Technology & Learning

The Jeff Greene School for the Gracefully Challenged

Professional Development
Kaitlyn Loftus, Sara Penna, Nicole Simpson
 Do students need technology to be successful in the classroom?
“Students need technology
to be engaged in class”

“Technology helps
students stay
“Students today think focused on a task”
differently”
Do students need technology to be successful in the classroom?
Willingham (2010)

● Technology is not inherently engaging

○ Disengaging PowerPoints, for example
● Today’s students don’t “think differently”
○ Brains do not evolve that quickly!
● Multitasking hurts everyone
○ Working memory
○ Our brains cannot fully focus on more than one thing at a time
We DON’T want technology to…
Willingham (2009)

● Distract from the content of the lesson

● Overshadow the purpose of the lesson
● Overload student working memory
● Require students to multitask
○ (need to master/automatize skills first)
● Inhibit student self-regulation
Research-Based Practices to Foster Student Learning
Willingham (2009)
Shirley (2014)

● Vary the pace of instruction

● Provide different ways of approaching a problem, that all require the
same core skills to solve
● Immediate feedback and reflection on learning
● Deliberate practice of material
● Identify students who need extra support vs students who may need to
be more challenged
● Enhance dialogue between educators and students
Technology should be used
as a TOOL for teachers,
not a form of “engagement”
for students
One way technology can be a tool for teachers:
> FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
“...an in-process evaluation of student comprehension,
learning needs, and academic progress”
(The Glossary of Education Reform)

Retrieved from Shirley & Irving (2014)

How do I use technology to assess students and collect data?
Feldman & Capobianco (2007)

● Aimed to understand if and how FA becomes an integral part of a teacher's

practice
○ High school physics teachers interested in improving use of classroom response system
○ Data collected using interviews, classroom observations, & collaborative discussions
○ Over 2 year period
● Data analysis:
○ Integration into practice takes:
■ Considerable amount of TIME
● Novice-->Expert with intentional and deliberate practice
■ Conceptual level of understanding formative assessment
■ Collaboration with other teachers through Action Research
ONE training must be enough, right?
Feldman & Capobianco (2007)

● NO
● Research shows that there is little likelihood that traditional
training methods in the use of educational technology will help
teachers gain the skills and knowledge needed.
○ 2 year teacher participation:
■ Talk with their colleagues about decisions making about practice
■ Discuss experiences they had with these choices
■ Inquire collaboratively into shared problems, dilemmas, and
dissonances of practice
 Two Options Pear Deck

(Just a Starting Point…)

Plickers
peardeck.com/join
Student’s Student’s
Answer Number
Choice
Considerations
➔ Access to technology: Doesn’t need to be expensive. Instead, it needs to
be interactive and simple
-Shirley (2014)
➔ Presentation of items
How much time given to respond
Teachers beliefs about teaching and their students
Teacher need for training
- Feldman & Capobainco (2007)
Other Tools:
Smith & Mader (2015)
● Google Forms
● Padlet
● Google classroom
● Goosechase
● Breakout EDU
● Socrative
● Virtual Reality
● Kahoot
● SeeSaw
● Poll Everywhere
● NearPod
Resources
Feldman, A., & Capobianco, B. M. (2007). Teacher learning of technology enhanced formative assessment. Journal
of Science Education and Technology, 17(1), 82-99. doi:10.1007/s10956-007-9084-0

Smith, B., & Mader, J. (2015). Formative assessment with online tools. The Science Teacher, 82(4), 10.

Shirley, M. L., & Irving, K. E. (2014). Connected classroom technology facilitates multiple components of
formative assessment practice. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 24(1), 56-68. doi:10.1007/s10956-
014-9520-x

Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don't students like school?: A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the
mind works and what it means for your classroom Wiley-Blackwell.

Willingham, D. T. (2010). Have technology and multitasking rewired how students learn?American Educator, 34(2),
23.
Questions?