitted by David_Goodwin on Tue, 15/08/2006 - 12:14pm.
The teaching component of my project, which consisted of me teaching and observing a middle to upper band year 10 class for four weeks, has now finished. I am in the process of collecting and analysing the data that I have obtained from video, student and teacher interviews, student work and their comments from the online forum. The students were given the choice to form their own teams of three. They were involved in learning about how to use the wikipedia site to find specific information, to understand how the site functions and to prepare to become editors of the pages that relate to their local area, such as the Hauraki Plains site within wikipedia. The importance of key competencies and the development of them in student’s lives are becoming more apparent to me as I continue with this project and read the literature around the topic. To become fully functioning members of the knowledge age, students will not so much just need to remember information but use it, work in teams with others to develop new knowledge and organise themselves as they enter the changing landscape of technological advances. The following five slides are preliminary findings from my project to date. Part of the five slides, five words per slide challenge, given to us by CORE in the July week long workshop in Christchurch.
The wikipedia task was chosen because of the opportunity this social software gives for students to work collaboratively on developing an article, and the fact that it introduces a concept that is not familiar to most students. Only a few students in my class had heard of wikipedia, and they certainly didn’t know or have participated in how to edit the site. The positive aspects of this task have been the availability of the site to a world wide AUDIENCE. Students realised that this was a real task and that it is displayed on a living and changing site, which motivated a number of them. Another aspect of this topic has been the opportunity for COLLABORATION. Some teams worked and collaborated in an excellent manner. Others lacked the necessary skills to be as successful and this brings home the need for these areas to be a focus when teaching in class and the need for the key competencies to be explicitly taught. Some students, on self reflection, saw a link between the Hauraki Plains school wide charter, which includes the idea of leaving a LEGACY, with the task of developing the local sites around the Hauraki Plains, Ngatea, Turua and the Piako river. This is particularly pleasing as it reflects the effectiveness of the schools charter in the lives of the students who can see the link in a different context. The wikipedia activity also threw up a few challenges and DIFFICULTIES. The topic I choose for the students, based on finding out information on our local area, resulted in resources for the topic having to be accessed locally rather than on the internet. Some of the areas within that topic that the students choose to research on, had little easily sourced material for the students to use and this resulted in some motivational problems. Editing wikipedia was problematic due to our schools IP address, provided by Schoolzone, being blocked periodically by administrators of wikipedia. This occurred because some students in schools within Schoolzone vandalise wikipedia. This problem was most annoying and is an issue that was somewhat resolved by me contacting the administrators by email.
The motivation of the class while working on the wikipedia unit of work, in general was good. From the students self reflection at the end of the unit, there was a variation in the motivation of the students. One teacher commented to me in a subsequent interview “So you got the normal range then†This variation in motivation can be explained in the problems that some of the students faced. The lack of material when researching was seen as a problem by students, this could also have been seen as an opportunity to overcome problems, and become an opportunity for students to have perseverance developed – a key competency teaching moment, perhaps. Motivation was also tied into OWNERSHIP of the task. I had chosen the overall topic for the task and although each team was able to choose within that context, there were still some comments from a number of students about not being motivated by the topic. The TASK itself was a motivating factor to some, being able to edit a site used by millions of people and add to it, sparked interest and passion in some of the students. The VARIATION in motivation was interesting, some students said they are motivated to do their work and it is just a part of their CHARACTER, others said they would have been motivated if they had the option of choosing the topic completely. While others liked the structure and the topic being chosen for them. Perhaps it is a case of not pleasing all of the people all of the time?
Key competencies were observed in the classroom, both in the first term when I observed other teachers in a number of subjects and in my four week wikipedia topic. It seems that key competencies can be identified and that different students operate at differing levels of expertise. I don’t think it is enough to observe them and hope that they will develop without emphasis on them in the teaching programme. I believe they will not be effectively CAUGHT but rather must be TAUGHT in the classroom. Taking time to periodically focus on how teams are working together or how they could better work together. Extending students to think, using higher level cognitive skills. Focussing on the bigger picture and how to effectively plan using tools to help students self reflect, for example: learning journals, video analysis, role modelling, and classroom discussion.
The key competencies have the potential to be developed at a surface level or in DEPTH. The way they are valued in a school and how they fit in with the overall vision and direction of the school will determine the emphasis and successfulness of their implementation. There is the potential to take these competencies and make them valued as tools to allow students to be developed into the individuals that our society will need in the future. The TASKS used may also be of value and consideration should be given to them. There is still the place, I believe, for students to be guided through their learning in a directed way but the potential for students to then use these skills and knowledge to perform real life tasks that have meaning to the students themselves, may provide the best opportunity to see these key competencies developed. An interesting challenge will be to measure these key competencies; some of them may be able to be identified in the light of the product the students end up with. Some of the key competencies are observed during the process of working on a task and it is the capturing of this information that may be difficult for the classroom teacher. It is possible that less content may need to be taught to allow for more time to focus on the key competencies. The MEASUREMENT of the key competencies will need some thought. The SOLO Taxonomy, (Biggs and Collis, 1982), has the potential to be a useful tool in the measurement of the complexity of thinking of a student. This will need to be used with caution, but an advantage is in it’s being able to be used across subjects and in differing contexts. Difficulties may present themselves when measurement of internalised attitudes are attempted, I believe self assessment may be one way forward in this area.
The online forum, which was set up in term one and has continued throughout term two, has been a valuable aspect of the project. The number of students who participated in the forum was a little disappointing and outlines some of the difficulties with the running of this activity. The INITIATION of the forum was started in term one and a number of tactics were used to get the forum underway. The whole class were introduced to the forum during a social studies period. The MAINTAINING of the forum involved me going to the whanau room of the class during form time and encouraging the students to participate. For those who contributed to the forum, this earned them a mini moro bar as a reward. I had made the decision not to make it compulsory for the students to participate or to assign credits (marks) for them to do so. I wanted to see who would respond to the challenge of being a contributor in this new context. Some of the THINKING that occurred on the forum was most encouraging, with some students using critical, creative and high level thinking skills. Other students appreciated the ability to express their views on a site that allowed them time to think and consider their views without being shot down in class. The OWNERSHIP that some students had for this task was pleasing and these students when interviewed came up with ideas on how to get more people involved. The online forum has been a POSITIVE experience, with both teachers and students participating to varying degrees. I believe this ICT activity has the potential to be used effectively to record and develop key competencies in the lives of students. Students when interviewed about this activity were very positive and had revealed insights that were most interesting, from my perspective. Next Steps The next few months will be busy with preparation for the ULearn conference in Christchurch, continual work on literature review, data analysis and beginning to write up my results for my formal report. Hopefully getting some sleep in between tasks. Interesting and Challenging The interesting things that I have found out have been: 1. The depth of thinking students who were interviewed gave to the questions about the online forum. 2. The range of motivation that students had for the wikipedia activity. 3. The honesty of the students when filling in the self assessment story boards at the end of the unit. The challenging things that I have found out have been: 1. The difficulties using wikipedia for editing. 2. The practical application of how to measure and implement the key competencies. 3. The literature review. Where to Next Year? I intend to go back to school at this stage and work with my colleagues on how to implement the key competencies at our school. Fitting back into the rat race and dead line mentality will be a challenge and it is being able to move forward with what I have learnt that will be important for me.
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Slide 1: This is an example of one of the animated slides.
The second activity was to further explore the language looking closely at how a story is sequenced. We examined the way in which an author drafts and edits a story. For this we had an excellent video resource from the national library which explains how Lynley Dodd creates her books. We were to make a resource in which the children were going to retell the story of “The Smallest Turtleâ€. The children used ArtRage to paint their backgrounds. They used Paint to draw their turtles and other characters from the book and animated the characters from the story using Power Point. We worked collaboratively to retell the story using rich language and the children recorded the text and made oral recordings. The book was printed in hard copy and laminated and used in the literacy programme as a sequencing activity.
Slide 3: This is a slide from The Smallest Turtle.
Slide 4: The resource has been laminated and is used as a sequencing activity.
The third activity was to build on the previous experiences. The children each made their own six page book about a topic of their own choice using PowerPoint. They used a story board to plan their book and Paint to draw their pictures. They recorded their stories both orally and in written form.
Slide 5: Example of story board and slide of individual PowerPoint book.
Before we made the resources the children were exposed to a large number of Lynley Dodd’s picture books. The classroom teacher and the children made character studies of the animals. The children also wrote about the animals in their independent writing time. All the resources have been printed in hard copy. The collaborative class books are in the class library. The children’s own books have been printed and made available as a class treasure box for reading. All the resources are available as an electronic library both on CD and the shared network.
At the completion of the resources each child took a CD home to share with his or her parents. As part of my research I am interested in whether parents feel such resources benefit home/ school communication and whether they can be used to support their child in learning.
I have continued to read and have found among others material by John Siraj-Blatchford very useful.
During Term two I collected data. Although I was working with the whole class my case study focused on six children and my data is largely centred on them.
I videoed lessons and the classroom teacher made observations. I had informal interviews with the six children who form the case study group. I have written a reflective journal after each lesson. I will be surveying the parents early this term. This term I will be analyzing the data looking for indicators of meaningful learning.
In my data gathering, I have looked at the five attributes for meaningful learning as outlined by (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1999) and have used these to base my indicators on, considering the young age of the children I work with. The five attributes are interdependent and so in looking for the presence of one attribute I might have also found another.
These attributes are Active, Constructive, Intentional, Authentic and Collaborative.
These are the indicators I would be looking for to see evidence of the attributes.
• Active: Interaction of children between each other and assisting adults and the interaction of children with the environment such as computers, digital cameras, books and storyboards. I noticed as the skills developed and children became more independent they displayed high levels of engagement.
• Constructive: Prior learning transferred to new learning seen through the development of skills and verbal explanations and the final products.
I noticed that the skills built on each other. The work children did in constructing the initial resource gave them the basis for acquiring the skills for the next resource. The children had the scaffolding necessary for the new learning. They were immersed in the rich language of Lynley Dodd’s books and were then able to transfer this learning to their own resources.
• Intentional: Children articulating the learning intentions and showing understanding of the learning activity. Children showing signs of success and delight at achieving the learning goal and the actual work. I noticed many signs of delight and satisfaction at achieving goals. The work output reflected the achievement of learning intentions.
• Authentic: Children showing that the activity is contextual and complex through high participation and ownership. The children showed enthusiasm towards the activities and a number of children sought to continue their work at other times.
• Collaborative: Children cooperating in the learning activity through, explaining, modeling and helping. Children cooperatively using the resources. As the term progressed I began to see more and more cooperative learning. Sometimes it was discussion during the making of the resource. At other times it was simply sharing a resource together. As children became more skilled and confident in using the software they would become tutors for those children who needed help. This has real impacts for classroom management.
I have almost completed my data gathering. As well as looking at what meaningful learning occurs when children create resources I am also looking at the learning outcomes when children use the resources at school and at home and whether parents feel more informed about their child’s learning. I have surveyed the parents regarding this and will have informal interviews with my case study children’s parents early this term.
This term will be largely spent on data analysis. Although I have noted my initial observations and “gut feelings†I will be looking for the evidence to back these suppositions.
I have felt privileged to work with this group of children and their teacher and although I have always believed that young kids “can do†it was fascinating to have the time to observe them closely without all the other issues a classroom teacher has to deal with. I was struck with the ability of these young children to follow quite complex instructions to achieve a task such as animating an object or inserting a Paint picture as a background. They apply themselves to technology as if it is no big deal, the same way children of the past used a blackboard and chalk. They appeared to enjoy the multimedia aspect of ICT resources and being able to share their work with parents. I believe that the activities that I undertook with this class can be achieved as part of the classroom programme but the time taken to complete them may be longer.
I hope that my findings may add another piece to the jigsaw of research regarding the use of ICTs to support learning for young children. I also hope that teachers of young children will have faith that young children “can do†providing they have the appropriate support and will implement the use of ICTs to support learning. I will share examples of my work with the learning community.
Jonassen, D., Peck, K., & Wilson, B. (1999). Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective.Upper Saddle River NJ: Merrill.
My .mac website has a lot of details of my project posted on it see the above screen shot for a preview. Use the link below to visit the site.
http://web.mac.com/jpaullowe
The teaching component of my project, which consisted of me teaching and observing a middle to upper band year 10 class for four weeks, has now finished. I am in the process of collecting and analysing the data that I have obtained from video, student and teacher interviews, student work and their comments from the online forum. The students were given the choice to form their own teams of three. They were involved in learning about how to use the wikipedia site to find specific information, to understand how the site functions and to prepare to become editors of the pages that relate to their local area, such as the Hauraki Plains site within wikipedia. The importance of key competencies and the development of them in student’s lives are becoming more apparent to me as I continue with this project and read the literature around the topic. To become fully functioning members of the knowledge age, students will not so much just need to remember information but use it, work in teams with others to develop new knowledge and organise themselves as they enter the changing landscape of technological advances.
The following five slides are preliminary findings from my project to date. Part of the five slides, five words per slide challenge, given to us by CORE in the July week long workshop in Christchurch.
The wikipedia task was chosen because of the opportunity this social software gives for students to work collaboratively on developing an article, and the fact that it introduces a concept that is not familiar to most students. Only a few students in my class had heard of wikipedia, and they certainly didn’t know or have participated in how to edit the site. The positive aspects of this task have been the availability of the site to a world wide AUDIENCE. Students realised that this was a real task and that it is displayed on a living and changing site, which motivated a number of them. Another aspect of this topic has been the opportunity for COLLABORATION. Some teams worked and collaborated in an excellent manner. Others lacked the necessary skills to be as successful and this brings home the need for these areas to be a focus when teaching in class and the need for the key competencies to be explicitly taught. Some students, on self reflection, saw a link between the Hauraki Plains school wide charter, which includes the idea of leaving a LEGACY, with the task of developing the local sites around the Hauraki Plains, Ngatea, Turua and the Piako river. This is particularly pleasing as it reflects the effectiveness of the schools charter in the lives of the students who can see the link in a different context.
The wikipedia activity also threw up a few challenges and DIFFICULTIES. The topic I choose for the students, based on finding out information on our local area, resulted in resources for the topic having to be accessed locally rather than on the internet. Some of the areas within that topic that the students choose to research on, had little easily sourced material for the students to use and this resulted in some motivational problems. Editing wikipedia was problematic due to our schools IP address, provided by Schoolzone, being blocked periodically by administrators of wikipedia. This occurred because some students in schools within Schoolzone vandalise wikipedia. This problem was most annoying and is an issue that was somewhat resolved by me contacting the administrators by email.
The motivation of the class while working on the wikipedia unit of work, in general was good. From the students self reflection at the end of the unit, there was a variation in the motivation of the students. One teacher commented to me in a subsequent interview “So you got the normal range thenâ€
This variation in motivation can be explained in the problems that some of the students faced. The lack of material when researching was seen as a problem by students, this could also have been seen as an opportunity to overcome problems, and become an opportunity for students to have perseverance developed – a key competency teaching moment, perhaps. Motivation was also tied into OWNERSHIP of the task. I had chosen the overall topic for the task and although each team was able to choose within that context, there were still some comments from a number of students about not being motivated by the topic. The TASK itself was a motivating factor to some, being able to edit a site used by millions of people and add to it, sparked interest and passion in some of the students.
The VARIATION in motivation was interesting, some students said they are motivated to do their work and it is just a part of their CHARACTER, others said they would have been motivated if they had the option of choosing the topic completely. While others liked the structure and the topic being chosen for them. Perhaps it is a case of not pleasing all of the people all of the time?
Key competencies were observed in the classroom, both in the first term when I observed other teachers in a number of subjects and in my four week wikipedia topic. It seems that key competencies can be identified and that different students operate at differing levels of expertise. I don’t think it is enough to observe them and hope that they will develop without emphasis on them in the teaching programme. I believe they will not be effectively CAUGHT but rather must be TAUGHT in the classroom. Taking time to periodically focus on how teams are working together or how they could better work together. Extending students to think, using higher level cognitive skills. Focussing on the bigger picture and how to effectively plan using tools to help students self reflect, for example: learning journals, video analysis, role modelling, and classroom discussion.
The key competencies have the potential to be developed at a surface level or in DEPTH. The way they are valued in a school and how they fit in with the overall vision and direction of the school will determine the emphasis and successfulness of their implementation. There is the potential to take these competencies and make them valued as tools to allow students to be developed into the individuals that our society will need in the future. The TASKS used may also be of value and consideration should be given to them. There is still the place, I believe, for students to be guided through their learning in a directed way but the potential for students to then use these skills and knowledge to perform real life tasks that have meaning to the students themselves, may provide the best opportunity to see these key competencies developed.
An interesting challenge will be to measure these key competencies; some of them may be able to be identified in the light of the product the students end up with. Some of the key competencies are observed during the process of working on a task and it is the capturing of this information that may be difficult for the classroom teacher. It is possible that less content may need to be taught to allow for more time to focus on the key competencies. The MEASUREMENT of the key competencies will need some thought. The SOLO Taxonomy, (Biggs and Collis, 1982), has the potential to be a useful tool in the measurement of the complexity of thinking of a student. This will need to be used with caution, but an advantage is in it’s being able to be used across subjects and in differing contexts. Difficulties may present themselves when measurement of internalised attitudes are attempted, I believe self assessment may be one way forward in this area.
The online forum, which was set up in term one and has continued throughout term two, has been a valuable aspect of the project. The number of students who participated in the forum was a little disappointing and outlines some of the difficulties with the running of this activity. The INITIATION of the forum was started in term one and a number of tactics were used to get the forum underway. The whole class were introduced to the forum during a social studies period. The MAINTAINING of the forum involved me going to the whanau room of the class during form time and encouraging the students to participate. For those who contributed to the forum, this earned them a mini moro bar as a reward. I had made the decision not to make it compulsory for the students to participate or to assign credits (marks) for them to do so. I wanted to see who would respond to the challenge of being a contributor in this new context. Some of the THINKING that occurred on the forum was most encouraging, with some students using critical, creative and high level thinking skills. Other students appreciated the ability to express their views on a site that allowed them time to think and consider their views without being shot down in class. The OWNERSHIP that some students had for this task was pleasing and these students when interviewed came up with ideas on how to get more people involved.
The online forum has been a POSITIVE experience, with both teachers and students participating to varying degrees. I believe this ICT activity has the potential to be used effectively to record and develop key competencies in the lives of students. Students when interviewed about this activity were very positive and had revealed insights that were most interesting, from my perspective.
Next Steps
The next few months will be busy with preparation for the ULearn conference in Christchurch, continual work on literature review, data analysis and beginning to write up my results for my formal report. Hopefully getting some sleep in between tasks.
Interesting and Challenging
The interesting things that I have found out have been:
1. The depth of thinking students who were interviewed gave to the questions about the online forum.
2. The range of motivation that students had for the wikipedia activity.
3. The honesty of the students when filling in the self assessment story boards at the end of the unit.
The challenging things that I have found out have been:
1. The difficulties using wikipedia for editing.
2. The practical application of how to measure and implement the key competencies.
3. The literature review.
Where to Next Year?
I intend to go back to school at this stage and work with my colleagues on how to implement the key competencies at our school. Fitting back into the rat race and dead line mentality will be a challenge and it is being able to move forward with what I have learnt that will be important for me.
