Salon #5: Are Free Tools Worth the Price?

"Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this and that" - Neil Postman

Salon #4: Technology and Social Studies

"Technologies as tools that amplify and extend fundamental human capacities to observe, understand and communicate about the world- tools that give us rich data, help us manipulate and think about it, and connect us with others around it in new and powerful ways." - Bill Tally

The article titled “Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education” was the trigger of our discussion in Salon #4 with Brenda. Author Bill Tally raised thoughtful criticisms of the realities of education, revealed undeniable descriptions of technology integration into classrooms, put forth challenging questions for readers to consider, but most importantly he deposited hope and faith that “technologies do have a role in making social studies teaching and learning more lively, more rigorous, and more grounded in problems that matter to students and their communities”.

At first, I was convicted by Tally’s description of teachers today who uses technology to do exactly what they’ve done for years – for example, showing a video clip from the Internet rather than putting on a VHS or using the SmartBoard to give notes just as if it was a blackboard with the same set of notes in chalk. Throughout the article and discussed during the salon, I was inspired to go beyond the superficial use of technology in the classroom but be reminded of the “why” and “to what end” rather than being obsessed with the “how”. I questioned myself about the reason why I’m teaching students American History and I came up with a few good answers. First of all, I want to cultivate patriotic and responsible citizens for the sake of the future – so gaining an appreciation of the nation’s foundation is a good way to start. Secondly, I want to promote understanding of themes in society – the cause and effect, the triumphs and failures, the rights and responsibilities, the chronology of struggles, long term and short. Lastly, I want to inspire future historians and makers of the next chapters of history.

Doesn’t that sound great? I think so! Yet, I’m sad to report that the reality of my classroom is far from these ideals.

Unlike the ideas celebrated in Tally’s article, I cannot “slow down” or “dig deeper” in my teaching – on the contrary, I need to constantly rush through the curriculum as fast as I can before June to prepare my students with basic facts and ready for 8th grade Social Studies teachers to pick up exactly where we left off on the timeline and inject more knowledge to fill in as many blanks as possible to get them all ready for the New York State assessment exam at the end of the year, which includes both 7th and 8th grade material. So how do I reconcile what I want to achieve as an educator and what I am able to do in the classroom? Is “deeper learning” better at such a young age? Tally criticized many poor assignments given in which recipe rubrics and points given for following specific requirements. I am guilty of giving such rubrics and I also agree that micromanaging student “creative” projects will get me closer to my goals as a teacher. Yet, in order to be “fair” in order to make grading 120 projects manageable and save myself from biased judgment of “creativity”, I am forced to issue such rubrics.

In the article, Tally also addresses common WebQuests that serves as a web-based scavenger hunt for students to gather information and fill in a worksheet. Unfortunately, I too am guilty of this poor design. So I looked at the Museum Box project and was immediately floored – meaning, I was fascinated by the brilliancy of this activity. The project does not want students to spit back information on a worksheet or answer questions about a document – rather asks them to gather, digest and present information for others to access. What is your message and how can you explain all of it on a six-sided cube. According to Tally’s list of “human capacities to observe, understand and communicate about the world”, the museum box encourage students to take ownership of their design and give them means to be creative by allowing them to select their mediums (e.g. document, video, images, etc.) of presenting information. Students will likely come across more information that can be included on each cube so the project also foster students’ ability to dissect and digest the information – to understand it fully and eliminate unnecessary aspects when creating the final presentation. I think the Museum Box definitely require students to utilize analysis and synthesis skills according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. I guess my only question would be, if this was an assignment given to students, how do I grade it? Is it back to the detailed rubric? If so, how many points do I give for “creativity”? The ultimate question in my mind is how to measure true creativity in Social Studies education?

Lost Generation: AARP Poetry Contest Winner

This is probably the most amazing and thoughtful poem I've read in a long time - enjoy.

Final Version: BubbleShare Tutorial

This is the final version of the BubbleShare Tutorial - Enjoy!

Flash Assignment Proposal: The Beringia Project

There are so many lessons I wish I can make a flash animation for and I have to start somewhere - so here's the proposal for my first attempt at creating a flash animation to help me explain the infamous Land Bridge Theory to my 7th grade students! Hopefully I'll be able to share the final product with you soon - stay tuned...

F*L*A*S*H* and Beyond

Flash is amazing! I’ve always been fascinated by the simple animations that jumps across the screen or the dog that wags his tail at the bottom of the page or the dancing ladies in a credit report advertisement on the side of a website! After looking at the various sites for this assignment, it is obvious that flash is so much more and can meet so many purposes. First of all, flash can be used to draw out interaction with the viewer, allowing him/her to participate and contribute to the progression of the animation.

In the case of Carnegie Hall’s music adventure, the user is asked to drag scrambled icons into correct positions and learn the creation of symphonies. Along the way, users can access information about instruments and other musical terminology. Similarly, the dress up game allows users to be creative and take ownership of design. In a classroom, teachers can motivate students with games that allow students to personalize projects and thus feel more vested in their own learning. Speaking of motivation, the mystery hunt for George Washington’s painting activity is another perfect example of taking something as mundane as a portrait and turning it into a scavenger hunt and students are required to read the information in order to finish the mystery case. Consider the various alternatives, which is to ask students to look at a static painting and read a paragraph of information next to it. Last but not least, I was impressed with the interactive storytelling timeline of PBS: Not For Ourselves Alone site. Although the information was available in static text, the voice of primary documents and narrated history of the Women’s Suffrage Movement was a powerful learning tool. The activity allowed students to the control the speed of the story and users were free to jump ahead of review previous portions of the story.

All of these forms of flash animation let the teachers in this new era of computers to interact with students and facilitate learning in a new way. Now the question remains, how will individual classroom teachers acquire the skill and afford the time to create such brilliant flash activities that will result in authentic and valuable learning experiences?

Schools That Learn: Classroom Discussion

Module Response: Developmental Psychology

When students approach abstract concepts at different stages of their academic career, they often use rote memory because it has proven to be a successful method in the past and perhaps it’s the auto-pilot response. There are different schools of thoughts regarding developmental psychology in relation to students’ approach to new and abstract concepts.

According to Piaget’s theory of schema organization, all human beings develop by passing through “natural” stages – the mastery of one stage bring the individual to begin the next stage, etc. Students formulate various schemas throughout their early developmental stages and as they mature, they encounter situations that don’t fit their existing schema. Therefore, one strategy that a teacher might use to trigger learning is to present students with scenarios or examples that challenge their existing knowledge and/or system of approach to solve a problem. For instance, if students know that all birds can fly, then the teacher will give examples of birds that cannot fly; or if students know that a Supreme Court decision is final, then teachers will give examples of Supreme Court decision being overturned by later decisions, etc. In both situations, the teacher threw the kid out of balance – in Piaget’s terms, teachers’ job is to create disequilibrium in order to bring about active advancement in learning. Piaget also believe in using peers of similar developmental level to find a way to fix the disequilibrium created by the teacher – either by assimilation or by accommodation. Students will hopefully bring the new concept/example into existing schemas or work on changing the existing schemas to include the new concept/example. Overall, the role of the teacher is to point out the “conflicts and inconsistencies” in the students’ thinking and give enough guidance to encourage advancement of cognitive development.

According to Vygotsky’s socio-cultural perspective of learning, student’s cognitive development does not follow a universal “natural” progression of stages. Instead, Vygotsky believes that the interaction with the cultural environment surrounding an individual determines cognitive development. A teacher has a more important role in Vygotsky’s theory because teachers will need to be models for students to imitate and advance. An useful strategy would involve the teacher giving students a problem that is a little beyond what the student is capable of solving but does not seem to be impossible (in another words, a problem in which the solution is difficult but feasible). The student is then surrounded by individuals with higher abilities and through the mere interactions and scaffolding provided by these advanced individuals, students will learn the new and abstract concepts. This theory is very much dependant on the student’s interaction with the environment and people, such as teachers, parents, siblings, etc. However, many circumstances often keep parents and/or teachers from giving each child the individual attention and help needed for proper development. Therefore, technology can help to provide some of the missing interaction time of a student’s life. For example, if the parents/guardians of a student is not available after school to help him/her with homework, the student can use communication tools such as Skype or Instant Message to communicate with mentors, tutors, teachers or relatives.

Module Response: Complex Cognitive Processes

Perhaps one of the most difficult and abstract concepts to teach in U.S. Government is the system of checks and balances between the three branches of the national government. When faced with a difficult concept, it is always wise to explore different approach and see which one would fit the developmental understanding of your audience’s age group. For me, I need to find the least confusing but most effective method for my 7^th graders not only to understand but to be able to transfer this knowledge to other systems of our society that would benefit from “checks and balances”. There are two key principles of “checks and balances” – first, the principle that each branch of the government has the right to limit the other two branches from abusing their powers; second, the principle that each branch often are limited by the other two branches. Sounds confusing, doesn’t it?

According to Bruner’s discovery learning, teachers will have to first provide examples and guide students to work on these examples until the students find the fundamental idea/ subject structure of the abstract concept. Students will first be presented with different powers given to each of the three branches of the government (legislative, executive, judicial), specifically powers that set restrictions on the other two branches. After all the examples of powers are presented, teacher will ask a guiding question – “which of these powers are related to each other?” For example, the presidential veto is an executive power that sets restriction on the legislative power of Congress to make laws. From there, students will be able to work through the other examples and find that although each branch possesses powers to limit the actions of the two branches, each branch also is subject to the limitation set by the other two branches. Although Bruner’s model is time consuming, I believe that since the students discovered the relationship between the branches of government on their own, the understanding becomes more intrinsic and it will allow a more meaningful transfer later on. Technology can definitely create a helpful visual of the relationship between the three branches of government. An interactive diagram of the three branches can be created for the students to click & drag different powers to the correct branch. Then the students can create different color arrows to show how each branch can “check” and “be checked”.

According to Ausubel’s exposition teaching, teachers will first have to explain the fundamental concept by using an advance organizer, which will serve as an “introductory statement” about the information that is about to be presented. In the case of teaching “checks and balances”, teachers will start with the definition of “checks and balances” and a triangular diagram showing the three branches of government along with all the powers possessed by each of the branches. Then the teacher will then move on to demonstrate the first example of the concept, which has already been defined and (hopefully) understood by the students. The teacher will show that although the executive branch of the government has the power to veto, the legislative branch of the government has the power to override the veto. Following the initial example, students will pick another power of a specific branch (ex. the executive power to appoint federal judges) and determine which other branch is affected/limited by this specific power. Technology will probably serve a similar function in the Ausubel’s model as it did in the Bruner’s model – the presentation of an interactive diagram, which will allow students to draw arrows from one branch of the government to another to show the ways in which they can “check” and “balance” each other to prevent the abuse of power by any one branch.

The concept of “checks & balances” will probably be very difficult to transfer. Teachers will need to ask guided questions and perhaps give another example of a system of “checks & balances” that is not related to the structure of our government. Teacher might ask students to consider other situations in which there are divisions of powers – for example, the powers divided between parents/guardians/stepparents, between coaches/teachers, etc. As soon as students identify a similar structure, teachers should create a diagram that will help students recall their work from the three-branches-of-government example. If students can clearly identify different powers belonging to each of the groups in the new scenario and demonstrate the relationship between each of the groups, then transfer will most likely take place. An extension of this activity will be to allow students to find a situation in society that will benefit from having a “checks & balance” system in order to prevent the abuse or misuse of power.

Module Response: Metacognition & Self-Regulation

Metacognition, the process of thinking about thinking, sounds like something impractical that belongs solely in the realm of theory at first, but it’s actually very relevant to the means of teaching and learning. Students who have trouble solving problems in a cumulative assessment probably lacked the mastery of various skills that were introduced and thus a conscious learning process must take place in order to be better prepared. According to the “Metacognition” article written by Halter, there are two types of learners – novice and expert. A novice learner goes through the motions of learning and leave retention of the information to chance. On the other hand, an expert learner takes the time to think about the process of learning, evaluate what works and what doesn’t, and make appropriate adjustments to behavior based on reflection. The difference between these two methods of learning can be seen in the result – although the ways of an expert learner might seem time consuming at first, but after metacognition becomes an automatic approach to learning anything new, it will prove to be more efficient

Similar to metacognition, self-regulation requires students to be actively aware of their learning and be intrinsically driven to reach specific goals. According to Woolfolk and Schunk, having a reachable and challenging goal will increase self-control because students will strive to narrow the gap between their current understanding of a topic and the stated goal. Having a clear goal causes learners to identify factors that contribute to reaching that goal, which is directly related to being aware of his/her thinking (metacognition)! Not only do learners seek knowledge about themselves, they analyze other aspects of reaching their goal such as the subject of study, the tasks at hand and how to maximize the time allotted for these tasks, etc.

There are many strategies that educators can use to help students develop metacognition and self-regulation so that they not only become more efficient when learning new information, they will be able to apply their knowledge appropriately. For example, when students learn to conjugate a verb in different tenses (either in English or in a foreign language), the teacher usually focus on one verb tense at a time – starting with repeated practice of different verbs in the present tense then moving on to the past tense, etc. By the end of the unit on conjugation, many students will confuse the usage of different tenses on a cumulative test although they’ve mastered the assessment at the end of each section within the unit. One way to improve this scenario is for teachers to steer clear of merely teaching a behavior – for example: “students, for past tense, just add ‘-ed’ at the end of every verb”. Instead, after teaching the past tense, teachers should ask students to record how they’ve associated the verb tense with the new information about conjugation. If the students keep an organized record of how they individually learned new material, they will soon see a pattern of their strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge becomes a guide to how the student should face new information, which allows monitoring, reflection and adjustment of behavior and approach. Knowing what works and what doesn’t gives students ownership of their learning and teach them how to cope with future unfamiliar circumstances.

Technology can prove to be extremely useful in gathering students analysis of their own learning process, creating an organized archive of past experiences and most importantly, helping students make sense of their thinking patterns. For example, at the end of the unit on conjugating verbs in the past tense, students can fill out an online survey (e.g. surveymonkey) created by the teacher. While questions about the content will evaluate WHAT the students have learned, the metacognition survey will require students to think about HOW they were able to master the information. The survey will facilitate students’ consideration of their goals, their level of motivation, their time management and what worked vs. what didn’t. After filling out a survey, students would be asked to make any conclusions they’ve reached after being “forced” (by the survey) to consider all the different factors that contribute to learning. I truly believe that students might come up with shockingly revealing insight about their own learning that will benefit them for the rest of their academic career and beyond!

Lastly, I was also very impressed with the description of “academic controversy” in the article written by David & Roger Johnson. It reminded me of a mock debate in my Social Studies classes, in which students become extremely motivated and want to be more than prepared to defend their point of view against the attacks of others. So many times, students are not given the chance to have a point of view because they’re simply told what to think. For example, while teaching the debate for the independence of the 13 American colonies – instead of putting up a “pros vs. cons” chart on the blackboard and giving students notes about the two sides of the debate, why not let the students take a side and really debate the issue? Knowing that there will be opponents next day in class, students will be self-regulated and a lot more motivated to research and refine their arguments. Technology can definitely facilitate this process because sometimes in a classroom of 30 students under the time pressure of a 42-minutes period simply isn’t enough to hear everyone’s point of view. So teachers can set up a forum online, such as a blogmeister or a quicktopic, in which students can continue to comment on each other’s arguments outside the classroom.

Meeting Ann Rinaldi

The Independence Park Institute (IPI) held an Educators' Open House on Jan. 26th, 2008 at the Independence National Historical Park and invited author Ann Rinaldi as the keynote speaker. Ann Rinaldi is the author of many amazing historical fictions for young people. Rinaldi's books are based on key turning points in American History and characters depicted in the stories capture the powerful emotions, conflicts, perspectives of the time.

At the seminar, Rinaldi describe the research that was involved with every project - since all her books are based on historical events or historical figures, Rinaldi is careful not to recreate or misrepresent history. Rinaldi expressed that in her writing, she refuse to put words into historical characters' mouths without proofs from historical documents. I was extremely impressed by her knowledge and dedication to historical authenticity - I'm sure being someone as creative as she is, it is so much easier to make things up! At the same time, I cannot imagine the catastrophic impact it will have in her young readers if the history behind Rinaldi's stories are inaccurate or poorly researched. Young people are drawn to stories and they remember story plots much better than textbooks - sometimes, in attempt to understand the background of a story, students are intrinsically motivated to do research on their own hoping to find the truth.

Some books tell the stories of famous American characters:
"Or Give Me Death" - A Novel of Patrick Henry's Family
"Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons" - The Story of Phillis Wheatley
"Finishing Becca" - A Story about Peggy Shippen and Benedict Arnold

Some books are based on important events in American History:
"A Break With Charity" - A Story about the Salem Witch Trials
"The Fifth of March" - The Story of the Boston Massacre
"Cast Two Shadows" - The American Revolution in the South

Secretly, I've always loved literature and felt strongly about using historical fiction as a enrichment tool to teaching history to young people. I am inspired by Ann Rinaldi's passion for American History, her courage to discuss controversy, and her creativity through storytelling.

Many times, I hear students complain about how disconnected their classes are, how they have to change gears every 40 minutes throughout a school day walking from English to Math to Spanish, etc. I am hoping to collaborate with the English teacher of my students and design a curriculum that incorporates English and Social Studies. Perhaps this could be a good start to true interdisciplinary collaboration at Herricks Middle School!

Module Response: Cognitivism

Question: How could software applications and/or other technologies help you provide opportunities for your students to access their prior knowledge and better organize new information? That is, describe a lesson for which you might use technology to help with organization and describe the technology(ies) you might use.

Response: According to the cognitive views of learning, the learners learn best when new information is linked to prior knowledge and put into an organized storage in the long-term memory for future revival. In social studies, there is a lot of information that seems abstract to students because its difficult for young people to truly imagine life, situations, decisions, debates, reasonings and circumstances outside of their own world - heck, I don't even think they fully understand even that! For example, its hard for the students to imagine why colonial women would wear uncomfortable corsets and burdensome wigs as symbols of wealth - no matter how many times I explained that it was a sign of beauty and indication of socio-economic class, they respond with: "... but that's just ugly and its so stupid to put yourself in so much pain!" Fortunately, history is filled with predicable patterns and themes! Therefore, its easy to find present day scenarios that are already in the students' prior knowledge and make the connection to historical concepts - thus providing a better system of organization for future retrieval of information.

Technology can definitely help learners organize new information by tapping into familiar prior knowledge. Referring back to the colonial gentry wardrobe example - a software can be designed to ask modern & age-specific questions that would trigger a natural response... like "what clothings are uncomfortable?" - this question is easy for students of all ages to answer. The follow-up question on the next screen could be "why do people wear them?" - which should also be easily answered. These two trigger questions will help the students understand the seemingly unreasonable choice of clothing for colonial women would be less foreign. Where does technology come in? Well, students would probably respond well to games - so if a software program organize information thematically into parallel flow charts and invite students to try the modern scenario first (high heels --> uncomfortable --> but it looks good) and right under this chart students can organize the new information in familiar flow chart (corset --> uncomfortable --> but it shows off wealth). This flow chart can link so many repeated themes throughout so many different time periods in history - matching cause and effect, action and reaction, long-term cause and short term cause/effects, conflict and resolution, etc. History often seems daunting to young people because they think it has nothing to do with them today... but software programs can teach them how to learn and organize historical information in the same format as their understanding of their own world.

Module Response: Constructivism

QUESTION: Constructivist learning environments focus on giving students authentic, real-world, ill-structured problems to solve. What methods (based on your readings) could you as a teacher use (with or without technology to support you) to facilitate this process? That is, how would you provide scaffolding for students in a given environment (you might want to use a specific lesson/learning environment as a way to discuss scaffolds).

RESPONSE: In order to create a constructivist learning environment, students must have the prior knowledge to be able to approach an ill-structured problem. For instance, a broad 7th grade American History topic would be the American Revolution. If the students are expected to study the contribution of Revolutionary heroes, the ill-structured question would probably be - "Which Revolutionary figure do you think is the most under appreciated in American history?" Students in the class must first study the basic storyline of the American Revolution in order to scaffold their knowledge base. Perhaps a biographical research project would introduce the concept of different types of contribution of individuals to a specific cause such as independence. For example, Thomas Jefferson's eloquent composition skills used in the writing of the Declaration of Independence or Nathan Hale's risky spying on the British that resulted in the lose of his life, etc. From studying the renown historical characters, students will learn to identify various forms of contribution and its significance in the context of a historical event. In addition, to further scaffold students' prior knowledge, they can pick the top contributors into an imaginary Revolutionary Hall of Fame - this activity would give the students practice in evaluating different actions of historic figures and ranking their importance. Hopefully, these basic skills would provide enough building block and scaffolding when students approach the problem of finding an under-appreciated hero or heroine of the American Revolution. Lastly, it would be intrinsically motivated because in order to pick the best candidate, students will want to get as much information as possible on different characters in order to make a clever choice.