“If
we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”
(John Dewey, 1859 - 1952)
The learning
outcome for this activity was to examine the usability of a Student
Response System in the classroom. My intent was to use discussion to uncover some of the positive and negative aspects
of using Student Response Systems (SRS) in the classrooms of my fellow students.
Planning
From the outset it
was obvious that a challenging part of this activity would be to gather the
learners together for a 30 minute activity. Planning therefore centered around
the use of an asynchronous approach which would allow each student to access
the material, comment and revisit as their schedules allowed. It was also
obvious that due to the lack of direct support, the method of facilitation
would need to be a tool or system that was easily accessible and one that everyone
had some familiarity with. Initially I was intending to use a blog (my online
portfolio) for this purpose however through my subsequent participation with
the ' XXX Community' page I realised that setting up a Google + (G+) community of my own was more a suitable
and dynamic medium for this activity (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Online facilitation activity initial setup
My activity was
designed to use a short introductory video about some of the features of SRSs
(in this case Socrative ) as a method of ensuring that all students had a base
knowledge of the subject before they participated in the discussion. The video
was recorded using Adobe Captivate and simulated a typical classroom setup of
Socrative, showcasing some of its more useful features. This was then followed
by three discussion questions centred around the usability of an SRS - whether the technology
aligned with the student's own pedagogy, how this tool could be used in their
classroom and what issues could be seen with the use of this technology. Finally
an exit question was used to gauge whether the activity was useful to the
student - this was a broad indicator to highlight whether the activity needed
changes. The lesson plan contained within Annex A outlines the activity plan in
detail.
Post-Activity Evaluation
Establishing a community
One of the main
issues I had with this activity was that there didn't appear to be a cohesive
learning community within the XXX class to begin with. The cause of this is
unknown however Lehman and Conceição (2013)
highlight the importance that faculty play in maintaining student engagement
and retention in online studies. Whatever the reason, by establishing my own G+
Community I was attempting to create the conditions that appeared to be missing
from the XXX community. In hindsight, this was an ambitious task hampered
by the last minute establishment of my community which meant that the students
were not familiar with my site. In any future use of this approach, I think I
would create the community site a lot earlier and add content relevant to the
learner and the activity. In this particular case I could have published my 'technology
for learning' content on my community site rather than on my blog, raising the site
awareness and engagement of my fellow students which in turn may have made them
more likely to participate in the activity.
Engaging the lurkers
While most of the XXX students did joined my G+ Community, some did not participate. This
behaviour is known as 'lurking'; an activity whereby nonparticipants are able
to observe the social behaviour and content of a site (or technology) before
they become involved (Savin-Baden &
Sinclair, 2011). In this case while the lack of involvement by the
lurkers was frustrating, it did give me an insight into the realities and
challenges of operating a digital classroom. One thought I did consider was whether
I should have opened this activity up to a wider public audience. While this
would mean that the activity was being accessed from people outside the group,
it may have allowed more discussion around the chosen topic and potentially
drawn the lurkers into the conversation.
Establishing
persistent discussion
Due to this
activity being asynchronous (Figure 2) it was difficult to get a persistent and
enduring discussion going - comments were generally given once only. Although
it is tempting to suggest that a synchronous approach would address this
deficiency, I still think that my chosen method remains valid as it offers
students a chance to respond at their own pace allowing a more considered
response (Hew & Cheung, 2012). While
my initial thoughts on the reasons for this lack of discussion centred on the
absence of a XXX community, Hew and Cheung (2012) suggest that there are a number of reasons why students can
be reluctant to participate, including the lack of a response from the
instructor (me in this case). In this area I know I could do better. Although I
did respond to some of the initial comments, as more students posted I found my
involvement reduced. At the time, I justified this as 'letting the students
take over the discussion' but in hindsight I realise that they still required
the facilitator to guide and support the conversation. If I was to run this
activity again I would make an effort to respond more frequently with the
caveat that the responses would attempt to push the comments back towards the
other students as a method of increasing peer-to-peer interactions.
Figure 2 Screenshot of asynchronous discussions
A wider use of technology
Having now seen the
other facilitation activities I can see that there are a variety of approaches
to the same requirement. Some used a community site like mine, while others
embedded videos into Google documents and forms. While I created my own video
(Figure 3), others researched and used a pre-produced videos - these are all
valid approaches. On reflection what struck me was the skill-sets that teachers
must now possess. Not only do they have administer the digital classroom, they
also must maintain their pedagogy, teach the appropriate content, maintain
student engagement as well as providing expert IT support when required. Even
though my exposure to these requirements was short, it is not difficult to see
that operating a digital classroom is very demanding. If I was to run this type
of activity again (perhaps to a larger group) I would establish a support community
to help me with some of the more intricate technology requirements.
Figure 3 A new skill set - Creating a Youtube video using Adobe Captivate 8
Case-in-point was
the creation of my introduction video (Figure 3) which I immediately recognised
was outside my current skill-set. Luckily, the video I created was short and so
did not require too much 'up-skilling' to achieve a useable product. Despite
this new found knowledge I recognised that it took up a lot of my time to produce,
distracting me from the actual content. In the future I would either out-source
this requirement (my organisation has videographers) or more likely, use
content that is already available on sites such as YouTube as some of the other
students did. In this manner I can concentrate on the content and pedagogy
rather than the technology.
The development and
facilitation of an online activity has been a valuable experience. Sometimes it
is difficult to see how to practically implement technology such as Google+ and
YouTube. In creating this activity as well as being involved in my fellow
students work, I have gained a valuable insight into the practical usage as
well as the pros and cons of online learning. While it is a daunting prospect
to push new approaches and technology into the classroom, it is only through
trial and error that we can advance our teaching practice towards achieving better
learning outcomes.
References
Annex A: Online Facilitation Lesson Plan.
Lesson Plan:
Online Facilitation - Student
Response Systems (SRS)
|
Resources:
Teacher
and students require internet access and a Google account. Ensure that these
are setup before the activity begins.
|
Introductory Activity:
·
Outline the purpose of the activity to the
student;
To examine the usability of a Student Response System in the classroom.
·
Students are directed to a short video which
outlines some of the capabilities of Socrative, a Student Response System.
Students will use this information to reflect and comment on how this type of
technology may be applied in their classroom.
|
Lesson Outline:
Discussions are asynchronous
allowing students to logon at anytime and from anywhere. Once students watch
the video and comment against the questions below, the comments will allow
more discussion around the practical application of SRS technology in the
classroom.
|
Questions |
|
How would you use a tool like
Socrative in your classroom?
Discussion Points
|
|
What issues can you see with
using this technology?
Discussion Points:
|
|
Tell me about how a Student
Response System aligns (or doesn't) with your own pedagogy?
Discussion Points:
|
|
Exit question: Was this activity
useful to you?
Final question to gauge whether
this activity needs improvement (broad measure). Students can make comments
if they wish.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment