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Principle: Let digital devices facilitate students' learning and realize differentiated teaching.
Principle: Let digital devices facilitate students' learning and realize differentiated teaching.
To me, a successful classroom is a classroom where all students can be on the same page despite their aptitudes in that content area and their language proficiency. Reading has been a challenge for some students in the ELA class I observe. I learned from the teacher that this class is composed of students who are not the top-ranked in English in their original class. Those who are good at English has been pulled out to join an accelerated English program called “the Regent track,” which offers more advanced contents and prepares students for the Regent exam. This sorting of students can meet their learning demands, but as the teacher puts, teaching a group of low achievers can be frustrating. This frustration can easily form "education debt" (Ladson-Billings, 2006) because of low expectations on students from the school, teachers, and sadly, their parents.
The equity issue that I observed today was a student, Caleb (pseudonym), who had difficulty reading English and relied on his phone as the translator. When the teacher gave out the handout and asked everybody to read, Caleb took out his phone and turned on the picture-to-text translating function. He showed the translation to me because some of the words were translated poorly or not translated at all. He asked me the meaning of those words and I noticed that he missed the teacher’s explanation of one of the words. He concentrated too much on the poor translation on his phone that he missed several instructions made by the teacher. Also, students were prohibited from using their phones in class, so every time he took out his phone for translation, he had to worry about being caught even though the teacher would just warn him. Thus, I think teachers should allow students’ usage of electronic devices when they serve the purpose of helping students learn.
Some people would argue that lifting the prohibition of phones in class causes bigger classroom management issues. When there is only one teacher in the room, it is difficult to tell whether a student is using his/her phone for learning or not. From my own experience, I taught at a private school where students had to give their phones to the teacher the moment they entered the classroom. However, during some classroom activities, teachers will give the phones back to the students so that they can search for information they need. This usually happened during group work. Because the time was limited, students would not use their phones for non-academic purposes. Thus, I agree that during reading time in the ELA class, student can use their phones to help them understand the text. They should put away their phones when the time is over.
Students are reading in class.
"We do not have an achievement gap; we have an achievement debt."
-- Ladson-Billings, 2006
Another concern is that if students are allowed to use translators while reading, their English will never improve. First, I think during in-class reading time, as students need to read fast and have discussion afterwards, it is more important for them to understand than to learn new words at that moment. Second, cases like Caleb, who needs sentence-by-sentence translation, are not common. Most students do not rely on translator to read. They only need to look up a few words that they do not know, which will help them memorize the meaning of the words. Third, the teacher can require students to take notes while using the translator, so that they will learn from the process of translation. In fact, translation is a crucial part of language acquisition. The teacher’s job is to turn translation and electronic dictionaries into facilitators of language learning rather than banning them.
After Caleb discussed the translation on his phone with me, he successfully participated in the following discussion. He shared his opinions on the text and how it was related to Animal Farm. I felt happy for him that he did not give up despite his low English proficiency. Had Caleb not risked taking out his phone for translation, this would not have been a successful classroom for him. This experience prompted me to rethink the role of personal electronic devices in class. They had been considered a threat to a successful classroom, but in this case it was not. For me, a certain object should not be defined as a warranty or a threat to a successful classroom. It depends on how teachers and students use it to affect learning.
Observation Prompts
Observation Prompts
Notes
Notes
References
References
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher, 35(3), pp. 3-12.
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