Teaching as a dynamic activity

Implications for Learning the Nature of Technology (Part 3)

jerridkruse — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:52:53 +0000

Beyond the extent to which students’ learned about the NOT, the study investigated ways in which the preservice teachers used NOT in broader context. Unfortunately, a minority of students included NOT ideas within the broader context of technology literacy at the end of the course. This might mean more explicit attention needs to be paid to how aspects of the NOT might be important for K-12 students and the general public to understand.

At the end of the course, the preservice teachers did tend to use NOT ideas when discussing factors they would consider when implementing technology in their future classrooms. This finding reinforces the idea that the preservice teachers are seeing value in the NOT in their own decision-making, but may not be making a connection to the need to help their future students come to understand the NOT.

Overall, the results of this study are quite promising. Although not all students made significant improvement in their understanding of each NOT idea, the overall trend was that students did improve their understanding of the NOT and were able to apply these understanding to make more informed decisions regarding technology implementation in educational settings. Given these promising results and students’ struggles, further research must be explored concerning the NOT in both preservice teacher education and in K-12 settings. Specifically, investigations might further explore students’ thinking regarding the NOT. This study’s conservative analysis of data may have prevented some fine-grained understanding of student thinking. Therefore, more detailed investigation of students’ thinking might improve understanding of student struggles to learn and apply the NOT and how such struggles might be overcome.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Critical Examination of Technology, Nature of Learning, Nature of technology

Implications for Learning the Nature of Technology (Part 2)

jerridkruse — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:48:29 +0000

Both conceptual change theory (Posner et al., 1982) and hot conceptual change theory (Pintrich et al., 1993) might be useful in accounting for some learners’ difficulty to learn nature of technology (NOT) ideas. As noted earlier, some NOT ideas are likely very different from ways the students have typically thought about technology. This discrepancy might prevent learners from understanding the ideas or dismissing the ideas as not fruitful. Furthermore, because many of the students have been avid users of technology, they may not see much value in critiquing technology through the NOT.

Some struggles to learn the NOT may relate to learners’ self-efficacy regarding technology use. If students are intimidated by the technologies they are learning, their cognitive effort will be focused on learning the technologies and they will likely not be able to attend as deeply to the more philosophical issues of the NOT. Just as students might miss nature of science lessons when focusing on science content, students might miss NOT lessons when focusing on learning a particular technology.

From these observations and possible explanations of students’ struggles to learn the NOT, educators might glean some implications. First, the NOT cannot be simply relegated to one session within a course. Revisiting these complex ideas is likely necessary to generate deep change in students’ thinking. This implication might suggest that the NOT should not be relegated to only one course. Indeed, methods instructors ought to consider addressing NOT issues within the context of methods classes. Second, NOT ideas need to be introduced in decontextualized scenarios to prevent students’ struggles with technology from hindering their ability to wrestle with NOT ideas. Furthermore, decontextual activities might prevent students’ emotional attachment to technology from interfering with conceptual change. Yet, strong links need to be made between the decontextual activities and the real world implications of NOT ideas.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Nature of technology

Implications for Learning the Nature of Technology (Part 1)

jerridkruse — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:42:48 +0000

The results of this investigation seem to indicate that teaching and learning about the nature of technology (NOT) may be especially difficult. Given the deeply engrained, ubiquitous, and oftentimes “invisible” nature of technology in our society, coming to understand deep philosophical issues and critically analyze technology provides unique challenges. Technology is perceived as a staunch friend, and critically analyzing such a friend may have emotional barriers. That is, the deeply personal nature of technology use may hinder students’ conceptual change regarding the NOT.

While there are inherent difficulties in coming to understand the NOT, the group of preservice teachers did make great improvement in both technological trade-offs and the limited nature of technology. While one can only speculate as to why these constructs showed such great improvement, the course activities ought to be considered. In each of the technology projects students were expected to discuss the trade-offs, limitations and biases of the project’s technology. This extra attention paid to these constructs could explain the more substantial improvement observed.

While the increased time/effort might explain why the participants improved upon trade-offs and limitations, the value-laden nature of technology poses a bit of an anomaly for this explanation. That is, the participants were asked to consider the biases within their projects, but fewer students improved and two even regressed in their thinking related to the value-laden nature of technology. This discrepancy might be explained by the more abstract nature of technological bias or even the more unsettling nature of technological bias. Coming to understand that technology might favor some goals over others and might even “use us” is likely a very different way of thinking for most students and many students may not want to accept the notion that technology influences us in such deep ways.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Nature of Learning, Nature of technology

Preservice Teachers as Questioners of Technology (Part 3)

jerridkruse — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:37:32 +0000

Unfortunately, learners might not connect these classroom issues to the greater culture. Therefore, teachers are introduced to historical examples of technology use to further illustrate nature of technology ideas. These examples range from the printing press to the chalkboard. The preservice teachers are asked how these technologies changed education and cultures. For example, when discussing the chalkboard, the instructor might ask, “How do you think the chalkboard has impacted education today?” This question asks teachers to consider the nature of technological progress and the implications for current educational technology’s effect on instruction. These historical examples help the preservice teachers see how the nature of technology provides a useful lens for considering educational technology. Preservice teachers can easily dismiss claims by the instructor that current technologies may have unintended consequences for the future of education. However, they cannot dismiss lessons from history.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Critical Examination of Technology, Nature of technology

Preservice Teachers as Questioners of Technology (Part 2)

jerridkruse — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:29:50 +0000

When introducing the nature of technology (NOT), activities are used to confront naïve views about NOT. Importantly, these introductory activities are decontextualized in nature. That is, initial NOT ideas are constructed to illustrate the concepts without use of complex technology. For example, one activity has students rolling marbles and using rulers to investigate an unknown shape (Kruse, 2012b). The preservice teachers are asked why a marble is a technology to encourage them to reflect upon the view of what constitutes technology. Also, the preservice teachers are asked what is the use of a ruler. When they respond, “for measuring”, the instructor asks how they know a ruler is used for measuring, or what about the ruler indicates it would be useful for measuring. This discussion introduces preservice teachers to ideas like technological bias and the difference between cues and affordances. While these decontextual activities provide an initial introduction to NOT ideas, the preservice teachers could easily dismiss the ideas when considering more contemporary technologies. However, decontextual activities provide a less emotionally charged way to encourage students to critically question technology. If such discussions start with “near and dear” technologies, learners might resist being critical of the technology.

To further explore the utility of NOT ideas to critically question technology, the preservice teachers are asked to apply nature of technology ideas to classroom technologies. These more contextualized examples are important to help the preservice teachers apply the nature of technology ideas to their own teaching. In one example, the preservice teachers are asked to take digital pictures of various plant life around campus and upload the pictures to a common website. While the preservice teachers are initially excited about the tremendous amount of data that can be collected for later analysis in such a short amount of time, the instructor asks, “What benefit might there be to having students draw the plant instead of snap a picture?” The resulting discussion highlights the lack of thought and careful observation when taking a picture compared to drawing a picture. While the preservice teachers easily recognize the gains from a particular technology, they need to be explicitly prompted to consider the trade-offs.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Critical Examination of Technology, Nature of technology

Preservice Teachers as Questioners of Technology (part 1)

jerridkruse — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:23:42 +0000

The educational technology course in this study uses the six nature of technology (NOT) ideas previously discussed to help the teachers become more informed questioners of technology. As previously noted, the preservice teachers are expected to identify and discuss possible biases, limitations, and trade-offs of each technology on which they complete a project. Importantly, these projects are meant as assessment of the preservice teachers’ understanding of the NOT ideas, not as a way to introduce the NOT.

NOT instruction in the educational technology course is informed by both conceptual change theory (Posner et al., 1982) and Clough’s (2006) application of conceptual change theory to the nature of science. This framework highlights the importance of confronting misconceptions and maintaining pressure on students’ thinking by ensuring new ideas are fruitful, intelligible, and plausible. That is, once learners become dissatisfied with their views of the NOT, new ideas must be carefully introduced so students do not choose to exit instruction.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Critical Examination of Technology, Nature of technology

Preservice Teachers as Users and Producers of Technology

jerridkruse — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:15:17 +0000

Teachers must be aware of available technologies. In the educational technology course studied, teachers are introduced to many different technologies through both demonstrations and projects in which students identify and research technologies they deem pertinent to their content area. Specifically, students completed four “technology projects” in which they identify and learn about a particular technology, create an artifact using the technology, discuss ways in which the technology might be used by students and teachers, provide rationale based on learning theory for the technology use, discuss struggles for implementation, and discuss the trade-offs, limitations, and biases of the technology. Graduate students are also required to locate and evaluate pertinent education literature related to the technology. The discussion of these aspects is turned in to the instructor via a blog the preservice teachers create for the course.

The “technology projects” described above lead up to a final project in which students prepare and deliver a lesson using various technologies. The lesson is expected to leverage technology to increase student collaboration, represent content more concretely, and/or gain insight into student thinking. Although students plan and deliver the lesson in pairs, the students individually reflect upon the lesson in their blog.

Through class demonstrations, the technology projects, and the lesson delivery assignment the preservice teachers gain experience as users and producers of technology. As the preservice teachers use technologies as students and explore technologies for the projects they gain valuable experience related to technology use. As the preservice teachers create artifacts to demonstrate their learning they become producers of technology.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Nature of technology

Technological evolution, not revolution.

jerridkruse — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:04:09 +0000

As much as people want to believe in the revolutionary power of technology, technology advance more closely resembles evolution than revolution because new technology is developed in light of previous technologies (McArthur, 2007). Usually, new technologies are simply a recombination of older technologies. Because new technology reflects previous technologies, educators should carefully consider the past. That is, in what ways do new technologies simply reflect past approaches to education?

Not all developed technologies are adopted on a wide scale. What technologies are adopted is likely of greater consequence than what technologies are developed. As new ideas are more likely to be learned if they fit within existing mental frameworks (Piaget, 1970; Posner et al., 1982), new technologies are adopted if they fit reasonably well into and existing framework. For example, consider why the interactive whiteboard makes so much sense to many educators. The chalkboard, the overhead projector, the whiteboard, PowerPoint and the interactive whiteboard are all intricately related. One wonders if the interactive whiteboard would have ever been developed had the chalkboard not been so widely used. More curiously, one wonders if lecture-based instruction might be less pervasive had none of these technologies been developed. By not recognizing how technology evolves and why new technologies are adopted, educators miss the ways in which new technologies often reinforce ineffective teaching strategies and further add to the institutional momentum that prevents systemic change in education.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Learning, Nature of Learning, Nature of technology

Technology Changes School, but how? (part 3)

jerridkruse — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:59:09 +0000

The notion that technology uses us can be unsettling. Yet, preservice teachers must be aware that technologies do make some decisions for them. For example, if we expand our view of technology beyond modern electronics, the daily school schedule is an organizational technology to help us budget our time. While the school schedule seems harmless, educators will likely recognize that it is the school schedule that decides how long they plan lessons or when instruction must cease for the day. School bell schedule technologies, in making fundamental decisions for us, may cause educators to make decisions not in the best interest of student learning. Importantly, this issue applies to more modern technologies as well.

Consider the experience of Guzman-Rodriguez (2007) who noted that students worked in isolation when a computer-based instructional model was first implemented. Rather than working socially or collaboratively, the students worked individually. In subsequent activities Guzman-Rodriguez (2007) purposefully included discussion questions to encourage students to share their thinking with other students. If preservice teachers can consider the cues of a computer (one mouse, one screen, one keyboard), they might be able to more proactively plan to ensure collaborative learning environments in which technologies are being used.

More generally, technology values speed and efficiency – two ideas with disastrous implications for deep, applicable, and meaningful learning. While we do not want learning experiences to be unnecessarily tedious, allowing technology to determine the goals of education, as it so often has, should be carefully guarded against. By first accepting that technology has bias, and then working to identify these biases, educators make more informed decisions regarding educational technology and will not as easily fall prey to the whims of technological pressures.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Class Activities, Nature of technology, Teacher Actions

Technology changes schools, but how? (part 2)

jerridkruse — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:51:56 +0000

Technology has, and will continue to modify our beliefs and value systems. Such changes will impact our actions. While techno-enthusiasts talk about the possibilities of technology they miss the subtle hints technology gives about how the technology wants to be used. That is, technological affordances are discussed at length, but technological cues are almost completely ignored. Because technology can have such great effect on both beliefs and actions, educators ought to be wary of the subtle, but powerful hints, or cues, technology sends about how the technology wants to be implemented. While imaginations run wild with the possibilities, or affordances of technology, few (not even designers in some cases) consider the cues technology contains. For example, although textbooks can be used as a valuable tool in classrooms, the bolded words cue students (and teachers) to place emphasis on vocabulary acquisition over deep conceptual understanding.

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This post is from a paper I recently presented at the Association for Science Teacher Educators. For the full paper and citations, click here.

Filed under: Class Activities, Critical Examination of Technology, Nature of technology, Teacher Actions