Module 3 - Designing and Redesigning Instruction with Technology
Overview
As graduate students, I see you as future teacher leaders in your schools, divisions, state and nation. As you develop into these kinds of leaders, you need to be aware of various educational theories and frameworks that educational researchers and designers use and apply in their work. Understanding these theories and being able to apply them to your own work will allow you better interpret and understand educational research and be able to make better informed decisions that affect the students and teachers you lead. In this assignment, you will investigate and apply two of most prominent educational technology frameworks: the SAMR model and TPACK.
SAMR Model
Below is a video by Common Sense media introducing the SAMR model. This video is much better than the one I would make.
Below is the paper that provides a critique of the SAMR model. I am a big proponent of graduate students (and really all students) reading critiques of theories and other frameworks. I believe this will provide you additional insight to the SAMR framework, some issues with it, and how it can best be used by educators.
hamilton_2016_samr_critique.pdf |
I believe the implications for SAMR framework for teachers is fairly obvious. As you redesign or seek an technology-based activity, you can use the framework to consider how the technology is being used. Of course, we want to use technology to promote higher-order thinking skills. Yet, using technology in ways that would be at the enhance levels is not a bad thing either. If we want students to become problem-solvers, we may need to lessen the cognitive load so they can stay in the problem-solving cycle (see image below).
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You define and understand a problem you want to solve. You then devise a plan and begin to carry it out. As you carry it out, you get so caught up in what you are doing that when you finish you can't remember why you were doing all of that work nor what is means. So you have to go back to the plan to see what you were trying to accomplish. This happens to students all the time and this is where I see them give up I think technology used in an enhancing way can help them move past this point and complete the cycle. If they could use technology to help them carry out their plan rather than doing it by hand, they won't have to leave the problem-solving cycle and can move to check and extend. Of course the choice to use technology in carrying out their plan would depend on your goals for your lesson. But if the main goal is to problem-solve, then you may want to use technology in an enhancing manner. The point I'm trying to make in my rambling is that there are times when we may choose to use technology in an enhancing manner rather than a transformative manner.
TPACK
Common Sense Media does a really nice job with their introductory videos. So, I chose to use them again to introduce TPACK. TPACK is an extension of Shulman's work in the 1980's that focused on the need for teachers to develop what he called Pedagogical Content Knowledge which is the intersection of Pedagogical Knowledge and Content Knowledge. In the 2000's Mishra and Koehler added a third component, Technology, to Shulman's framework. Which led to the Venn diagram at the top of the webpage.
Rather than having you read a critique, I wanted you to read an article written by the authors of the framework, Mishra and Koehler, about how teachers may be able to use TPACK in their work.
koehler_mishra_2009_tpack.pdf |
Now, there are multiple critiques of the TPACK framework on the web. One such critique is that the it framework should look more like an Euler diagram rather than Venn diagram. An Euler diagram looks more like a nested set of concentric circles rather than overlapping circles. This demonstrates that the content of each interior circle is dependent on the outside circles. Below is an example from Lee & Hollebrands (2011) in their adaptation of the TPACK Framework to the content area of statistics. You can see that teacher's knowledge of how to use technology efficiently and effectively with statistics students (TPSK) depends on their own knowledge of how to use technology to do statistics (TSK) and their knowledge of statistics (SK) . In essence they argue that while general pedagogical and technological knowledge are important, we should focus on the aspects that simply involve content because our learning goals center on having students learn, understand, and apply particular content. When I teach a technology course for secondary mathematics teachers, I generally adopt this kind of adapted TPACK framework because these teachers teach one particular content area. But in this course, we focus on many different content and I think we need to develop a more holistic view of integrating technology. I may have gone off on a tangent here (ha ha...a math joke), but the point is this framework can help you think about the kinds of knowledge you draw upon and require from your students as you design technology-based activities.
Components of technological pedagogical statistical knowledge. (Adapted from Lee & Hollebrands, 2011).
In this assignment, you will use the SAMR and TPACK frameworks to redesign or design two activities to use in your classroom. For one activity, you will redesign an activity that you have done without technology to include technology in a way that meaningfully improves the lesson. For the other activity, you can either redesign a previously used activity or develop a new one. After you have redesigned/designed the activities, you will reflect on the experience using FlipGrid.
To Do
REDESIGN ACTIVITY
Step 1:
Create a webpage in your Weebly site called “Redesigned Activity” within the Instructional Support menu.
Step 2:
Describe an activity you have used or observed being used in the classroom that did not involve the use of technology. Be sure to include supporting documents such as worksheets or notes.
Step 3:
Describe the revised activity that involves the use of technology. Provide images, supporting documents (if applicable) and links to web resources. The level of detail of your description should be written such that an experienced educator could read your description and implement the activity with your students without confusion. The new activity should be, according to the SAMR model, at the transform level and not the enhance level.
Step 4:
Following your description, respond to the following prompts:
OTHER ACTIVITY
Step 5:
Create a webpage in your Weebly site called “Other Activity” within the Instructional Support menu.
Step 6:
Describe an activity that involves the use of technology. Provide images, supporting documents (if applicable) and links to web resources. The level of detail of your description should be written such that an experienced educator could read your description and implement the activity with your students without confusion. The new activity should be, according to the SAMR model, at the transform level and not the enhance level.
Step 7:
Following your description, respond to the following prompts:
FLIP GRID
Step 8:
Create a Response Video using Flip Grid
Step 1:
Create a webpage in your Weebly site called “Redesigned Activity” within the Instructional Support menu.
Step 2:
Describe an activity you have used or observed being used in the classroom that did not involve the use of technology. Be sure to include supporting documents such as worksheets or notes.
Step 3:
Describe the revised activity that involves the use of technology. Provide images, supporting documents (if applicable) and links to web resources. The level of detail of your description should be written such that an experienced educator could read your description and implement the activity with your students without confusion. The new activity should be, according to the SAMR model, at the transform level and not the enhance level.
Step 4:
Following your description, respond to the following prompts:
- Explain the design of the new activity using technology in relation to the TPACK framework. In particular, discuss:
- The content and how the technology helps students build a better understanding of the content.
- The pedagogical considerations you made in selecting the technology and designing the lesson.
- Referencing the SAMR Model, how are you using technology transformatively in the activity? Explain.
OTHER ACTIVITY
Step 5:
Create a webpage in your Weebly site called “Other Activity” within the Instructional Support menu.
Step 6:
Describe an activity that involves the use of technology. Provide images, supporting documents (if applicable) and links to web resources. The level of detail of your description should be written such that an experienced educator could read your description and implement the activity with your students without confusion. The new activity should be, according to the SAMR model, at the transform level and not the enhance level.
Step 7:
Following your description, respond to the following prompts:
- Explain the design of the new activity using technology in relation to the TPACK framework. In particular, discuss:
- The content and how the technology helps students build a better understanding of the content.
- The pedagogical considerations you made in selecting the technology and designing the lesson.
- Referencing the SAMR Model, how are you using technology transformatively in the activity? Explain.
FLIP GRID
Step 8:
Create a Response Video using Flip Grid
- Go to: https://flipgrid.com/edet620sum2019
- Enter the Password: EDET620summer2019
- Click Module 3 – Module 3 – Design & Redesign Activ
- Click the green “plus” sign to add a response.
- In your video, tell us about your experiences redesigning and designing activities using technology. In your video, tell us
- What was difficult for you in this process?
- How did you search for technology-based activities?
- What criteria did you use to select the technology?
- Did you find the frameworks helpful?
- Which activity do you recommend for your classmates?
- You only have 90 seconds, which isn’t much time. You can pause the video while you are shooting. Have with it! Follow the rest of the prompts and submit your video.