The New Culture of Learning

Technology is a factor that is increasingly prevalent in society, schools and education. The emergence of a heavy technological society, such as the one we live in today, is allowing people to learn differently.

This video emphasizes how technology has shaped education in various different ways. More importantly, it brings up a good question in regards to how technology in the classroom will be in the future?

With more and more students being heavily incorporated into the technological world through the use of cell phones, laptops, iPads and more, the incorporation of technology allows students to engage in education in various different ways, but at the same time can also hinder learning in the classroom.

Technology Today

From my experiences in high school, technology was being used in the classroom but not in a productive way. What I have noticed four years ago when I was in high school, and even from my placements this year, is that students are constantly on their cell phone during lessons. Technology is taking away students' attention from the teacher in most classrooms.

Believe it or not, this is not the students fault. In a society where everything revolves around quick information, it is no wonder why students get bored in class and resort to their cell phones. Google provides searches in less than a second, vines are popular because it is only 8 seconds long, and we all know if we see a video on social media that is longer than 5 minutes, we don't even open it because its too long! 

We live in a world where everything is fast, even our food. Everything depends on quick information and that is because people get bored easily. We don't necessarily have shorter attention spans, but its just that we are not motivated to stay on task. We need an education that revolves around intrinsic motivation, because then students will not get bored in class and will stay focussed on the topic at hand. 

Technology Tomorrow

Students are getting sleepy in current situations in the classroom and are losing focus. Prensky claims this is because of a lack of engagement, and the solution to this is found in educational video games. Educational video games would keep student’s focused because they will be intrinsically motivated to play these games, and thus engaged in the classroom (Prensky 2001). 

Retrieved from: www.mentis.co.nz

Remember this game? I am sure if you were in Ontario in elementary school at one point in time you would have played this game in order to sharpen your math skills. Your classmates would get ecstatic when the teacher would say "its time to go to the computer lab" and everyone would race to a screen beside their buddy and play these games!

This is just one example of how to keep children motivated and foster learning at the same time. Games work best with little kids because they have a low attention span. Forbes also explains how video games in the classroom help students gain vital metacognitive skills and more. 

The problem faced with incorporating students into the classroom is the fact that many people have myths about video games and its effects on children. Children spending too much time in front of a video game will lead to bad eyesight is a common myth that, Daphne Bavelier, debunks in her Ted talk. In short, she explains how people who play spend 15 hours a week playing video games actually have better eyesight than people who don't in two different ways. One way is that video game players are able to resolve small detail in the context of clutter, which means they will be able to read the fine print on prescription better than most people (Bavelier 2012). Secondly, video game players can resolve levels of gray much better, which means driving in a fog would be easier. 

As you can see there are many myths around video games that make it seem like its just for fun and games. The truth is, video games keep students engaged and if we transfer over certain principles from video games and create good games that foster learning, it will be very beneficial in the classroom! Students will no longer see school as boring, but instead it will be a place where they can have fun and learn at the same time! A good example as to why we should incorporate video games in the classroom is presented by James Paul Gee. Here you can see that video games are not just for younger kids.

Video games can be incorporated in many different ways! It truly brings a new culture of learning, so why not let the kids have fun and learn at the same time? Society is not static, and is constantly changing. Instead of making the new age of kids adapt to old teaching methods and practices, we should instead reform the education system and take on a new culture of learning for the new type of students. It is time to revolutionize the education system and bring learning and having fun together as one. 

References 

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the horizon,9(5), 1-6.

Your Brain on Video Games In Ted Talk (2012) Daphne Bavelier. 

Innovative Assessments: A step towards the future

        In my previous blog, I discussed the importance of the KDB model within the curriculum. Particularly focusing on twenty-first century skills, I mentioned how Canadian curriculums needed to address the content, skills and values students need to learn in order to be successful in the twenty-first century.

Now we need to take into consideration how to assess the KDB, in a way that helps all the kids in the classroom and not just the few who excel in the traditional model. In a course I took last year, EDUC 8P50, we learned that most teachers relate to 3.5/10 kids in the room. The real issue for teachers is addressing the losers of the game of education, the students who are not at the top of the class, and are not interested in education. These students normally show signs of resistance within the classroom. These 6.5 kids are students the teacher cannot or find a hard time to relate to, and are in most need of a form of assessment that will engage them and show their learning abilities.

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Sometimes a quiz or a test is the most appropriate way to assess knowledge acquisition, however not all learning can be assessed in this way. Many students find it hard to study for a test and get nervous the day of, or struggle memorizing and retaining information for the test and often do poorly. A better way to do a summative assessment instead of a test or quiz is creating a Rich Performance Assessment Task.

What is a Rich Performance Assessment Task you may ask? A good description of various performance tasks is highlighted in the first video found on this page: Performance Assessment Video

A Rich Performance Assessment Task is something significant that shows that they have learned the KDB. They are often complex and can be anything from doing a presentation, making a video, conducting a skit, building a community in a video game, the possibilities are endless. What is important however, is that the performance task hits the following criteria: 

• Is the task worth doing? Does it teach the KDB?
• Is it doable?
• Is the task engaging and fun?
• Does it require application of higher-order thinking skills?
• Is inquiry embedded in the task?
• Does the task provide authentic opportunities for students to explore, enact, and reflect on the values and behaviours of a learner & responsible citizen?
• Is the task grounded in a real-world scenario? 
• Are success criteria made explicit and clear to students?
• Does the task allow for diverse approaches? 
• Does the task encourage accountability & increase motivation by requiring students to demonstrate their learning to audience other than their teacher? 
• Does the task invite student voice and allow for student choice?
• Does the task value process along with product, allowing frequent opportunities for formative assessment, student revision, and reflection? 

To get an idea of various Rich Performance Assessment tasks for each grade, see here.

 When I was in grade 11 my teacher did a Performance Assessment Task for our social science class. Instead of doing an essay at the end of the term, or a unit test, we had to create a presentation on a non-profit local organization for a specific cause. At first, the assignment seemed extremely hard as we had to go out into the community and find an organization. Then we needed to interview a representative of the organization and find out the goals of the organization, who the sponsors are, what percentage of the money goes towards the illness/cause and what percent of the money goes towards running the organization, organize a tri-board about the organization, decorate the board with the events and fundraisers the organization does, explain the illness, different stages and amount of people affected by it. 

As you can tell this can be very overwhelming. This is why it is important for the students to be given a summary checklist of the components to help track their progress and better organize how to complete the assignment.

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Not only does a Rich Performance Assessment task move away from the traditional model of standardized testing, it shifts the question of "Do you know it?" to "How well can you use what you have know?" which fosters learning (Hibbard, 1996). 

Furthermore performance assessments allow teachers to capture authentic samples of students' work that make thinking and reasoning visible (Pitroski & Mihakalis, 2014). 

I think it is important to move towards an assessment that uses a Rich Performance Assessment Task so that a holistic approach of assessment can be used and the teacher can really see how the student is advancing. Plus in most cases students prefer assessments like these as they are more motivated to complete these assignments than to study and memorize the content for a test. 

For a detailed example of A Rich Performance Task, along with the instructions, rubric, and learning goals, click here. 

Reference List

Hibbard, M. (1996). What is Performance Based Learning and Assessment and Why is it Important? In Teachers Guide to Performacne Based Learning and Assessment.

Petrosky, A., & Mihalakis, V. (2014, October 15). How to Develop Performance Assessments. 

Twenty First Century Skills

     

     Today the world is dominated by technology in everything we do and the way we think. Information and communication technology is changing the way we work and more importantly the way we conduct social relationships. Skills from the past are no longer needed as machines are capable of doing the manual labour and the repetitive skills that were so crucial in the twentieth century factories. With the development of technology, these skills are no longer needed and our future relies heavily on the development of key skills. Twenty-first century skills are what students need to learn in order to be successful in their future. 

     Curriculum documents in Canada are already following these steps by including the twenty-first century skills as part of their curriculum documents. Curriculum documents follow a three step program known as the KDB. The K represents knowledge, the content the students are going to go over during the year ranging from remembering facts which is lower level thinking, to big ideas which consist of systems with subtopics and characteristics. This knowledge goes hand in hand with D, the "do" which is made up of certain skills, in this case the twenty first century skills. This is very important because these skills prepare a student to be productive and a participatory citizen of the twenty-first century. 

     As seen in the comic above, knowledge is useless if it cannot be applied to the real world. So what are skills our students need to learn in order to be successful in their future? Whether they are going to be a technician or a professional person, these people will need to share and communicate information to solve complex problems, be creative and innovate in order to tackle changing circumstances, and be able to use computer and digital technologies to create new knowledge in expanding human capacity and production (M.Binklet et. al, 2012, p.17). Furthermore critical thinking, communication and collaboration are vital skills needed in order to be successful in the future. These are just some examples of twenty-first century skills. This story about Elmo the blind mule will explain why certain skills, in particular collaboration, is important https://youtu.be/ne51TZGImOs?t=35s. 

    Lastly, the 'B' section of curriculum documents represents "The Be". The Be has to do with values, and character development. Again this can be integrated with twenty-first century skills as cultural and ethical citizenship is another twenty-first century skill that is needed in order to understand other people and foster good social relationship. Thus you can see the curriculum documents understand the need to include twenty-first century skills in the school environment, in order to properly prepare the students for their professional and adult lives in the future. One problem that arises from this, however, is the method in assessing these skills in the student. One highschool, Napa New Technology, has come up with an innovative way for assessing twenty-first century skills in the classroom setting.

     As you can see from this video, Napa New Technology highschool is using assessment for learning, rather than assessment of learning. In assessment of learning, the teacher is using the assessment as an evaluation. The assessment is the end product in order to make judgment about student performance in relation to provincial standards. In the video above, assessment was used for learning which meant that assessment is happening before the final grade, so that the student can learn how to fix their problems before the evaluation. In this model the students are responding to the feedback in order to improve their learning and therefore foster development. 

     In order for the twenty-first century skills to be successful and improve schools, three steps need to be executed by policymakers. First educators must make sure that in pursuit of these skills, content is not overlooked and that the instructional program is still in place. Second there needs to be a stronger emphasis on how teachers should be trained in order to facilitate these twenty-first century skills in their classrooms (Rotherham & Willingham, 2009). Lastly, there needs to be news ways of assessment for richer learning and complex tasks, like the model initiated by Napa New Technology highschool, in order for this to work and benefit all children.

References:

Binkley, M., Erstad, O., Herman, J., Raizen, S., Ripley, M., Miller-Ricci, M., & Rumble, M. (2012). Defining twenty-first century skills. In Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 17-66). Springer Netherlands.

Rotherham, A., & Willingham, D. (2009). 21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead. Teaching for the 21st Century, 67(1), 16-21. Retrieved September 23, 2015, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept09/vol67/num01/21st-Century-Skills@-The-Challenges-Ahead.aspx