Communicating with Teachers for Successful Technology Integration.

Communicating with Teachers for Successful Technology Integration.

So this week I was asked to reflect on what the top three things to communicate to a specific stakeholder group.  I think teachers are the most important stakeholder group for a successful technology integration so I’ll focus on this stakeholder group.  Teachers can help parents and the community visualize how such technology is indeed a critical component of preparing students to be affectively engaged citizens with the skills necessary to be successful in an ever changing job market that focuses on the utilization of technology and critical thinking.  While all the other stakeholder groups do indeed have an important voice, I don’t think a 1:1 initiative is ever going to be effective or gain traction with the community until the teachers become passionate about what the technology and how it can truly transform education for all students in the classroom.

So what are the three most topics to address with teachers?

1.       How will this improve upon what I’m already doing and better serve all of my students?

The vast majority of teachers care deeply about their craft and have likely invested thousands of hours to develop educational lessons and projects that they feel are affective toward helping students engage with the content and understand concepts.  Such lessons are likely based on strong pedagogical backgrounds, professional memberships & collaborations, journal readings, and conferences.  While I often toss out lessons that I know are no longer affective, I’m generally more comfortable with updating them so that I can still utilize the components I know are affective with students.  So showing teachers how they can take their years of lesson design and bring it into the 21^st century will be an essential component of any successful technology implementation.    

2.       How will this save me time and improve my instruction?

I love technology, but honestly I’m not one to use technology just for the sake of doing so and will often do things the old fashion way if it takes less time and the results are just as good.  As a science teacher I often seem all sorts of gizmos that come along for use in the classroom from pH meters to computer simulators.  Why buy a $300 pH meter when $5 pH test strips can test of pH in less time and for a lot less cost.   Technology should save time, open up windows to learning, and provide access to information that just isn’t easily accessible without it.  Any technology integration should pass this simple test and if it can’t then I think its value should be challenged.

3.       How will I be trailed so I feel comfortable enough to use this with students?

Unfortunately the item that never gets adequately budgeted for is training.  I know far too many schools who have wonderful Smartboards or have started 1:1’s but if you talk to the teachers in the classroom you’ll often find they really don’t know what to do with the technology.  Those that are engaging with the technology often have just taught themselves and connected with others with others who are also learning as they go.  However, in most schools the number of self-taught users of technology is rather limited to those already comfortable with other forms of technology.  This is no way to bring about a transformative implementation of technology and certainly is a poor economic on the part of school corporations.  Teachers must be trained and given the skills to be successful.

I would love to hear your thoughts as to what you feel are the most important topics to address with teachers when implementing technology integration. 

Dr. Lance Brand

Using educational technology is vital to the development of critical thinking for 21st century students!

Using educational technology is vital to the development of critical thinking for 21^st century students!

What is critical thinking and why is it so important?

Critical thinking is the process of examining, analyzing, questioning, and challenging situations, issues, and information of all kinds. We use it when we raise questions about:

• Survey results
• Theories
• Personal comments
• Media stories
• Our own personal relationships
• History
• Scientific research
• Political statements
• And (especially) conventional wisdom, general assumptions, and the pronouncements of authority

Critical thinking is an important tool in solving community problems and in developing interventions or initiatives in health, human services, and community development.  Critical thinking is the best way to solve problems since it requires looking at an issue from several standpoints before reaching a final decision. In history, both Socrates and Buddha preached about the important role that critical thinking plays in an individual’s ability to reasonably reflect on an issue and subsequently decide what to do or believe.

The ability to think critically is one skill separating innovators from followers. Critical thinking involves being thrown into the questioning mode by an event or idea that conflicts with your understanding of the world and makes you uncomfortable. If you allow yourself to respond to the discomfort -- that's partially an issue of personal development -- you'll try to figure out where it comes from, and to come up with other ways to understand the situation. Ultimately, if you persist, you'll have a new perspective on the event itself, and will have broken through to a more critical understanding.

How can technology be used to enhance critical thinking development?

In order for students to affectively learn critical thinking skills the instruction must be:

·         Motivated – the student should be deliberately practising in order to improve skills
·         Guided – the student should have some way of knowing what to do next
·         Scaffolded – particularly in early stages, there should be structures preventing inappropriate
activity
·         Graduated – tasks should gradually increase in complexity
·         Feedback – the student should have some way of telling whether a particular activity was
successful or appropriate

Modern computers and handheld devices can assume some of the burden of guidance, scaffolding and feedback, so that student practice activities are better quality and the teacher’s input has greater effect.

Here you will find an annotated list of key online resources about technologies that can be used to facilitate and develop critical thinking skills in students.

http://tntdevelopcreativity.wikispaces.com/Critical+Thinking

How can we assess the development of critical thinking in our students?

The purpose of assessment in instruction is improvement. The purpose of assessing instruction for critical thinking is improving the teaching of discipline based thinking (historical, biological, sociological, mathematical thinking…). It is to improve students’ abilities to think their way through content, using disciplined skill in reasoning. The more particular we can be about what we want students to learn about critical thinking, the better can we devise instruction with that particular end in view.

The following instruments are available to generate evidence relevant to critical thinking teaching and learning:

1.       Course Evaluation Form: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students perceive faculty as fostering critical thinking in instruction (course by course). Machine scoreable.

2.       Critical Thinking Subtest: Analytic Reasoning: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students are able to reason analytically. Machine scoreable (currently being developed).

3.       Critical Thinking: Concepts and Understandings: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students understand the fundamental concepts embedded in critical thinking (and hence tests student readiness to think critically). Machine scoreable

4.       Fair-mindedness Test: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students can reason effectively between conflicting view points (and hence tests student ability to identify strong and weak arguments for conflicting positions in reasoning). Machine scoreable. (currently being developed).

5.        Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test: Provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students can read closely and write substantively (and hence tests student ability to read and write critically). Short Answer.

6.       International Critical Thinking Test: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students are able to analyze and assess excerpts from textbooks or professional writing. Short Answer.

7.       Commission Study Protocol for Interviewing Faculty Regarding Critical Thinking: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, critical thinking is being taught at a college or university (Can be adapted for High School). Based on the California Commission Study. Short Answer.

8.       Foundation for Critical Thinking Protocol for Interviewing Faculty Regarding Critical Thinking: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, critical thinking is being taught at a college or university (Can be adapted for High School). Short Answer

9.       Foundation for Critical Thinking Protocol for Interviewing Students Regarding Critical Thinking: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students are learning to think critical thinking at a college or university (Can be adapted for High School). Short Answer. To view a sample student interview, please register to become a member of the critical thinking community.

10.   Criteria for critical thinking assignments.  Can be used by faculty in designing classroom assignments or by administrators in assessing the extent to which faculty are fostering critical thinking.

11.   Rubrics for assessing student reasoning abilities. A useful tool in assessing the extent to which students are reasoning well through course content.   

All of the above assessment instruments can be used as part of pre- and post- assessment strategies to gauge development over various time periods.

I would love to hear your perspective on the importance of using technology to enhance critical thinking development in education.

Dr. Lance Brand

Delta High School

Sources:

http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/analyze-community-problems-and-solutions/think-critically/main

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne01/pdf/papers/vangeldert.pdf

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/critical-thinking-necessary-skill-g-randy-kasten

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-importance-of-critical-thinking

http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/higher-education/431

http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/critical/ct.php