My digital and collaborative innovation to improve students collaboration and critical thinking skills (knowledge construction) was guided and enhanced by several national educational policies/guidelines and informed by contemporary educational theory during its application.
Policies and Guidelines
The policies/frameworks that impacted on and informed my digital and collaborative innovation included the following:
e-Learning Planning Framework (eLPF)
Digital Technologies in The New Zealand Curriculum
National Education Goals
Ka Hikitia – Ka Hāpaitia | The Māori Education Strategy
I first explored the e-Learning Planning Framework (eLPF) (Ministry of Education, n.d.) during the initial phases of my digital and collaborative innovation. This was partly to familiarise me with the tool and to also consider where my school and my practice was in relation to the eLPF.
The framework is designed to help schools and teachers reflect on and evaluate their e-learning capability based on five phases - pre-emerging, emerging, engaging, extending and empowering. These phases have “been aligned with a number of international frameworks that describe how technology is adopted and integrated into teaching and learning” (Ministry of Education. n.d). After reviewing the eLPF, I considered that the school was generally well placed and most practice would be engaging or extending in terms of the phases. The school benefits from effectively aligned processes and practices across the school and community. Therefore my innovation was able to build off this sound platform. I considered that my innovation aligned with the engaging phase as I endeavoured to use digital technologies appropriately to support higher-order (deep/critical), collaborative teaching and learning. Students were required to work collaboratively on iPads using the app Explain Everything to construct knowledge around the theme of energy. Multimodal resources were able to be utilised to enhance and build learners’ conceptual knowledge and critical thinking. This would have only been possible by using digital tools. In order to meet the extending phase, I would need to have established authentic collaboration with students to develop co-constructed learning throughout the innovation. Further work on this in the future could see this become a reality.
The New Zealand Technology Curriculum with the addition of Digital Technologies and Hangarau Matihiko learning (Ministry of Education, 2018) sets out the expectation that learners will be scaffolded to become competent users of digital tools, enabling them to be active members of society. The National Education Goals (NEG) 3 and 5 also talk about the importance of students developing a high level of knowledge, understanding and skills so that they can be successful in the modern world (Ministry of Education, 2019). My innovation sought to develop collaboration and critical thinking (knowledge construction) while simultaneously developing learners’ exposure and knowledge of different digital technologies. This innovation allowed learners to be exposed to different digital tools, resources and applications and to create their own digital outcomes. Explain Everything was used on iPads as a tool for collaborating, accessing and creating learning and thinking critically.
Ka Hikitia (Ministry of Education, 2017) is a cross-agency strategy for the education sector to achieve system shifts to ensure that Māori are enjoying and achieving education success as Māori. This strategy highlights the benefits of establishing and maintaining strong and reciprocal relationships with Māori learners and their whānau. This approach benefits not only Māori learners but all learners. There are five outcome domains to support excellent outcomes for Māori learners and whānau. They are;
Te Whānau: Education provision responds to learners within the context of their whānau.
Te Tangata: Māori are free from racism, discrimination and stigma in education.
Te Kanorautanga: Māori are diverse and need to be understood in the context of their diverse aspirations and lived experiences.
Te Tuakiritanga: Identity, language and culture matter for Māori learners.
Te Rangatiratanga: Māori exercise their authority and agency in education.
I believe these 5 domains were well catered for within my innovation. Specifically, this innovation provided for enhanced relationships with my learners’ whānau to develop and encouraged whānau to engage and participate as an equal part in the education of their ākonga. Grappling with this issue of whānau participation throughout the innovation resulted in me significantly adapting the approach taken towards engaging whānau. My aspiration was for them to be active participants from the onset of the innovation. This morphed into active supporters as the innovation continued. Continuing to implement practices that provide for learners to learn within the context of whānau will be imperative moving forward.
The contemporary education theories that impacted on and informed my digital and collaborative innovation included the following:
Connectivist Learning Theory
Social Constructivist Theory
Connectivist Learning Theory or connectivism is underpinned by the notion that knowledge is created through connections and learning occurs through the networks to which learners belong (Starkey, 2012). The idea that the teacher is the font of all knowledge is challenged and instead collaboration and connections between learners, learners and community, and learners and experts beyond the classroom. Within my innovation, learners worked collaboratively to create new learning. They were involved in shared learning experiences regarding the topic of energy, recording and discussing their ideas in groups, allowing students to construct knowledge and think critically about the topic. This aligns with connectivism, where learners can access and gather information from and share information with the rest of the world (Siemens, 2005) & (Downes, 2010).
Social Constructivist Theory of constructivism views learners as “‘constructors’ of meaning, actively seeking to discover and learn” (Krause et al, 2010, p.198). Within social development, it can be linked to Lev Vygotsky, who believed that knowledge is co-constructed and that individuals learn from one another (McLeod, 2014). Vygotsky identified the zone of proximal development, which is the difference between the learner’s current level of understanding or skill and the level they can achieve with support (Krause et al, 2010). My innovation actively embraced constructivism and explicitly encouraged students to construct knowledge and demonstrate that by utilising digital technologies. Learners were also supported with extension and guidance when needed by either their peers or the teacher, ensuring learners were operating in their zone of proximal development.
Throughout my innovation, there were a variety of delivery models. A combination of blended, online and self-directed learning was used within each lesson. Students were encouraged to use iPads and Explain Everything to capture their ideas so they could use video and audio recording, images, photos and voice to construct knowledge. This allowed for blended learning as some students were using a variety of other tools to support their learning, such as creating a model using paper and then photographing it on the iPad to share on Explain Everything. All explicit teaching and learning was made available through the learning site online and was fully rewindable, meaning students could rewatch the video of the lesson as many times as they would like, promoting self-directed learning. This was generally well-received considering the students were year 1/2 learners. They appreciated the variety while maintaining an element of structure throughout the innovation.
References
Downes, S. (2010). New technology supporting informal learning. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence, 2(1), 27-33.
Krause, K., Bochner, S., Duchesne, S., & McMaugh, A. (2010). Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching (3rd ed.). South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Cengage Learning Australia.
Ministry of Education. (n.d.). E-learning Planning Framework. Retrieved from
http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/e-Learning-Planning-Framework#framework
Ministry of Education. (2017). Ka Hikitia. Retrieved from: https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/overall-strategies-and-policies/ka-hikitia-accelerating-success-20132017/the-maori-education-strategy-ka-hikitia-accelerating-success-2013-2017/
Ministry of Education. (2018). Digital Technologies and Hangarau Matihiko learning. Retrieved from https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/changes-in-education/digital-technologies-and-hangara u-matihiko-learning/
Ministry of Education. (2019). National Education Goals. Retrieved from https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/legislation/negs/
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1), pp.3-10.
Starkey, L. (2012). Teaching and learning in the digital age. ProQuest Ebook Central. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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