Technology-Infused Teaching in the New Normal

Some exposition…

Educationalist since 1999

My ‘raison d’etre’ when it comes to teaching is reinforced by the following quotes from the late Sir Terry Pratchett:

“I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they are good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it’s too late.”

“Learning is about finding out who you are, what you are, where you are and what you are standing on and what you are good at and what’s over the horizon, and well, everything. It’s about finding the place where you fit.”

Tiffany Aching - I Shall Wear Midnight

I became a teacher out of necessity. I remained a teacher because I am making a difference. My classes have changed a lot over the decades, from rural-based private schooling to middle-income private schooling and now in a top-tier private school. All situated in Limpopo Province of South Africa, my students and I have had to be creative when it came to the unique challenges posed by our milieu.

A shift in the weather

Integrating technology on a formal basis happened for me while teaching Grade 7 English Home Language and Natural Sciences by introducing BYOD (bring your own device) programmes in my classes and by integrating the two subjects into one (we jokingly referred to it as Scinglish). My students and I lived in a bubble where technology was used as a learning tool and made their thinking and learning visible - our methods were not always received with open arms as was evident when we launched our first digital Science Fair (iKnowScience). We were allowed a display in our local mall and had QR codes on posters where parents and mall goers could access inquiry-based learning videos of the students’ science projects - no one who visited our stall had ever heard of QR codes…

Google Classroom was my next discovery and I implemented it in a desperate attempt to ensure that my Grade 8 and 9 classes were ready for their year-end exams (I had joined them at the start of the 3rd term and found some foundational gaps). Google Classroom enabled me to measure their progress and understanding and give bespoke feedback to support and grow my students’ skills and understanding.

When my school tasked me with running the Integrated Studies Programme (where subjects joined together in inquiry-based tasks and projects) I was delighted. It was also the most trying time of my career as I had never experienced such a wave of change-resistance in my life.

I learned a lot from this experience and it is based on this that I wish to share my vision of the New Normal in SA Education (albeit from a private school point of view).

A 3-Tiered Approach to Change in Education SA

We are facing two distinct paradigms in education at the moment:

Remote Teaching during Emergency Situations
Continued Technology-Infused Teaching & Learning Programmes

I believe that we have a unique opportunity here to lay the foundations for a more permanent change in how we teach and how our students learn.

Technology integration into teaching and learning is grossly misunderstood in most cases. The first thing most schools do is to buy tablets with either pre-loaded content (mostly based on either online learning platforms (no educator required and learning is self-driven) or synchronous learning programmes (online teaching with a tutor/mentor online at a certain time).

They will also buy access to online textbooks, only to cancel it after realising the futility of the endeavour.

When using technology in learning it should be a natural part of the LEARNING process - never an add-on and never included because of its ‘cool-factor’.

Our approach in times of high stress and no (or limited) access should consider a three-tiered approach.

The First Tier: Emotional & Social Support before Academic Support

There are students who live in vulnerable communities. Their needs will not be academic (immediately) we need to ensure emotional and social support here first. No one can be expected to learn anything when in a high-stress, fight-or-flight mode. It is physically impossible for the brain to access higher-order thinking needed for learning when survival is a priority. We need to care for MASLOW here before we can introduce BLOOM’s. So our first-tier focus will be on providing connection on a human level by ensuring that our students in these vulnerable communities have access to food, water and medical care. The next layer would be access to mentoring or counselling to deal with stress, anxiety and grief. These students are part of child-headed households in some cases and this requires a whole different set of priorities than providing online lessons.

While I did not wholly agree with our Government’s stance that students are now citizens and not learners, it does apply here in capital letters. Academics can be scaffolded and chunked and adjusted to ensure everyone can start learning once back at school.

Online learning would then be implemented after the fact, with school and community support regarding the accessibility. Schools can provide an afternoon or evening classes online or (best option in my view) dump traditional homework for student-driven online learning after hours. Examples: Integrated studies where two subjects join together to ensure skills and concepts are consolidated. This is ideal as time is a scarce commodity. Flipped integrated lessons and inquiry-based tasks per week where students can work in tutor groups or independently - completing consolidation tasks online in their own time and receiving support and feedback from teachers who will be measuring for mastery in understanding and application.

The Second Tier: Remote Academic Support

This could take the form, in my view, of teachers taking the core of the curriculum and content already mastered to create two types of learning spaces. When in a short-term situation (1-2 weeks) of forced-remote teaching, learning programmes should not be overly structured and rather guided by the student.

This would mean the inclusion of choice boards in either topic for learning, or format of creating final products for mastery measurement. This would include the teacher using KNOWN aspects (in our case Term 01 content and skill sets) included in activities that could be easily performed at home on platforms already known to students.

NO NEW platforms to be introduced here. Students have enough to deal with as it is. Schools would want to plan every moment of the day for students forgetting that they are intruding into a household and how each household is different! Using choice boards for HOW learning is done, giving multiple opportunities for contact with teachers and relaxed due dates, will be a good way of getting everyone settled in and used to this new way of learning. (Learning pack shared on Monday - due on Friday with a timeline of milestones given, for example.)

Another item to keep in mind is the value of reflection. Incorporating a reflection session at the end of a task/learning experience will shape the planning for the next session. Including reflective practices foster buy-in and students taking ownership of their learning. This is an effective way of finding workarounds for challenges experienced in the past week’s learning that teachers may not have been aware of. Parents will feel reassured that their circumstances are recognised and will become more supportive as a result.

The Third Tier will be the most exciting one of all...

What the future could hold - the new normal, established.

Third Tier: Continued Technology-Infused Teaching & Learning Programmes

Once teachers and students have upskilled and explored a variety of technological infusions into their teaching tool sets they can start working on implementing these on a more permanent basis in their everyday teaching This could herald the biggest shift in thinking in education in decades.

I have mentioned ‘measurement of mastery’ a few times before in this blog entry and this is where it will become most useful.

When we shift education planning and strategies away from measuring memory through standardised testing exams and tests, we open up a spectrum of mastery measurement that is usually lost or hidden under the banner of ‘continuous assessment tasks’.

When we shift from assessment mindsets to a mastery-measurement mindset we accomplish the following:

Opportunity to scaffold learning for support and extension on an individual basis with minimal effort or added workload on either side of the learning setting.
Bespoke pre-completion feedback that drives growth and learning simultaneously
Post completion feedback that means much more than a percentage, speaking into the next task and improving skill sets and understanding exponentially.
A bigger picture of the whole learning process of each student becomes not only visible, but measurable. Would you rather know that your child/student did not master 40% of the work (60% for a test) or that he/she/they have mastered specific concepts through understanding and application while others need more refinement (and these would be specified with measures to take to ensure 100% mastery)?

I would hope that we can move away from industrial revolution-type thinking when strategising the next step in education. We have an opportunity here. Let’s seize the moment and lead our students into a new experience where their voice and choice helps them learn in a way that makes sense to them. Giving them the tools to excel where they live and think and where their strengths lie.

Imagine a school system that helps students identify their IKIGAI and design their learning around that...imagine!

I end off with a last Terry Pratchett quote that guides my teaching-learning-journey every day:

“I found where I fit, and I would like everybody else to find theirs”

- Tiffany Aching: I Shall Wear Midnight

Yours in education