Artifact # 1 - Research Proposal
Multitasking - ETEC 500 - Research Methodology in Education Every teacher grapples with the dilemma of believing that there is definitely need for tech in the classroom, while at the same time worrying about the effects of said tech on students. Student technology wellbeing is at the heart of a lot of conversations happening in a lot of schools, because although we can clearly see the benefits of tech for learning, we can also see the problems that are being caused as well (sleep, physical health, relationships, productivity, general happiness etc…) When I was asked to think of my research interests for the Research Methods class, my mind immediately went to this topic. Most students wholeheartedly believe that they can listen to music, watch TV and/or communicate with friends online while doing school work without any detriment to learning and performance. I cannot begin to count how often my own students (who are 10 years old) ask me if they can listen to music while they do their work. From this assignment, I have been able to confidently let them know that music is indeed a distraction to their learning, and that when there’s music in the background, and especially music with vocals, our working memory gets worse (Byron, 2019). The best news I can tell my students is that listening to relaxing, lyric-less music, like classical music, is the best option to stay focused and on task. My guess is that this probably isn’t what they would reach to turn on themselves. I was lucky to have an opportunity for 2 years to participate in a committee at school centered around students and tech wellness. As a committee, we were tasked with creating a school wide policy for tech use in k-12 classrooms that centered around wellness in the classroom and at home. With this group I was able to bring forward some of the idea gathered from the research for this project, as well as to have continued conversations in an area of personal interest for me. Although there may be no easy, one size fits all answer to tech wellbeing, it is good to have these conversations and to include students in them as well. |
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Artifact # 2 - Book
Instructional Coaching by: Jim Knight - Personal Project This book is one that was recommended to me by a former principal, who was encouraging and supportive of my post grad endeavors. One aspirational goal of mine is to one day, possibly get into tech coaching or an integrator position. In his book, Jim Knight proposes the idea that coaching is the future of professional development as more traditional forms of professional development are not always effective, and that they generally have an implementation rate of about 10% (Knight, 2007). The book reviews the different types of instructional coaching, and suggests that coaching allows for teachers to design opportunities where they can work on-on-one or in small groups listening, demonstrating empathy, engaging in dialogue and communicating honestly. One big takeaway from the book is that at the heart of coaching, is the importance of understanding the theory behind what you are doing or teaching. Wright suggests that it is simply not enough to know a lot of ‘valuable information’ and then to choose inappropriate principles from which to base our actions. Wright suggests that all human action is based on theory and principles, and to fully understand what we stand for, we should think deeply about what principles we embrace for our work lives. It seems to me like perfect timing to read a book like this as I was approaching the end of this academic journey. Even in creating this portfolio, I have the opportunity to look back and think a lot about the theories which drive my passion for tech education, and now I am continuing by adding to that theory to different types of coaching. I look forward to getting back into the classroom next year, and towards whatever the future may hold me for professionally. |
Artifact # 3 - Blog Post
Speculative Futures- ETEC 540 - Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing For this assignment, we were asked to think about how technology and AI might impact the field of education in the next 50 years. There is no doubt that education is going to inevitably change in a big big way. In today’s classrooms, we are beginning to see technology used in more ways, from having access to personal devices, VR programs, individualized learning plans and coding. But, in the future, we are likely going to see that schools are no longer needed to prepare learners the way they once did for standard education, with skills they no longer need. The role of the teacher, long feared to be replaced by robots, seems unlikely. Instead, we should expect a revolution in which student learning becomes much more individualized, thanks to the boundless opportunities provided through AI, which allows us to to amplify and extend the capabilities of a classroom teacher to be much more efficient with their time and resources (Schmidt, 2017). This will save valuable time for teachers who would prefer to focus on their lesson planning and one-on-one time with students. Another possible future scenario sees one in which traditional classrooms become less and less common. AI has the potential to replace classrooms with virtual classrooms. We are beginning to see this more as online schools, tutoring and course offerings become more prevalent (Chen, 2019). It is likely that future e-learning will use technology that will deliver a course in the same way as happens in a typical classroom. The inherent characteristics of the lesson sequence in a face-to-face classroom which would be reproduced in the e-learning framework will be so “accurately replicated so that the learner will feel physically in the presence of both his or hear teacher and fellow classmates” (Strydom, 2015). **Initially, many of the above thoughts were about predicting the future, but upon further reflection, it is apparent that due to unforeseen circumstances (cough covid-19 cough), many schools are now in the future, delivering online content to kids from k-12. I guess this means that the future is beginning right now. |
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