Week 19: Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

Inquiry 1 

Descriptive:

INQUIRY 1: 

Descriptive:

How can I use technology effectively to learn so that I ensure I am not using it as a substitution for an exercise book?

This proposed inquiry question stems from my ongoing learning journey about the use of technology. My goal is to try and get my students to use the technological tool effectively as they can so that they are learning at the same time. 

Joint enterprise: 

The community of practice for this inquiry is my Samoan bilingual team. Our shared goal is to ensure that as a team we all use technology effectively and support each other to increase student learning. The first step would be to identify, whether we as teachers are using the technological tool effectively and understanding what does this actually look like.

Mutual engagement: 

We understand that in order for something to work we need all hand on the deck where there is an agreed understanding of what are our desired goals for our whole community. We discuss, re-shape, mould and critique ideas so that we improve learning outcomes for our students and really think about students as 21^stcentury learners. Are we providing our students with these skills? Are there enough opportunities for students to experience these skills? These are questions we ponder over to try to improve teaching and learning for our whole community. All members of our community- teachers, students and parents aim to achieve our vision of student success by effectively using technology, which caters for our 21^stcentury learners. 

Shared repertoire: 

As a team, we discuss and collect resources, ideas, applications that would enhance the learning opportunities in class. These are “the communal resources” that the community of practice produce (Wenger, 2000, p.229) to ensure we can best support our learners. At this stage, we use Google docs to document our discussions. We also come together to share ideas that would help teachers cater for their learners across all curriculum areas for e.g. Epuzzle, Coggle, Screencast and tour guide. 

Inquiry 2
Descriptive:

How can I use technology to motivate my students, therefore, help improve learning outcomes in writing?

This inquiry Question is solely based on the fact that my students lacked the motivation to improve their writing goals. Technology has become a predominant tool in our classroom and using this tool to motivate students was a way I thought would raise student achievement not just in writing but in all curriculum areas. Motivation is a broad idea because motivation can be identified in many ways but the motivation I am after is the motivation where students a self-motivated by using the technological tool to learn. Flipped learning was a great idea to help use the technological tool to motivate my students. The idea of just using the technological tool was motivation enough but they needed to understand that it is about the learning as well. Did I know enough about flipped learning in order to affect change in their learning? Did I know what this looks like in classroom practice? One thing is for sure that flipped learning helped my students understand learning outcomes I didn’t have to spend a lot of time going over I definitely gave me the opportunity to focus on the deeper features of learning. According to (Martin & Schwartz, 2014).The flipped classroom relies heavily on the use of visualisation, especially videos and presentations, and can strongly support the generation of creative ideas.

Joint enterprise: The community of practice for this inquiry is our full bilingual unit team. My Team members in this community are aware of this inquiry which I have put together and have really supported me by contributed their ideas and new ways of answering my inquiry question. Because we are a bilingual unit we also have the privilege of speaking our native tongue which the Samoan language which means our students are also getting the best of both worlds. This also acts as a way of motivation because students are motivated to use their first language whether it be on through oral language or on a technological device.

Mutual engagement: 

As a community of practice, we meet regularly and reflect on our goals. Teachers share their thoughts and ideas about our inquiry. My focus solely was about the flipped learning approach, Do I know enough about this approach to make a difference in the learning of my students? Do I know what it looks like and how this is done? These are the questions that have helped re-shape not only the way I think but, the way we think as a community of practice. 

Shared repertoire: 

Flipped learning has become a way of learning for me and my students. I intend to dig into the deeper features of this new approach so that my students get the best learning opportunities possible. My next step would be ensured, that I am promoting the four pillars of a flipped classroom “flexible environment, learning culture, intentional content, professional educator” (Flipped learning, 2014). By transforming the classroom It would provide more opportunities for my students to explore, problem solves, and identify issues that need to be addressed in an innovated way. According to Gilboy, M. B., Heinerichs, S., & Pazzaglia, G. (2015) The teacher is able to provide students with a wide range of learner-centred opportunities in class for greater teacher-to-student. mentoring and peer-to-peer collaboration, increasing the possibility to engage all learners

Comparative

All teachers in my communities of learning are supportive of both proposed inquiry questions. They are willing to guide me in this journey, as we all want the best outcomes for our 21st-century learners. 

Critical Reflection 

Upon reflection, I feel that both my inquiry question link very well together where the sole purpose is to improve learning outcomes by improving the way my students engage with technology and 21^stcentury learning. I definitely believe that flipped learning is the way of new learning and change from teacher directed learning to a partnership of teacher and students working together to raise achievement. Its understanding it entirely myself first so that when it is for transitions it works smoothly. 

Reference List

Flipped Learning (2014) Retrieved from https://flippedlearning.org/definition-of-flipped-learning/

Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.

Gilboy, M. B., Heinerichs, S., & Pazzaglia, G. (2015). Enhancing student engagement using the flipped classroom. Journal of nutrition education and behavior, 47(1), 109-114.

Week 18 Reflection: Reflecting on changes in my future orientated teaching practice.

Describe: What were you thinking and Feeling?

With reference to the Executive Summary of “Supporting future-orientated learning and teaching A New Zealand Perspective” (Bolstad, Bilber, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012), I have chosen to elaborate on one them that I think resonates really well with my reflection theme 4” Changing the script": Rethinking learners' and teachers' roles and Thoughout my mindlab journey I have really come to terms with using technology effectively in the classroom and in my previous assignments I have mentioned that technology can only be effective when it is used for learning purposes. Many of my students are technologically literate in some shape or form but this does mean they know how to use the technologcal tool effectively to help them understand new learning concepts and really show me that they truely understand what we are learning. The real questions for me was do I myself know how to use a technological tool to learn? How do I know I can use the tool to learn effectively? Do I know enough about using a technological tool properlly? And  is there any way that can indicate to me that I am using the technological tool to learn? These were the questions that I was pondering over because If I can use the tool to learn and understand learning situations better then it would be eaiser to scaffold my students in using their tools effectively as well. My Main goal and focus was support my students in understanding howuse the technological tool effecively so they can to shred light on their understandings to learning not just using the tool as a substitute for their exercise book. 

Feelings: What were you thinking and feeling?

At first I was really excited to implement a framwork that could indicate whether students are using the technology as effectively as they can for learning. The SAMR model has four stages of technological efficientcy, Substition, Augmentation, modification and redefinition. Each level or stage requires a higher demand for usage of technological tool. It seemed like the perfect framwork for my students to use to identify where they are at with using a technological tool and justify why they are at that level of the SAMR model. Before I even introduced this framework I felt that a handful of my students were operating at a modification level because their functionality of the tool was surprisingly good. They were sharing documents and commenting on others work as well as adding picture and videos to there documents. This Framework really help my students understand that using technological tool in a learning setting is different from using it for entertainment. I also felt that this also encouraged student Agency where they started to identify themselves where they are at on the SAMR model and explain why they thought they were at that particular stage. 

Evaluation: What was good and what was bad about my experience of making these changes?

The best part of this change was the fact that my students were able to identify together with the teacher that we are all operating at an augmentation level of the SAMR framework. We understood this because we only had knowledge about some functional change when using a device e.g. we were able to share documentation and comment on others work by providing feedback and feedforward. My students were motivated to move away from augmentation to modification stage and made it their sole purpose to do so. This promoted students agency where my students made it their goal to move up to a modification stage of the SAMR model. This framework really help with constructing learning for my students where they were able to make adjustments with the knowledge they already had about using a technology tool. Piget argues that where knowledge is seen as “constructed” through a process of taking actions in one’s environment and making adjustments to existing knowledge structures based on the outcome of those actions.One of the barriers that stood in our way was fully understanding the Modification level and what this meant for my students. 

Analysis: What Sense can you make of the situation?

I can confidently state that it is wonderful to see my students be able to use the SAMR frameowork to help them understand where they are in unsing a technologial tool. I asked myself do I know enough about the modification level? What do I need to understand therefore do in order to help my students understand the shift from an augmenatation to a modification level. Was letting my students explore their own choices to learning where “anything goes” as longs as it works the best approach? According to (Bolstad, Bilber, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012), its not really aboutteachers ceding all the power and responsibility to students, or students and teachers being “equal” as learners. Rather, it is about structuring roles and relationships in ways that draw on the strengths and knowledge of each in order to best support learning.

Conclusion and Action Plan.

First of all I am grateful that I am apart of the mindlab journey because I have developed an understanding of how technology can be used in class to enhance student engagment and student achievement. My next plan would be to gain a better understanding around the modification and redefinition stage of the SAMR model so this becomes clearer not only for me the teacher but also my students who are already showing signs of using their technological tool effectively to learn. I believe that students should be drivers of their learning where they fully have ownership of their where they take risks, make their own choices and learn from their mistakes. I really love the statement drawn by (Bolstad, Bilber, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012), The challenge is to move past seeing learning in terms of being “student-centered” or “teacher-driven”, and instead to think about how learners and teachers would work together in a “knowledge-building” learning environment. Working collaboratively is a way forward and understanding what this looks like and how this is driven in a class would be very effective in future learning. 

Reference List

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306