Lessons Learned From a Semester of Personal Technology Integration

Some of my aims for the Fall 2016 semester were to record my lectures and upload them to youtube, to embed simulations in my classes for student use, and to consider Affordable Learning Solutions (ALS). 

First, from my participation in the DISCOVERe course in the summer at Fresno State, I had planned to use the Explain Everything app so that I could record my lectures and upload them to youtube for students to review.  This at first was quite a daunting task, but something I thought might be beneficial to students.  However, after about five weeks of recording the lectures I stopped due to a number of issues.  Students appreciated it more when I would use the physical boards in the classroom, as there was better readability from the boards than the tablet projection. Students could also easily refer back to previous examples I had completed on another board when solving the next problem.  Further, as an instructor, my writing on the Explain Everything app was not particularly tidy and there was limited room to write on each slide.  More concerning however, was the lack of connection I felt with students compared to previous semesters.  In using the tablet, I made less eye contact with students and was focused more on writing on the tablet.  It felt like the tablet that I was holding was acting as an instructional/physical barrier between the students and I. After five weeks of using the tablet, I felt that I could recognize less students in the classroom than I had in previous semesters.  As a result of these issues, I stopped using the tablet for my explanations and went back to a combination of the classroom boards and Google Slides.  I think this was helpful in that quite a number of students commented positively on the change.  Having reviewed my youtube uploads, most of the videos were viewed less than 50 times by students (I had 122 students!), despite the links being provided to students through Blackboard.  I still think Explain Everything is a good app, but I would only use it in future when I cannot meet students face-to-face.

Second, an improvement I wanted to make in my lectures through the DISCOVERe program was to embed simulations within student activities in class.  I used several simulations throughout the semester (PhET simulations, Molecular Workbench, ChemCollective) and students generally responded positively to using these simulations. Tablets are fine in the classroom as long as it is mostly the students using them and not the instructor! Despite providing scaffolding to guide students through important features of the simulations, some of the simulations were still somewhat challenging for some students to figure out. However, I was proactive in moving around the room and helped students address such issues. My initial use of these simulation activities has been valuable for student engagement, but I will continue to consider ways to improve the scaffolds I use with these simulations.

            Lastly, as part of an aim for Affordable Learning Solutions for students, I recommended free books for students to use as a substitute for the prescribed text and also moved homework from an online homework system requiring a payment (from students) to Blackboard.  I feel that such changes did not negatively impact student outcomes for the class, but students did appreciate the option of not having to pay for a textbook or for an online homework system.

Over the course of the Fall 2016 semester, I spent considerable time determining effective ALS for my courses through discussions with certain faculty, discussions at the department level, and discussions with staff in the Center of Faculty Excellence at Fresno State.  As a result of these discussions, I have made a number of substantial and important changes to the course for Spring 2017 semester.  We are:

(a) trialling a free Introductory Chemistry textbook from OpenStax.  The material in this textbook is better organized than the previous textbook the students used.

(b) moving away from a fee-paying online homework system as a homework tool, instead using end-of-chapter Diagnostic Assessments for students to determine where they are having difficulties with the course material.  This change alongside the change in textbook will save students $141.  I also hope it will encourage students to concentrate on communicating the process through which they solve problems rather than just the solution.  I will also receive better insight into student thinking as an instructor.

(c) removing the use of iClickers and instead having students upload PDF documents of their lecture notes to Blackboard as part of their participation. An issue I had from Spring 2016 and again for Fall 2016 was that some students would not satisfactorily participate in the iClicker questions and would select any response, as they were not accountable.  This switch to a lecture notes upload should hopefully result in better student engagement in class.  Again, like the Diagnostic Assessments, the participation uploads will give better insight into student thinking and where they may have difficulties with the material.

(d) using Concept Maps/Mindmaps to encourage students to make effective connections across the different topics for the course.  A concern I had during Fall 2016 was that the material can at times be very fragmented and that students struggle to realize how all the material links up.  Concept Maps/Mindmaps should help students develop more coherent conceptual frameworks for the topics.

(e) using Discussion Forums to encourage students to ask questions and to also answer questions from their peers.  Students often send me e-mails that I think would be better suited to a Discussion Forum, as many students have very similar questions.  As such, I am encouraging students to post such questions to a discussion forum so that the responses are visible to all students.

Embedding Useful Tools Within Science Lectures

As part of the DISCOVERe tablet initiative at Fresno State, I have been considering ways to take advantage of a 1-to-1 (computer to student) classroom environment.  There are some particular websites and simulations that I have included in my classes that I believe have been mostly enjoyable and beneficial for students.  However, beyond anecdotal accounts, I do not have a holistic view of how students are using these resources outside of class time as a supplementary resource to my instruction.  I will use an exit survey at the end of the course to get a better sense of students' use of resources outside of class.

I consider the resources I have used so far to be well-described by the SAMR model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition; Figure 1).  The first two parts of the SAMR model, substitution and augmentation, focus on the enhancement of current pedagogy, while the latter two parts focus on the transformation of pedagogy.  The tools I have used so far this semester can be usefully classified and reflected on as either enhancement-based resources or transformation-based resources.

Figure 1 - SAMR Model (Taken from: goo.gl/zbi7GI)

Some examples of enhancement-based resources I have used are a scientific notation calculator, significant figures calculator, specific heat capacity data, and scale of the universe.  These resources have been mostly integrated as part of existing tasks within my courses.  I think these resources are very helpful supports for students, but a concern is how students may become over-dependent on them as opposed to using them exclusively to solve problems.  I encourage my students to solve the problems first by themselves and then use these tools to validate their answers.  However, if students do not follow my suggested learning approach, then these resources may be ineffective, if not problematic for student learning. The SAMR model fails to illustrate that substitution is not always necessarily an enhancement.

Some examples of transformation-based resources I use are simulations and name games such as Build an Atom, Build an Isotope, Making Compounds, and Naming Compounds.  The tasks I can now have in class allow students much greater ownership of the content, as opposed to me demonstrating the simulations on a data projector.  While students complete such tasks, I have found it beneficial to walk around the class and observe where students have difficulties so that I can elaborate on such examples to the whole class.  It also provides me with a better opportunity to interact with students as opposed to being centered at the top of the room for an entire class.  In some instances, I have students complete a Socrative questionnaire that provides me with additional insight on their learning for the particular resource being used that day.

I have a number of technology resources, both enhancement-based and transformation-based, that I plan to use during the rest of the semester.  I am hoping to keep my use of new technology on the latter end of the SAMR model, but I am also keeping in mind that some of my existing tasks are fine the way they are, with or without technology.   The SAMR model allows for wide interpretation in that the movement between different parts of the model is highly instructor-specific.  For instructors that use many teacher-centered approaches, any technology use by students could be transformative. For instructors that use many student-centered approaches, it is difficult to find technology that is transformative.  I like to think that my current teaching is mix of both student-centered and teacher-centered approaches. Hence, I can still target both sides of the SAMR model.

Incorporating Affordable Learning Solutions

From my experience as an undergraduate, I was unable to afford college textbooks.  I had to hope I could get access to textbooks in the university library, but that was not always possible as other students may have already borrowed the books.  Not to mention the additional time and effort it would take to simply go to the library, and yet you could still come back empty-handed.  As a result, a major part of my success in some college courses was dependent on how well the instructor covered the required material, the resources that the instructor provided, and how much the instructor aligned their instructional materials with their assessments.  It was not an ideal learning situation, but my finances dictated such an approach for several of my college classes.

As part the DISCOVERe tablet initiative at Fresno State, I have learned about California State University (CSU)'s Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) program.  The purpose of CSU's AL$ is to reduce course costs through a variety of Open Educational Resources (OERs), so that more students can access the materials they need to be successful in their college courses.  Given my experience as an undergraduate, I knew AL$ was something I definitely wanted to take advantage of for the college courses I currently teach.

I was initially apprehensive about finding anything relevant for my courses, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the open-source, freely available resources for science courses.  For example, in my initial searches I found an Introductory Chemistry text that covers all the material in my General Chemistry course.  For my Physical Science class, I also found two Introductory Physics texts.  More recently, I was directed to the OER commons website that also includes many terrific resources for introductory science courses.

Now that I have found such resources, the question is how to incorporate them into my courses?  It is not an automatic transition, because there are already prescribed texts for the larger science courses I teach. These prescribed texts have been agreed on through previous instructor and department meetings, and book orders have already been placed for the academic year.  As a starter, I have provided the aforementioned OER resources to my students, but I have still noted the department prescribed text in my syllabus.  I have also moved my homework activities from a publisher website that comes with the prescribed text to Blackboard instead, which is free for students.  As such, students are not tied to the prescribed text unless they prefer to buy it. Therefore, each of my 200+ students can now save themselves $100-250 each semester.  As for the long-term, broader discussions are needed across instructors and the department to see how AL$ can be embedded more so that all students can benefit.

Integrating Student Tablets Into Lectures

Over the spring semester and a week in the summer I completed a professional development course at Fresno State for an initiative known as DISCOVERe.  The purpose of the DISCOVERe program is to support faculty in redesigning their courses to leverage the benefits of tablets, so that students can improve their conceptual knowledge while also developing their technology skill-set.  I will be teaching my tablet-supported General Chemistry class starting next week with over 100 students.  I hope to share some of the things I learn over the course of the semester through blog posts and to gain insight from others.

Before taking the DISCOVERe course I was a little skeptical about students using tablets within a lecture-based approach.  From my research, I know many ways that educational technology benefits students' learning.  However, using tablets in lectures presented me with a mismatch of what is typically a teacher-centered approach and the student-centered approach that using tablets would require.  I realized that DISCOVERe was asking me much more than to simply use tablets.  DISCOVERe was asking me to question my role and my students' role within my classes in order to effectively leverage the benefit of tablets.

In terms of Chemistry Education, there are great and open-source simulations that help explain many microscopic concepts such as the atom, concentration or pH.  Such concepts are difficult for students to grasp given that such phenomena cannot be seen with the naked eye.  Some examples of helpful simulations to support students include PhET simulations, Molecular Workbench, and Chemcollective. Before the DISCOVERe program, I was using these resources in a mostly didactic manner through demonstrations, despite a Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) approach.  Students would make predictions about a phenomenon through iClickers, I would demo the simulation, and then I would call on individual students to offer explanations. 

The prediction part of my POE approach was fine, but the advantage of using tablets this semester is that my students can now simply follow a link to observe and explore the simulations, as opposed to being bored by observing me do a demonstration.  My role can now switch from demonstrating to ensuring all students are able to use the simulation on their own.  Further, through the DISCOVERe program, I had the opportunity to trial Socrative, which allows for students to submit open-ended responses.  I previously had obvious difficulty in getting a response from all students in a large lecture class given time constraints, but through Socrative all students have an opportunity to participate and share their ideas on the simulations.  I will be able to view student responses in real time to get a much broader sense of their understanding than before and know what conceptual challenges to target.

I am looking forward to thinking about other ways to take advantage of tablets in my course throughout the semester.  I can already see from the activities I am developing that there will be better opportunities for student engagement.  I think what might be challenging is if students are ready to see their role as taking more ownership.  Much of this responsibility can reside with individual students, but I can help this process by setting clear expectations of students' role at the beginning of the semester and by consistently using activities that align with such expectations.

10 Reasons to Use WISE as a Science Teacher

The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) is an inquiry learning environment that encourages student exploration in scientific investigations.  WISE is the product of over 20 years of international research and has an ever-expanding community of students, teachers, researchers, and software developers across the world.  If you are unfamiliar with WISE, here are 10 reasons you should consider using it as a science teacher!

1. Inquiry-based learning. WISE units engage students in the methods of real scientists. Through various activities and scaffolding tools, students collaborate to explore issues of social importance; they pose relevant questions and make predictions; they experiment with computational models; they work to evaluate and distinguish discrepant information; and they construct evidence-based explanations through reflection and discussion.  
2. Free and open source. WISE subsists on generous support from the National Science Foundation, which means it is available for anyone with a computer and internet connection to use.
3. A growing library of classroom-tested units. The WISE library offers a collection of units that address key conceptual difficulties students encounter in biology, chemistry, earth sciences, and physics. These units are designed to supplement teachers’ core curricular scope and sequence, and each has been iteratively refined through classroom-based research, and demonstrated improvements in students’ understanding. So whether teachers decide to use all the units or just one, WISE's library offers a rich and reliable resource that is being continually expanded and improved with modern and up-to-date technologies.
4. Standards-based science. WISE library units have been carefully crafted to fulfill core US national standards in reading, writing, math, and science at the middle and high school levels. What is more is that units can be easily adapted to address local standards. Units take a multidisciplinary approach to science so that even as students learn inquiry by interacting with simulations and visualizations, and by interpreting and articulating scientific evidence, they do so through activities that emphasize essential skills in reading, writing, and multimedia literacy.
   
5. Comprehensive instructional support. A WISE teacher account offers a suite of integrated tools for teachers to monitor students’ real-time progress, to facilitate grading and giving feedback, and to automatically score embedded assessments. These tools are continually refined through collaborations with practicing teachers, who understand the real challenges of managing modern classrooms. By facilitating these necessary but time-consuming tasks, teachers are free to focus on what makes them indispensable: Providing quality instruction to individual students.
6. Based on research, refined through practice. Through collaborations with teachers, technology designers, and education researchers, WISE has refined a set of principles, which guide the design of all WISE curriculum materials and tools.  These principles ensure the most effective use of technology, as they are advised by real teacher and student experiences.
7. Powerful learning technologies. WISE researchers collaborate with software design experts to create innovative curriculum-integrated technologies. Interactive visualizations and simulations; applications for drawing, diagramming and animating; and tools for collaborative brainstorming, discussion, and idea management, are each designed to develop in students the inquiry skills important for lifelong learning. Teachers can find them in the existing classroom-tested WISE library units, or they can add and customize their own through the easy-to-use WISE authoring tool.
8. Makes science meaningful. WISE units introduce students to complex science concepts through personally and socially relevant topics. Students determine the structure of detergent molecules by helping to clean the Gulf oil spill; they come to understand mitosis by investigating candidate cures for cancer; and they explore orbital and projectile motion by optimizing a path for deorbiting a space shuttle. Each unit uses a classroom-tested pattern of instruction that values the ideas students bring with them, helps them connect new information to their personal experiences, and integrates their various ideas into a coherent understanding of science.
9. Supports diverse learners. Individual students differ in their experiences, their interests, and their abilities. Some may excel at writing, while others may have a penchant for drawing. Some may speak multiple languages fluently, while others may be learning English as a second or third language. That is why WISE provides a variety of tools, activity patterns, and instructional scaffolds that afford multiple ways for expressing and assessing understanding. That way, no students’ abilities go unrecognized, and all have the chance to succeed.
10. Increases participation in science. WISE gives more teachers and students the opportunity to do inquiry-based science. Units often put students in the roles of scientists, and make difficult concepts accessible both for teachers to teach, and for students to learn. With tools and activities to support inquiry, WISE helps students see themselves as capable of doing science. It allows students to realize that no matter their backgrounds and abilities, science can be a potential future career.

Follow WISE updates on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

How I Learn

I recently wrote a blogpost for Anseo A Mhúinteoir (Irish for Here teacher) that asked for contributors to explain how they learn.  Below I have included the blogpost.  Anseo A Mhúinteoir are still looking for contributors.  I would encourage everyone to try it whether you blog or not.  It is a useful exercise to think about how you learn and as a teacher to find out the different ways that others learn.  Anseo A Mhúinteoir have a great variety of contributions from different people all with different ways of learning.

Here is my take on answering the question: 

How do I learn?

It is a difficult question to answer as learning is open to such varied interpretation.   If I was to consider my learning based on the domains in Bloom's Taxonomy (Cognition, Psychomotor, and Affective) I feel that I draw on all three domains.  The domains I draw on most depend on what it is that I am learning.

I believe to really learn something I first need to want to learn it (affective).  The topic to be learned has to connect to some part of my life and if it does, I will happily invest time and value in it.  Secondly, once I am interested in the topic, I find the cognitive aspects can be a natural progression (understanding, applying, evaluating, etc.).  I like to find out as much about the topic as possible and do not enjoy being limited by traditional demarcations of a subject/discipline.  My learning is done through an iterative process of my own research and discussion with others.   Discussion with others is particularly valuable if they have the same or a greater level of interest as it can enhance my interest further (more affective).  Activities that bring in the psychomotor domain can also bring variation and thus some additional enjoyment to learning the topic, but I still think the value of psychomotor activities is lost if I do not have the opportunity to connect it with the theory (cognitive).

Below I have noted some examples that help my learning under the three domains of affective, cognitive and psychomotor.  Some of the examples of course can fall under more than one domain, but for ease of presentation I have placed them under one domain.

Affective Domain 

-Discussion: A simple discussion to find out what other people know about a topic or why they might be interested in that topic can aid my learning.  If I see that a peer is interested in a topic it is helpful for my interest if I understand their reasoning for such interest.  A recent example is seeing what people post on various social media such as Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter and what they find valuable.

-Debate: A good debate is very helpful to my learning.  It encourages me to do my homework per se, so that I have sufficient evidence to support my arguments.  I retain such evidence as there is a context in which it becomes useful and that I can apply it to and evaluate it. The Twitter hashtag #edchatie has good debates every Monday night at 8:30 pm (GMT).

-Leisurely Reading: A good article, short story or book can open my mind to things I had not previously considered, but that I should. 

-Reflection: Everybody always seems to be in a rush with too much to do.  Immersion in the present can impede our perspective.  I find taking the time to reflect on things can be very insightful to the learning process.

Psychomotor Domain

-Experiments - Some people need to be constantly up and doing something.  I am quite happy to sit and ponder.  I enjoy being active, but I do not learn something by simply engaging the psychomotor domain.  I would want to go back to a desk and think about it, and make various notes for enhanced understanding and for future reference.

-Making models - I find making a model of something can be very helpful to understanding it while being physically engaged.  Models are particularly helpful for visualising a difficult concept.  Plus getting students to make models opens the door to ways of representing a phenomenon that you may never have thought of.  Hence, you gain and the students gain.

Cognitive Domain (Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating, Creating)

-Questions, questions and more questions - how I get the answers can vary.  The instructor, journals, books, online searches, blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.  The response rate and depth of knowledge varies for each one.  An important aspect of my learning through questioning is that I am not afraid to ask them and to admit I do not know something.

-Blogging: Blogging is something I only started last year, but it has done great things for my learning.  There are so many cognitive functions I need to draw on to write a post of any substance.  Constructing blog posts also feeds back into my affective domain.

-Creating mindmaps - I find creating mindmaps extremely helpful to my learning.  It allows me to see a topic in terms of the bigger ideas and how they connect, and it also breaks things down into finer detail.  I used to find it very difficult to remember concepts, as they were presented as fragmented bits of information.  The bigger ideas were often missing.  Taking the time to connect the dots helped me make more sense of the material and in turn, make further connections.

When teaching it can be a great activity to ask students to develop mindmaps in groups, and to compare and differentiate the mindmaps across these groups.  Download mindmapping software FreeMind for free.

-Mnemonics - I find mnemonics are very helpful to learning things.  For example, I have always remembered the names of the planets from the mnemonic My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us New Potatoes.  Of course, the mnemonic is outdated now, but I still remember it.  Check out this Mnemonic Generator.

-Tests - Tests receive an awful lot of criticism.  I believe many tests could be much more beneficial if people's approach to the tests were based around learning as opposed to getting good grades.  I used to have a terrible approach to tests.  I would try swallow the information and not think it through.  I got sick of it though and decided to re-engage with my learning for the love of learning as opposed to the love of a good grade.  Funny how it worked though, as it gave me better grades than I used to ever get! 

Teacher Engagement in Technology Use

The integration of technology in school classrooms commonly focuses on teachers, as they are ‘naturally’ the first person to consider (Zhao et al. 2002).  Zhao et al. (2002) explicate three features that influence technology integration related to teachers: technology proficiency, pedagogical compatibility, and social awareness. 

Firstly, in terms of technology proficiency, Schibeci et al. (2008) present a four stage framework that explains teacher progression in proficient technology use.  The first stage (Where’s the ON button?) relates to technical aspects of the technology and developing confidence in using it.  The second stage (Black line mastery) encompasses the use of the technology for tasks within current curricula.  The third stage (Routine student use) focuses on frequent use of the technology such that the technology becomes a transparent part of the learning process.  Finally, the fourth stage (What’s in the curriculum?) moves towards looking at the bigger picture of curriculum development and educational change that is prompted from using the technology.  These stages have similar characteristics to phases described by Mandinach and Cline (1994): survival, mastery, impact, and innovation (See Steve Wheeler’s blogpost ‘Shock of the new’ for more detail).  In a study of 12 schools, involving 200 teachers it was found that teachers demonstrated characteristics related to the first and second stages, a decreased number of teachers reached the third stage, and there was no concrete evidence to suggest any teachers had reached the fourth stage (Schibeci et al. 2008).

Secondly, pedagogical compatibility refers to how compatible a technology is with a teacher’s pedagogical beliefs.  Pedagogical compatibility could be encompassed as an intermittent stage between the second stage (Black line mastery) and the third stage (Routine student use).  If the technology does not agree with a teacher’s pedagogy, it is unlikely that the technology would reach routine use in the classroom. 

Thirdly, social awareness relates to a teacher’s ability to negotiate through the different intricacies of the school culture and could be viewed as underpinning the process towards the higher stages of technology proficiency.  Such social awareness can relate to factors impacting technology use such as perceptions of assessment and teacher empowerment (Donnelly et al. 2011), that teachers can feel are beyond their control and do not have time to address within hectic schedules.

The factors above focus on the teacher, but there are of course other factors that teachers can have little control over in relation to technology integration that have been alluded to above.  Zhao et al. (2002) describe two domains outside of the teacher that influence technology integration: the innovation itself and contextual factors.  Factors in terms of innovation relate to its distance from the status quo and how much it depends on other people or resources.  Factors in terms of contextual factors relate to organisational support, current resources in schools, and social support from other staff.

What factors most influence your incorporation of technology in the classroom?  Is it personal factors or external factors?  Is it both?

References

Donnelly, D., McGarr, O. and O'Reilly, J. (2011). A framework for teachers' integration of ICT into their classroom practice. Computers & Education, 57(2), 1469-1483.

Mandinach, E. and Cline, H. (1994). Classroom dynamics: Implementing a technology based learning environment. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Schibeci, R., MacCallum, J., Cumming-Potvin, W., Durrant, C., Kissane, B. and Miller, E.-J. (2008). Teachers' journeys towards critical use of ICT. Learning, Media and Technology, 33(4), 313-327.

Zhao, Y., Pugh, K., Sheldon, S. and Byers, J. (2002). Conditions for classroom technology innovations. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 482-515.

Image taken from the following link.