The first class of UTeach Step 3 for the 2024-5 school year saw us engage with a TED Talk on the topic of education. The speakers were from different backgrounds and discussed education in light of their expertise and experience.
I personally found each speaker interesting and engaging. Each left me with some bit of information that I still think about two weeks after that first-class meeting.
From the first speaker, I retained a fact that I had already explored in an introduction to sociology course that I took over the summer, which are the social and behavioral determinants of school success. The first speaker outlined three factors that are probably familiar to people that have already taken an intro to sociology: poverty, absenteeism and peer-groups. Nevertheless, hearing someone directly involved in the field of education describe these same factors reinforced their importance.
Later, we heard from a psychologist whose research examines other foundational predictors of success. Here, I was genuinely surprised at the research project conclusions, which were that controlling for a large panel of demographic and personal factors, the single greatest predictor of success, in the context of schooling, is grit. I think that I was most surprised that wealth was not a strong of a predictor. I further enjoyed the challenge that the researcher left to her audience: How can we create "grit" in our students.
After her talk I learned that she wrote a book on this topic. For anyone interested in learning about the role of grit in success, you can find her book here:
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance: Duckworth, Angela, Duckworth, Angela: 9781442397132: Amazon.com: Books
Then, we heard from a scholar of pedagogy. The lasting impression that I got from listening to Dr. Canada is that the field of education research contains gems that can inform teachers about pedagogy, student success, test-taking, and learning. For example, he presents information that lends support to those who believe that schooling should be year-round. He explains the research show that students regress in the summer months. I think his talk is an invitation for teachers to encourage scholastic activity in the summer. Whether that be advertising summer learning opportunities or even creating their own, virtual learning missions, the research implies that teachers can be active in student development beyond just the school-year months.
Lastly, a Scottish scholar of teaching challenged teachers to not conform. I enjoyed his invocation. I connected with Sir Robinson's thesis that standards breed conformity and that such conformity stifles progress. Having looked through statewide standards and comparing them to teaching materials, I noticed an alarming pattern--standards in mathematics are certainly achieved by modern teaching materials, but little else. For those of us who went to secondary school before standards became ubiquitous, we can look back and realize that we learned the same things that the standards outline but also more. I think that the expression of conformity is best seen in the products produced by publishers. They are concerned with product adoption, firstly, and standards because they must. So they produce products that ease the burden on teachers. But they fail to engage students.
If someone had told me that the major publishing houses in U.S. education produce multiple-choice mathematical proofs, I would not have believed them. But they do. More than two decades later, I can still remember the first time I saw the derivation of the cosine of a sum. Today students engage with trigonometry in contrived ways. Therefore, I was particularly hearted by Sir Robinson's talk in this light because it shows that there is room to grow as an educator--to experiment with outside knowledge and techniques--to better serve students outside the machinery of "big" education. The fact that Sir Robinson addressed this issue means that there are certainly others who share his view.
For the entire TED Talk, it is available on YouTube here: TED Talks Education - YouTube
Then we discussed pedagogical content knowledge. I was struck by this quote: (article link: How Can Developing Strong Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) Help Teachers Better Engage Their Students in Science Learning? ‘PCK Enables Teachers to Translate Their Content Knowledge into Forms That are More Accessible and Comprehensible to Students,’ Says Professor Soonhye Park | College of Education News (ncsu.edu))
"Research about the ways in which students learn, Park said, indicates students consistently construct their own understanding based on prior knowledge and experiences as well as through interactions with their peers and teachers."
I think that this speaks to the heart of content mastery. Having taken Calculus I and II simultaneously over the summer, I remembered one of the most important distinctions between them: any machine can differentiate anything, but integration is an art. In this light, the prior knowledge to teach students integration must be carefully crafted to expose students to the many forms, "tricks" and methods of integration. For me, this article was a call to better learn my subject area because teachers also construct their students' understanding by the type of examples and paths of instruction he presents.
I appreciate that good textbooks still leave the door open for teachers to purposefully craft interactions with the material that guide students to discover the application of methods. Coming back to the idea of integration--a small slice of calculus too vast to cover--challenges teachers to guide student discovery through content mastery.
Most recently, we have moved on to look at some applications of technology in the classroom. We have examined a website called Padlet (www.padlet.com). As soon as I found out that I could create presentations on a web-based platform that is both portable and professional, I knew that I would give it a try. Fortunately, we have an upcoming assignment using it and I look forward to completing it.
It will be the tool that I talk about for the purposes of my class assignment of this blog.
The tool enables multiple users to post ideas, essays, answers to assignments, projects, and most importantly--presentations.
We initially used it to discuss the Ted Talk I addressed at the beginning of this post. Later in class, we learned that it can substitute PowerPoint. Teachers can create presentations for their students in a stream-of-thinking manner and the Padlet software transforms those inputs into a presentation that you can easily access and present.
I think that it is amazing because it is entirely web-based. I wrote my first web-based application this summer based on stuff I learned in CPSC 1301. You can use an application that is delivered and processed by the World Wide Web and not a PC. It makes creating presentations faster and more portable--no more worries about USB sticks or concerns about compatibility. The focus with things like Padlet is learning and I appreciate that we will have time to craft lessons with it and see firsthand its potential.
One obstacle is functionality. Does Padlet have everything a teacher needs? I think that that question can only we answered with more experience. But I look forward to engaging with the technology.
Creating applications like Padlet is not difficult. I think that as I learn more about the WWW and programming, I look forward to adapting the lessons learned from using Padlet to create my own classroom footprint.
I think that students will benefit from such an approach. Streamlined web applications don't require the time commitment of large software which itself does little to encourage learning. Web-based applications also don't suffer from the bloat of some school-purchased service providers.
One benefit of Padlet is organization. We only used CougarView for quizzes, exam and to submit assignments in CPSC 1301. Our course calendar, assignments, readings, videos and interactive assignments were housed elsewhere. The information was easily accessible. It made learning fun. I think that Padlet is versatile. I think that its greatest potential benefit to UTeach students will be its broad base of features. I hope to take those features that are useful to create my own virtual classroom.
One obstacle in using this new tool is integration. How well can we integrate a calendar, gradebook, presentations, and homework on one platform? However, I don't see this potential obstacle as much of a barrier. Padlet's features can be recreated. For me, it's an incubator of ideas.
I am excited about the interface of technology and education. I think that CPSC 1301 opened my eyes to the power of using the WWW for educational purposes and I look forward to learning more about tech in the classroom this semester.
I think that it is a wonderful exposure for students to see small companies like Padlet. We all know about companies like SmartBoard and Microsoft. But upstarts like Padlet only exist so long as they innovate and that feature of small competitors can be fertile ground for educators.
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