Engaging D&T Pupils in Technology - Mediated Learning Environment

After lunch, we were invited to sit in one of the paper presentation at the APERA Conference.

When we reached NIE LT1, we realised that the venue was very empty and that there were actually three sub-paper presentations.

Paper 1
Personally, I thought the first speaker, Mr. Loke, was merely reading every single word on the powerpoint slides with hardly any elaboration. In addition, I thought he could have first introduced some of the abbreviations that he used, like what D&T, KF meant, especially when some of the members of the audience were guests from abroad. Also, one should also use "grade level" instead of "secondary xxx" when addressing an international audience.

Some things that I liked about the presentation:

• The presenter patiently went through the learning activities associated with D&T.



• The presenter spelt out clearyy what was meant by AOD.



• The presenter delineated clearly the learning objectives of D&T Teaching and Learning with AOD.



• The rationale of the study was presented in a clear and concise manner too.

While it was good to break up the monotony by introducing pictures, I thought the speaker may want to spread out the pictures and insert them at appropriate breaks. For example, the speaker may want to insert some pictures to illustrate what he means by D&T learning activites. Nothing much was also mentioned about the subjects and participants in the case study.

Other than the technical aspects of the presentation, I must admit I was actually quite curious as to whether the strategies presented in this paper could be extended to other subjects like Mathematics and the sciences. Certainly worth exploring.

Paper 2
The speaker, Mr. Yeo, first shared the research question, methodology, procedure and his data analysis, but he did not go into details as to how the sample of 15 students was selected, nor whether having more boys than girls in his study affected his findings or made his conclusions less generalisable. After the sharing, I went to speak to Mr. Yeo personally and he confirmed that the n1 and n2 in Holsti's (1969) coefficient of reliability are equal, which makes me wonder why they just cannot express the denominator as 2n instead of n1+n2.

Paper 3
This was the last paper presentation. Again, as per the previous speaker, the rationale, research questions, methodology, findings and analysis were shared right at the beginning of the presentation, though I am still not entirely convinced about the convention adopted in computing the impact factor. I thought that given more time, the speaker should be able to describe his findings in greater detail.

All in all, I did not find the sharing by the three speakers useful as I am not convinced that students' learning have enhanced by the provisions set up by the researchers. Furthermore, it remains to be seen how these provisions can help to enhance students' understanding in less "visual" subjects like my own subject domain, Mathematics. Nevertheless, I thought I have learnt two new "tools of trade" in the Holsti's coefficient of reliability as well as Markov's equation.

Session 4 (28/11)

Dr. Quek started off the session by reviewing the Wetpaint pages, as some of the groups have added even more information and touched up their pages. We were also given time to respond to the questions posted in the discussion forums.

We were then briefed that the focus of today's session will be to understand the rationale for modifying and how to modify the Learning Environment instruments. We were asked to refer back to nine instruments in Fraser's reading on Science Learning Environments. Just as we thought we were overwhelmed, Dr. Quek showed us Meng Fai's work, and we realised that there are many more instruments! Luckily, Meng Fai was on hand to share with us some of his considerations when choosing and modifying the instruments. It certainly helped me to understand better what it means by a validated instrument, why we should avoid re-inventing the wheel as well as be sensitive to the context and the target group.

In addition, even though I have already learnt factor analysis in MED871 and MED872 before, seeing the research reports as well as hearing Meng Fai speak helped me put everything into context. I learnt that we must be careful not to change the meaning altogether of the test items, as well as be mindful that we do not test the same thing using different items. I also learnt that the ordering of the items may also affect the results. An important practical lesson to consolidate the learning from the earlier two modules instead!

Session 3 (27/11)

Dr. Quek started the day's session by sharing the rubric that she will be grading our blogs by. I think she brought up a very pertinent point in that while a rubric allows us to know the expectations and what to work towards, it may also encourage some of us to aim for the minimum and as well as stifle our creativity in how we do up our blogs. A very good point indeed.

Next, each group presented their Wetpaint pages on the gurus in the field of learning environments. One of the groups copied and pasted the wrong photo of Walberg and that taught me a valuable lesson in that even though there is an abundance of resources on the world-wide web, we need to be discerning as to whether the information we get there is reliable. In fact, while researching on the history of Rudolf Moos, I had difficulty trying to discern whether the write-ups were about the right Rudolf Moos.

After the groups have presented their mini-research, Dr. Quek instructed us to post at least two questions on our wiki so that other groups can come in and respond. I thought it was nice as it provides an outlet for visitors to comment as well as participate in discussions so as to bring our understanding to a deeper level.

We were then introduced to the notion of the "4-steps Learning Environment" and it especially made sense to me as an educator. I began to think about the learning environment both in my classes of high ability learners as well as in the domain of CCA, where in my capacity as the teacher IC of my school's Table Tennis team and being a avid ex school team player as well, I occasionally do spar with the players as well. I started to think about what the learning environments are like, how I can assess as well as improve on it.

Before Dr. Quek acquainted us with the three key elements in any learning environment (namely the physical settings, the human participants as well as the social climate/culture), she revisited Murray's Needs-Press model. That really helped me to see the big picture and there and then, everything that I have learnt prior to that seems to fall into place neatly. It also opened my eyes to the many considerations about any learning environment that I needed to be aware of and how lacking and uncondusive the learning environments that I have taught in were. I also learnt that in designing any learning environment, I need to be clear about whether I want to be driven by the outcomes or whether I wanted to be more process-oriented.

We then learnt about how to assess the learning environment as well as the different approaches to Learning Environment Research. The three approaches are as follows:

1. the use of trained observers to code events, usually in terms of explicit verbal communication


2. the use of ethnographic and naturalistic inquiry data collection methods; and


3. the use of pupil and/or teacher perceptions obtained through questionaire administration

The provision of these three approaches had dual effects on me:

1. Helped to put whatever I have learnt in MED871 and MED872 in context (in fact, I am quite thankful that I have done both these modules prior to this module and I can finally see the application).


2. Helped me to better understand the difference between alpha and beta press.

In fact, I began to appreciate why the third approach is usually favoured and I wondered whether baring cost and time, the first two approaches will give a more accurate reflection of the learning environment.

I also learnt about the following considerations when choosing instruments to assess the learning environment:

1. target audience


2. design (no. of scales, no. of items, order of items, inclusion of double-negative items etc)


3. mode of administration


4. qualitative or quantitative or both?


5. what exactly do I want to find out about the learning environment

Dr. Quek also brought up that any instrument must contain all three dimensions of Moos' theoretical framework, though not necessarily of equal coverage. We are also introduced to the actual and preferred forms as well as class and personal forms. Instruments like the E-Learning and WIHIC were highlighted. Having always been of the opinion that it is better to have even number of items on a Likert scale when administering any survey, I must say that these instruments alerted me that sometimes, a 5-point Likert scale may do a better job.

It has indeed been very heavy-going but I must say that the carrom game after lunch helped to freshen me up quite a bit.

Session 2 (25/11)

Ok, this is kind of late, and I have two days' worth of materials to reflect on...

I joined the class as Dr. Quek was introducing the key terminologies in Classroom Learning Environments and they are namely:

• School climate


• School culture


• Perception


• Learning environment


• School learning environment


• Classroom learning environment

Dr. Quek went on to clarify that even though the first two terms, school climate and school culture, are very similar and often mistaken for each other, there are actually subtle differences between the two.

While reading Fraser's reading on Science Learning Environments: Assessment, Effects and Determinants, I also learnt that in addition to alpha press and beta press introduced by Murray, Stern actually extended the notion of beta press by making a distinction between private beta press and consensual beta press.

This was also my first introduction to the founding fathers of the realm of Learning Environments, having been exposed to the works of Fraser, Walberg, Moos, Lewin and Murray, and some of the instruments they developed to assess the learning environments.

Walberg - Learning Environment Inventory (LEI), Harvard Project Physics
Moos - Classroom Environment Scale (CES), Theoretical Framework - The 3 Dimensions of Learning Environments,
Murray - Needs-Press Model
Lewin - Field Theory, B=f(P,E)

What truly amazed me was the amount of details captured by Murray's seemingly simple model. If my classmate has not pointed out, I may not even have noticed that the connecting arrows were different and meant different things! And this model was developed 70 years ago!

Dr. Quek then briefly touched on the demands of the design of the learning environment to meet the goals of education in the 21st century, following which she shared the four different perspectives on learning environments as defined by Bransford, Brown and Cocking (2000) and instructed each group to read Chapter 6 of the book How People Learn and summarise one perspective each. My group was tasked to work on community-centred learning environment and here are my take-aways:

- The degree to which environments are community-centred is getting incresingly important and related to the learning that takes place in them.
- The community includes several aspects of the community, namely the classroom, school, degree to which students, teachers and administrators feel connected to the larger community of homes, businesses, states, the nation and even the world.

Positive aspects

• Norms for people learning from one another


• People continually attempting to improve


• Social norms that value the search for understanding


• An environment that allows students the freedom to make mistakes in order to learn (Brown & Campoine, 1994; Cobb et al., 1992)


• Emphasis on community (strongly affected by the adults who work in that environment) (Brown, 1988)
  

Negative aspects

• Different set of expectations for different students (MacCorquodale, 1988)


• Cultural expectations (Schofield et al., 1990)


• Classroom norms which may encourage modes of participation that may be unfamiliar tp or awkward for some students (Rogolf et al., 1993)


• Grading practices like the public display of a "high achiever" bulletion board (Deyhle & Margonis, 1995)


• Competition among students for teacher attention, approval and grades


• Individual competition at odds with a community ethic of individuals contributing their strengths to the community (Suina & Smolkin, 1994)

This really opened my eyes to the possible effects the community could have on learning in my classroom, and sensitised me to pay greater attention to these details next time round I am in a classroom.

Furtheremore, this way of collaborative learning also allowed me to learn a lot more about the other three perspectives from the other groups. Certainly more efficient and easier to digest!

We were tasked to do up a wetpaint page on one of the following and share with the class the following lesson:

• Kurt Lewin's Field Theory - 1936 (Group 3)


• Henry Murray's Need- Press Theory - 1938


• Rudolf Moos' theoretical framework - 3 dimensions of human evnrionments (Group 1)


• Walberg's involvement in the Harvard Project Physics (HPP) - 1960s( Group 4)


• Barry Fraser -80s’


• Darrell Fisher-80s’


• Theo Wubbels-90s (Group 2)
  

Now, that's another useful tool worth exploring!

There's just the little problem of trying to digest the huge stack of readings as well as the four books that I have borrowed from the library.

Will report back soon, I hope!

First day of class!

Hello everyone!

This is the first time I am blogging and it has to be because of some master's course requirements.

Reporting in from ECL 3 NIE Block 2.

Kinda lost and there's lots to catch up with, but I will manage, I hope.

Will post more later! =)