Winter Quarter 2001-2
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Place: Tuesdays, CERAS 130; Thursdays, e206 |
Instructor: Decker Walker |
Class website: http://www.stanford.edu/class/educ224/
The challenges of teaching with technology
This course is designed to prepare teachers to make responsible professional decisions about teaching with computers and related information technologies (IT). Those who are novices with IT will learn the basics and get an orientation to what there is to learn. Teachers who already have some competence in using IT will be able to move ahead to more fluency, power, and robustness. All will emerge with a better basis for making responsible professional decisions about whether and, if so, how to use technology in their teaching.
Many people with impressive credentials believe that information technology (IT) promises great things for education. Others believe it poses great threats or that it’s just a passing fad. Most schools have substantial numbers of computers wired to the Internet, and most school authorities expect teachers to use computers in their teaching. But except in classes that teach computer skills, students spend on the average only a tiny fraction of class time using computers, and when they do use computers teachers do not do the fancy things that computer enthusiasts recommend. They seldom use computers to support complex authentic activities like scientific inquiry, multimedia production, or mathematical modeling, for instance. Instead, they use them to enhance ordinary school activities. They deliver PowerPoint lectures, assign computer-based drills or games, and have students do reports based on sources from the Web. Not surprisingly, studies of the impact of school computer use on test scores show little effect.
What should responsible teachers do? Should they try to transform their teaching to fit the enthusiasts’ visions? Should they go along with what most of their colleagues are doing? Can they afford to ignore IT? How much time and energy should they invest in learning about it? What does a teacher need to know to make responsible professional decisions about using IT in their teaching?
In this project-based course we will address four challenges that all teachers face in developing professional competence with IT – orientation, vision, planning, and proficiency.
ORIENTATION – understanding IT well enough
to make informed decisions about learning and using it
Why should I learn about technology?
What technologies are available to me and my students?
What are these technologies good for in teaching?
What technologies should I be able to use?
How well do I need to use them?
VISION: What are the best ways for me to
teach with technology?
What are the most empowering ways to teach with IT?
What ways of using IT are possible for my students and me?
Which ways of using IT fit with my present teaching style and philosophy?
Which ways of using IT would improve my teaching?
PLANNING: How can I get ready to use IT
in my teaching?
What applications of technology will help me to realize my vision?
How can I learn these applications?
How can I integrate them into my curriculum?
How can I plan lessons and units that use these applications well?
PROFICIENCY: How can I develop truly professional
mastery of IT?
How can I experiment with adventurous new teaching strategies?
How can I guard against the risks of using IT?
How can I participate, contribute, and continue to grow professionally in
teaching with IT?
Those members of the class who are teachers or prospective teachers will tackle these four challenges and in so doing will learn about using current technology in their teaching and develop plans that they can use both immediately and for months if not years to come. Those class members who are not teachers may choose either to pretend that they are a teacher of a particular class (K-12 or college, any subject) or to act as an adviser to a group of teachers, real or hypothetical. Work on the challenges will consist of a series of small projects that add up to a professional plan for using IT in teaching.
Philosophy on teaching with IT, including a brief biography of your experiences with IT, the benefits you believe may be possible from using IT, your concerns, and your personal learning agenda.
At least two visions of how you see yourself ideally teaching with IT; one vision fits technology into your present style of teaching; the others describe exciting new directions you think you might like to take your teaching.
A profile of your teaching environment that identifies the resources available to you; the attitudes and actions of your school leaders and your community; and the knowledge, skill, and attitudes of your students.
Sample documents you have learned to create using a multimedia authoring tool or other complex application.
A curriculum plan and lessons or unit plans for using multimedia authoring or another complex application in your teaching.
A response plan for guarding against one of the more serious risks that you foresee from using IT in your teaching.
By the end of the course, each teacher will have had crucial experiences with IT, considered the most important professional questions about using IT, reached some tentative resolutions of key questions, and produced plans that can guide their work with IT in the years to come.
Our class will act as a series of collaborative study groups, teams of about three people with similar teaching interests who will study together. Each group will review the best available sources, share their findings with others in the group, and assist one another in understanding and meeting the challenges and completing the projects.
Goals
Students in this course should be better able to:
Identify promising technologies for K-12 classrooms
Review research and evaluation literature relevant to an issue in education
Do searches on the Web for sound, current information about technology and its use in classrooms
Interview education professionals to solicit their judgments about issues that they know well.
Use a synthesis of best evidence to support promising courses of action to resolve complex educational problems.
Create basic web sites (or create documents with other applications that you choose to learn).
Class Format
Class sessions may consist of:
Brief lectures on important topics presenting background ideas or information not available in readings
Guided class discussion of issues – looking for hard evidence and sound argument to ground positions
Visitors – presentations by and conversations with informants who have professional expertise or first-hand experience relevant to the barriers.
Working meetings of the collaborative study groups, including consultations with the instructor
Presentations by study groups to the class and discussion of these presentations. In-class reviews of each group’s reports by the class and the instructor.
Work done out of class may consist of
Reading – of instructor-identified material and material you locate that is relevant to your barrier.
Computerized searches of library databases
Web searches
Writing of reports for posting on the Web or distribution to the class and outside audiences
Interviews – with experts, experienced people, …
Deliverables
Week 1, Individual: a. "Technology biography: What I’ve learned about technology" b. "Inventory: Technology available to me"
Week 2, Individual Statement: a."Technology: What’s in it for me as a teacher?"
b. "My technology learning agenda"
Week 3, Group: a. "Profile of a promising application of technology in teaching".
Week 4, Individual: "Portfolio: First steps in learning Web authoring"
Week 5, Individual: "Portfolio: Developing fluency, power, resilience in Web authoring"
Week 6, Group: "Outstanding Lesson/Unit plan for conventional teaching with technology"
Week 7, Group: "Outstanding Lesson/Unit plan for adventurous teaching with technology"
Week 8, Group: "A risk of using technology in my teaching and how I’d guard against it"
Week 9, Assembling of final portfolios.
Week 10 will be spent presenting, responding to and reflecting on portfolios and discussing remaining questions.
These deliverables may take the form of paper documents (a bound notebook, for instance), computer files (in Word or another application), or Web pages (which you can learn to make in class).
Grading
Final portfolios: 40%
Weekly products: (5% each for 8 products) 40%
Contributions to groups and class discussions (in class & via e-mail) 20%