SMEC 657: Technology in the Classroom

Research Project
The importance of creating Technology-rich Environments
For enhancing
Student Learning Opportunities in Remote Aboriginal Community Schools

© Berkeley Fitzhardinge 2004

Appendix 1: From SEDL journal called Compass, Volume 1, Number 3

Easing Into Constructivism
Just as students do not easily let go of their ideas, neither do school boards, principals, parents, or, for that matter, teachers. Ideas like student autonomy and learner-driven inquiry are not easily accepted. Required course content and externally applied assessments are realities that teachers must accommodate. A teacher inspired to change to constructivist instruction must incorporate those realities into their approach.
They might begin gradually, trying one or two 'constructivist' explorations in the regular curriculum. Listening to students as they discuss ideas together is a good way to start shifting the balance of responsibility to the learner. Another step is using primary sources and raw data as the basis of inquiry, rather than relying solely on the text.
If students begin thinking about accumulated knowledge as an evolving explanation of natural phenomena, their questions can take on an exciting dimension. In the next two or three decades, research will change the way most of the accepted facts of today are perceived. Our challenge is to foster students' abilities so they can continue to learn and build their understanding based on the changing world around them.

In a Constructivist Classroom...

Student autonomy and initiative are accepted and encouraged.
By respecting students' ideas and encouraging independent thinking, teachers help students attain their own intellectual identity. Students who frame questions and issues and then go about analyzing and answering them take responsibility for their own learning and become problem solvers.

The teacher asks open-ended questions and allows wait time for responses.
Reflective thought takes time and is often built on others' ideas and comments. The ways teachers ask questions and the ways students respond will structure the success of student inquiry.

Higher-level thinking is encouraged.
The constructivist teacher challenges students to reach beyond the simple factual response. He encourages students to connect and summarize concepts by analyzing, predicting, justifying, and defending their ideas.

Students are engaged in dialogue with the teacher and with each other.
Social discourse helps students change or reinforce their ideas. If they have the chance to present what they think and hear others' ideas, students can build a personal knowledge base that they understand. Only when they feel comfortable enough to express their ideas will meaningful classroom dialogue occur.

Students are engaged in experiences that challenge hypotheses and encourage discussion.
When allowed to make predictions, students often generate varying hypotheses about natural phenomena. The constructivist teacher provides ample opportunities for students to test their hypotheses, especially through group discussion of concrete experiences.

The class uses raw data, primary sources, manipulatives, physical, and interactive materials.
The constructivist approach involves students in real-world possibilities, then helps them generate the abstractions that bind phenomena together.

These suggestions are adapted from In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms by Jacqueline G. Brooks and Martin G. Brooks (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1993)

Appendix 2: Quotation from Songer (1998, p335) with my own emphases. Even though KGS is about science, the points raised can be applied to any learning.

"In particular the KGS (Kids as Global Scientists) activities incorporated current thinking in learning sciences which:
a. Considered the active nature of student learning,
b. Recognized the importance of a sequence of explanatory models, … which bridge familiar and unfamiliar representations (Lewis & Linn 1994; Linn et al, 1994; White 1989),
c. Helped students to build increasingly integrated understandings which work with prior knowledge… (Linn, Songer & Eylon in press; Songer 1996),
d. Capitalized on the social construction of knowledge and collaboration in appropriate ways, and
e. Worked to achieve a learning environment which allowed a wide range of learners to interact, both as contributors and consumers (Brown et al. 1993; Songer 1996).


...KGS worked to design ways in which middle school students' science could be made more authentic and personalised through the use of the Internet and its resources."

Appendix 3: Kennewell (2001, pp106-107) - Affordances and Constraints

When students are working on a task designed to bring about learning,
their progress towards the task goal depends on the potential for
appropriate action provided by the affordances of the setting, and the
structure for appropriate action provided by the constraints of the setting,
together with their abilities.

The role of the teacher is to orchestrate the affordances and constraints in
the setting in order to maintain a gap between existing abilities and those
needed to achieve the task outcome, a learning gap which is appropriate to
the development of intended abilities. If students find the task easy, little
learning will result and the affordances and constraints need to be reduced.
Similarly, if they find the task too hard, other features can be added or the
current ones adapted in order to provide more appropriate support. This
orchestration involves adding, removing and changing features of the setting
as the students become attuned to the features and then focusing their
attention on the features during subsequent reflective activity in order to
develop conceptual schemes and improve the students' subsequent
performance (Greeno, 1998).


Appendix 4: Junipero Serra Elementary School - Technology Integration Weblog.

Karen Klaxton has created a weblog which is used for daily technology tasks for several classes. The weblog includes a calendar so tasks from previous days can be accessed if students need to. The weblog is at:
http://www.bayareawritingproject.org/bawp41/

References used in the Appendix plus any others not used in the Report:

Claxton, K. (2004, October 1 2004). Junipero Serra Elementary School - Technology Integration Department Blog. Retrieved August, 2004, from http://www.bayareawritingproject.org/bawp41/

Kennewell, S. (2001). Using Affordances and Constraints to evaluate the use of information and communications technology in teaching and learning. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 10(1).
http://www.triangle.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=jit&vol=10&issue=1&year=2001&article=Kennewell_JITT_10_1-2&id=144.137.240.134

Kennewell, S., & Beauchamp, G. (2003). The influence of a technology-rich classroom environment on elementary teachers' pedagogy and children's learning. Paper presented at the Young children and learning technologies, Melbourne.

SEDL. (1994). Constructing knowledge in the classroom. Compass, 1 (3), Retrieved October, 2004, from http://www.sedl.org/scimath/compass/v01n03/1.html

Taylor, M. (2002, March 19 2002). Technology Rich Classroom. Retrieved August, 2004, from http://www.classroommagic.com/wizardtips/trich.html