Stratosphere: Integrating Technology, Pedagogy, and Change Knowledge
Michael Fullan, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
While technology in education has forged ahead, pedagogy hasn’t kept pace. Using change knowledge as its foundation this session offers concrete solutions to the issue.
Purpose & Objectives
This session will examine the role of technology in learning and finding that pedagogy has not had much presence in working out solutions. The presentation will provide concrete examples of the problem as well as examples of solutions. At the same time the role of 'change knowledge' in supporting implementation of technology and pedagogy will be discussed.
Dr. Fullan is an internationally recognized expert on teaching and learning and system change. His latest research has been published in Stratosphere: Integrating Technology, Pedagogy, and Change Knowledge published by Pearson.
Presenter Background
Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Recognized as a worldwide authority on educational reform, Michael is engaged in advising policymakers and local leaders around the world in helping to achieve the moral purpose of all children learning. His books have been published in many languages.
Practice driving practice. Preference to work with the whole system
There are less than 10 things we have to work on. This keeps it simple. We need motion Leaders.
Focus on capacity building linked to outcomes. Succesful @ both raising student achievement outcomes and closing the gaps. Not as hard as people think.
Working on 3 things that have developed independently and that now need to be connected:
Change Knowledge, Technology & Pedagogy
Problem
Pisa results show the large consequence as the gap between high & low performance. This brings several negative consequences
US being 23rd is much more serious than just a statistic
Stats for kids being happy and satisfied @ High School are terrible
Teaching the bored is worse than being bored. Huge decline in Tchr satisfaction. Rapid decline in 2 years. 1 in 3 teachers considering leaving the profession. Imagine what that means if you are a kid in a classroom.
55 percent of teachers in DC leave within 2 years
More teachers in US in Y1 than in any other year
Even in countries doing well, performance is levelling off. We may have reached the limit of what we can squeeze out of the traditional system
Solution
Integrating the three items named is what the solution looks like
4 Criteria: irresitibly engaging, elegantly efficient & easy to learn, ubiquitous, steeped in real life problem solvimg
The underside of technology is that its largely undisciplined and does not ensure that kids learn
We have emerging e.g.'s of this integration like Park Manor and Manaiakalani, but no examples of whole system reform
We have innovative teachers, classrooms, a few schools but no systems
Pedagogy & Change
Roles of the teacher, student engagement, precision & specificity
Tech savvy does not equal pedagogy
Need teacher as Activator, Teacher as Faciltator, Teacher as Mentor
Teacher as Activator is where all the effect size is. faciltator (quite a buzz word) has far lower effect size.
Expert teachers have high levels of knowledge and understanding. Can provide defensible evidence of positive effects of teaching on learning
A small amount of high quality intervention can move a student from the wrong path to the right one. Adults are the same. Ben Levin p20
Treat students as learning partners. Use more peer to peer teaching, offer students more choices than mandates.
Technology
Take advantage of the principles of what technology and sociology want rather than resisting.
Tech is an enabler not a driver. Note also the dark side of technology. Tech is just as helpful to authoritarian societies as it is to democratice societies
We need to avoid cyber utopianisim and the way web tech tries to tell people what they want before they work out what they want. E.g. Directing the choice of poorer populations by what turns up as the result of a google search
Tech + Ped will require good partnerships between teachers & teachers and teachers & students
Critical mass will accelerate in 2013 in terms of integrating pedagogy with technology
Do we have clear and simple enough success measures
Does tech help us to get there quicker as well as achieve higher outcomes
Need Action Research to go with this
Change Knowledge
Don't do too many things at once, too fast
Need impressive empathy to deal well with this
Need excellent capacity building. Schools with high social capital and high human capital do best. Need high social capital most of all.
need positive contagion, transparency, eliminate distractors, Leadership, non judgementalism. Build capacity rather than judging. Judging drives undesired behaviour underground.
Timeliness
Innovation Cycle
Where we are in the change cycle. Disruptive innovation is not necessarily better than the status quo. The innovation has to continue to move on to consolidation of the practices that are really delivering.
What strategies end up sooner than later in developing intrinsic motivation so that people end up quickly wanting to change
Specificity, Clarity, Precision. The opposite of describing teaching as a mystical art. Successful practices can be described, filmed, shared.
Excellent schools with special features are not what we need because regular ordinary schools cannot attain to their performance. We need to be able to systematically share what ordinary schools can do when excellence occurs.
Kids should be able to describe the success indicators and strategies