First things first...I hope Kristine Deiner(our teacher for this class) recovers from her hospital visit as she was missing from our week 1 class. Louie was our sub and did great but I just wanted to express well wishes for Kris. On to this week...we were supposed to do two separate readings and then give a brief reflection on each one.
The first reading was from HERE. The article is broken into two parts: Theory and Research Based Principles of Learning and Teaching Principles. I'd like to reflect on the principle of learning that states: "Students' prior knowledge can help or hinder learning." I agree that prior knowledge influences how students interpret the information that we present to them. I also agree that prior knowledge can impede or enhance their learning experience but I'd like to expand on a few other thoughts pertaining to that. When discussing topics that can be considered opinion-based (politics, etc) it is important to present both sides of things and let the students initiate the discussion. The teacher must act simply as a moderator and remain as neutral as possible in order to get an honest discussion from the students. It may be necessary to provide guidance during the discussion but the students should not know what your opinions are as that can influence students and often the tone of the discussion. Another important role that prior knowledge plays relates to how much trust a teacher has garnered from students. A student that has inaccurate or insufficient prior knowledge wouldn't necessarily be impeded by it. If the teacher has shown themselves to be a trustworthy source of information the student will have no problem adjusting what they "thought" they knew to the newly presented information.
The second reading came from HERE. This was a 2003 study about the effectiveness of teaching and learning with technology on student outcomes. The conclusion basically stated that technology had a moderate positive effect on the students tested. It also emphasized that more research needed to be done to gain a better understanding on how technology is truly effecting student learning.
Here is my take: Research is fine and dandy and helps to illustrate trends but the nature of educational research is such that when it is finally published there is a good chance that things have already changed. I also find a flaw in the way that this research was presented. I think the role of technology is being underestimated. I find it hard to believe that the control group didn't use technology. I'd be interested to see what qualifies as using technology and what qualifies as their traditional methods. Students learn better when using technology because technology is a part of society and their everyday lives. It's that simple. Technology helps students find information that they would never have available to them if it weren't for technology. Technology also helps students find faster, more efficient ways to get things done. To say that technology only has a minor or moderate positive effect on learning is like saying that books and libraries were only a minor improvement over leather parchment and quill pens. It just doesn't make sense. I think that technology simply being available is not necessarily going to make students smarter or better learners but the technology is there, and it keeps evolving. It is the teacher's or integrator's job to guide the students on how to USE this technology to enhance their learning.
After reading your post and listening to Curtis and you discuss the Meta-Analysis article I went back and reexamined the article. When I read it the first time I was just trying to pick out important facts. I never looked at the validity of the experiment or how accurate their results were. I agree with what the two of you were saying. I think it is ridiculous to say that technology only has a minor positive impact on learning.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your comment about teachers providing both sides of an argument and letting the students make up their own minds. I think all too often teachers want the students to believe what they believe and therefore present biased information. If teachers can just act as a moderator students will gain so much more knowledge about the subject.