For this week’s assignment of readings, I chose to further delve into more research regarding mobile technologies and their perceived positive impact for elementary students in math.
The first article I read was “Mathematics and Mobile Learning.” In this article, White and Martin discuss leveraging students’ mobile technologies behaviors in informal settings as a way to deepen their mathematical understanding. The authors point out that these mobile technologies can go beyond basic consumption and argue that these devices can be used to produce their own knowledge. Cameras come standard with any mobile device nowadays, and using these features, teachers can design more meaningful learning opportunities. In this case study, the researchers intended for students to use their mobile devices in the field and find examples of mathematical principles and capture these experiences with photos and videos. Students would then return to class in order to analyze the photos and tie their classwork concepts into the real world. The text states, “Using devices, software and our roles as teachers, we created a social and technical infrastructure designed to enable students to leverage familiar mobile practice to capture, share and mathematize commonplace objects and events through photos and videos” (White & Martin, pg. 70). This shows that these mobile technologies are able to go far beyond videos or question banks in order to enhance learning. Students are able to bring in their real world experiences into the classroom and share such phenomenon with their peers.
I also chose to take a look at Hwang, Lai, & Wang’s article “Seamless flipped learning: A mobile technology-enhanced flipped classroom with effective learning strategies.” I found this article fascinating and a gold-standard for what my ideal classroom would look like. In their article, the authors make mention of both flipped learning and the flipped classroom. In this scenario, teachers reimagine and reconfigure how time is spent in class and homework expectations. Basically, the direct instruction piece takes place at home in the form of video consumption, and the practice time is moved into the school day. With this movement, the role of the teacher is undoubtedly altered. The text states, “In flipped classrooms, the teacher’s role should be guiding students to think and discuss, and to give professional feedback and advice” (Hwang, Lai, & Wang; pg. 450). The text also states “With such a change, teachers play the roles of not only knowledge providers, but also learning promoters who encourage students to construct knowledge actively” (Hwang, Lai, & Wang; pg. 450). The shift does force teachers to reimagine their duties and responsibilities, but “The results show that with this teaching approach not only students’ learning results are increased, but also both the students’ and the teacher’s satisfaction with the course tends to be high” (Hwang, Lai, & Wang; pg. 452-453).
One of the big keys in order to implement a flipped classroom paradigm is the technology-component at the forefront. In short, students will be unable to consume the necessary classroom materials at home without device access. The text cites that tech isn’t absolutely necessary for implementation, but it sure makes the job much easier if students have technology affordances. I’d like to take the idea of video-watching at home one step further with the tech tool, Edpuzzle. With Edpuzzle, student’s are not just passively watching videos. Edpuzzle allows for embedded question within the instructional video and disable the ability to skip parts of the video. Teachers also receive backend data to see which questions students answered correctly or incorrectly. There is also a short-answer feature so not all questions are multiple-choice. Edpuzzle would be a fantastic addition to a flipped classroom.
Lastly, I wanted to take a look at the other side of the coin and explore some of the challenges of mobile learning in Chu’s article “Potential negative effects of mobile learning on students’ learning achievement and cognitive load—a format assessment perspective.” In this article, Chu explore cognitive load theory and its potential adverse effect for implementing multiple tech tools. In short, a poor instructional design can severely hinder intended learning outcomes due to students’ working memory paying too much attention to erroneous parts of the design. Cognitive load theory can be broken down into 2 smaller, and connotatively negative subparts: intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load. Germane cognitive load is far more desirable, as this design idea contributes to accelerating the learning process.
Another section of this article that resonated with me, which ties in with ideas about flipped learning, was FAML (formative assessment-based mobile learning) strategy. Here, students are able to practice, reflect, and revise their thinking with immediate and specific feedback automated by the system. This is a huge advancement in mobile learning as it takes some of the responsibility of providing feedback off of the teacher’s plate. Programs with this feature, I believe, are incredibly desirable as the immediate feedback helps students refine their thinking to hopefully answer similar style questions correctly in the future. The low-stakes questioning affordances allow for students to answer incorrectly without fear of punitive deductions to their grade.
These articles all contribute directly to my context and eventual final project. Each article provided valuable insight for me to consider as I work towards making my class the most effective for promoting student gains. In order for me to design optimal learning for my students, I need to work towards using mobile devices as a productive device as opposed to solely consumption. Further, I think I need to provide students with more opportunities to engage with content outside of our school’s walls. All this needs to be carefully considered as to not overwhelm students and their cognitive load. This week’s readings will certainly impact my instructional practice, and sparked some new ideas and areas of interest for my final project.
REFERENCES:
Chu, H. C. (2014). Potential negative effects of mobile learning on students’ learning achievement and cognitive load—a format assessment perspective. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 17(1). 332–344.
Hwang, G. J., Lai, C. L., & Wang, S. Y. (2015). Seamless flipped learning: A mobile technology–enhanced flipped classroom with effective learning strategies. Journal of Computers in Education, 2(4), 449–473.
White, T., & Martin, L. (2014). Mathematics and mobile learning. TechTrends, 58(1), 64–70.
Hi TJ,
Thanks for your thoughtful analysis on technology integration into your classroom! I really enjoyed your discussion of the article “Mathematics and Mobile Learning.” Often, I do not think about technology use for math activities other than game-based review or basic fact practice. I use math for videos from Kahn Academy and Maths Mansion, and my students use SplashLearn for math practice. But all of these are either consumer-based (the videos) or game-based basic practice. You reminded me of the powerful tool capabilities of mobile devices, especially tablets. I remember one year a first grade teacher in my school had each student in her class take an iPad from the cart (pre 1:1 days) and go on a shapes scavenger hunt. They walked around the hallways and playground taking pictures of objects in various shapes, and then shared back to their classmates. The students loved this project! These 6 and 7 year-olds were able to use authentic environments, real-world objects, and utilize technological tools to become detectives problem-solvers. I even overheard a few students getting into discussions debating whether certain objects counted as shapes or not based on their features. How powerful! I would love to incorporate an activity like this, but I have struggled to find a fourth-grade level activity to do something similar to this. Do you have any ideas? Maybe something with fractions would be great since it could help them make real-world connections to this difficult concept.
I am also intrigued by your discussion of flipped learning. I would love to have more time to work with students in a hands-on environment to really support individual learning, and I agree that this could be a solution to make the time for this! I do wonder about student accountability for making sure they are watching the video/lecture component at home. I also struggle with assigning extensive homework since becoming a mother myself. By the time we all get home from school/work, there are only about 2 and a half hours of our evening, and that must include dinner, bathing, and bedtime routines. I really struggle with forcing homework in the mix, especially for elementary-aged children. They need their family time, play time, and unstructured free time. What are your thoughts on this? How would you combat this perspective?
Thanks for a thoughtful post, and I am interested in seeing where your project takes you in your teaching!
Laura MacCorkle
Hi TJ,
I enjoyed reading your thoughts on some of the potential positive impact mobile technology could have on elementary math. One similarity between the article you read and one of the articles I chose for this week is that they both stress the importance of providing students with ample time to analyze data after they collect it. As you say, you want mobile devices to be productive devices. If students can gather data but do not know how to use the data to construct their own knowledge, then the device isn’t really productive. I think this is an important point to keep in mind as we incorporate mobile technology into our learning environments: they must be productive and not simply entertainment.
I think you bring up an important risk we need to consider in a flipped classroom: students can become overwhelmed as we provide more out of school learning experiences. Some students will not like blurring the lines between learning environments, but by doing so, the students are able to see concepts being used in the real world. This addresses the question students always ask teachers: “When am I ever going to need to know this?” By seeing the concepts they are learning in real world situations, the learning experience becomes more meaningful and authentic.
It’s interesting to see how the role of the teacher shifts over time. With flipped classrooms, teachers move from “knowledge providers” to “learning promoters”, which I think is a positive change. With so much information at students’ fingertips, teachers need to focus less on dispensing information and more on guiding students in constructing their own knowledge. And thanks for sharing the EdPuzzle resource!