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The Future of Instruction: Teacher as ‘Co-Learner’

by Dave Nagel

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22859_3

The expectations of students and the demands of the education community are changing radically in the 21st century. Necessarily, the role of the teacher is changing along with those. But what will that role be?  International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is attempting to answer that question with the release this week of the long-anticipated update to its National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers framework.

Introduced in 2000, NETS-T originally focused heavily on the transition from static learning content to electronic, interactive tools to enhance teaching and learning. While it did emphasize collaboration to a certain degree, the role of teachers themselves remained largely transmitter/facilitator of textual materials, albeit electronic ones, and the primary emphasis of the framework was on technology knowledge and skills–something that seems fairly remedial by today’s standards.

But NETS-T 2008 (also known as NETS-T Second Edition), which launched this week at the NECC 2008 conference, takes a decidedly different approach, casting teachers into the role of facilitator, collaborator, and, significantly, “co-learner,” rather than information regurgitator.

According to the explanatory materials in the new framework document, “Now and in the future, effective teachers of digital-age learners will be challenged to move away from models of teaching and learning as isolated endeavors. As they model work and learning that reflects inventive thinking and creativity, teachers must become comfortable as co-learners with their students and with colleagues around the world. Today it is less about staying ahead and more about moving ahead as members of dynamic learning communities. The Digital Age teaching professional must demonstrate a vision of technology infusion and develop the technology skills of others. These are the hallmarks of the new education leader.”

NETS-T 2008 expresses these concepts through a new set of imperatives and standards for teachers, along with rubrics for these standards. It also sets “essential conditions” for effectively leveraging technology for education, such as a “shared vision” for ed tech among stakeholders, granting leaders the ability to effect change, systemic planning, and several others.

Among the changes in NETS-T 2008 are five major new performance indicators for teachers. (You can contrast these new indicators with the old ones by clicking here.) These include (as paraphrased from the latest NETS-T document):

• Learning and creativity: Teachers use subject matter expertise to facilitate and inspire creativity in students, including inventiveness, problem solving, and reflecting, through the use of digital tools, collaborative tools, and co-learning experiences (i.e., teachers learning along with their students);
• Assessment: Teachers couple “authentic learning experiences” with assessments for evaluations so that students set their own goals for learning, engage in personalized learning, and are evaluated based on “multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards”;
• “Digital Age” skills: Teachers exhibit fluency in digital tools, engage regularly in technology-based collaboration and communication, and “use information resources to support research and learning”;
• Digital citizenship: Teachers promote “safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology,” promote etiquette, and work to foster a global perspective in students; and
• Professional development: Educators adopt a model of lifelong learning and exhibit professional leadership through participation in learning communities, evaluation of research into the latest digital tools for education, contributions to the “effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession,” and demonstration of leadership in education technology.

All of these take into consideration that teachers are “modeling and applying” concepts from the most recent National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S 2007).

NETS-T 2008 also includes an expansive list of rubrics for these performance indicators and scenarios for the various indicators delineated by proficiency level: beginning, developing, proficient, and transformative.

We’ll have further coverage of NETS-T 2008 later in the week. In the meantime, more information can be found here.

In related news, online education technology provider ePals launched a new treacher resource focused on NETS-T 2008, challenging educators to “move beyond solely a discussion of 21st century skills or technology integration, and toward constructing a framework for evaluating solutions that build 21st century skills.”

ePals has invited educators to join the discussion at its NECC blog, which can be acessed here.

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Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.

Explore Math and Science with GIZMOS:

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Professional Development
Learn how technology is having an impact on professional development through these resources, which examine the strategies, tactics, and tools that are changing the way teachers learn.

Professional Development in Technology, 2008
Innovative Professional Development in Technology
Sponsored by CDW-G

Professional Development in Technology, 2008
How is technology changing professional development? The advent of online distance learning and sophisticated collaborative tools has made available an unprecedented wealth of resources to help teachers, staff, and administrators keep up with the latest developments in education—from sharing teaching techniques to mastering the technologies used in classrooms. What are the effective ways to use these new and emerging tools? In 2008, the trend is toward on-site and “just in time” professional development, with technology (and technology directors) at the forefront of innovation. Find out how these approaches have made a difference in the districts that have implemented them.
Professional Development in Technology, 2008
Jim Gates is fond of quoting from Camelot: “If you want to be happy, learn something.” As a technology trainer for Pennsylvania’s Capitol Area Intermediate Unit, Gates spends much of his time trying to help teachers learn a very specific thing: using technology to improve curriculum.
Many of the professional development strategies that Jim Gates uses—incorporating technology into curricula, bringing teachers together at conferences, providing mentors so that technical assistance is always available—are espoused by CDW Government, Inc. (CDW-G), which monitors the state of educational technology, offers technological advice, presents a vast array of hardware and software products, and provides customer support.
Continue reading….
Innovative Professional Development in Technology
Professional development in technology has been undergoing some significant changes lately. The days of teachers attending workshops, learning PowerPoint and a dozen other applications, and then returning to their schools to try to figure out how to use what they learned—those days may be numbered.
Case in point: Kristin Hokanson is a “Technology Integration Coach” as part of a Classrooms for the Futures grant in Upper Merion Area High School, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Hokanson’s goal is simply to help teachers use technology more effectively. Indeed, she does facilitate some training, but more often she’s meeting with individual teachers before and after school; sometimes she’s helping them in the classroom. “I’m not a curriculum expert,” says Hokanson. “The teachers are. But I’m a technology expert. And I’m available all the time.” That’s the first significant change in professional development in technology—it now happens during actual teaching time, when, not surprisingly, it’s needed the most.
Continue reading….

21st Century Teaching and Learning: Assessing New Knowledge
by Ruth Reynard, Ph.D.

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22531

In Part 1 of this two-part series on 21st century teaching and learning, I stated:
Current mobile technology challenges [instructional] design even further as it demands a totally different approach to instructional design and also teaching methodology. It requires fluidity never before seen and new skills from both teacher and student. In fact, I would argue that while we focus on the skills needed for students in the 21st Century, we must discuss more and learn more about the skills required of teachers in the 21st Century.
Much has been discussed about the new roles teachers and students play in learning environments created by using new technology and the types of skills required of students in this century. Those skills tend to be softer skills like team building, cooperative communication strategies, self-direction, and the academic skills of critical and applied thinking, new knowledge construction and collaborative learning techniques. Alongside this dialog is another sociological discussion currently in progress attempting to define millennial students; their characteristics, expectations, and preferences in life and learning (Howe, Strauss & Matson 2000; Howe & Strauss, 2006). Much has been and is being written about how the new student characteristics should affect instructional design and increase technology use. Not so much, however, is being discussed about how these kinds of changes should affect assessment and the recognition in terms of academic value of the skills that are being developed in the learning process.
New Skills: Assessing Process

The theory of connectivism (Siemens, 2004) is interesting in this context. This theory proposes that technology and making connections in learning are linked–a combination of connectivism and constructivist methods: Learning processes previously confined to learning theory can now be actively supported by technology. Solomon and Schrum (2007) suggest that current educational trends based on standards and tests lean towards teacher-driven instruction, while the required 21st century skills of higher order thinking skills, application of technology, and adapting to change and workplace skills, among others, require new methods and new assessment measures. The challenge for teachers according to these authors is to find ways to support in-depth learning and increased student achievement, “…while also employing a variety of measures, including standardized tests.” What kinds of new methods would provide the kind of learning environments and learning measurements that truly reflect the learning that is taking place? What new skills are needed if instructors are to meet this challenge?
Often, those very same math teachers, however, would not grant a passing grade for an incorrect result even if the thinking demonstrated excellent logic and well thought out connections.
Identifying new skills here does not refer to content area as much as process; thinking, interaction, collaboration, communication, application: All represent areas of process. Each of these areas is included in any process of teaching and learning. While each of these can be researched individually and its interplay with other processes in learning analyses, I would suggest that teachers/instructors in current educational environments must be aware of how new forms of communication, new ways of thinking, and new expectations and needs for application can be accommodated and valued in the learning process. That is, teachers being involved in assessment that not only assesses the outcome of the process but the process itself. Formerly, the assessment of process was more about the end result than the method you chose to arrive at that result. For example, occasionally, progressive math teachers concerned with concept building might ask students to represent their calculative methods in an attempt to validate the concept and the thinking process involved, as well as the end result. Often, those very same math teachers, however, would not grant a passing grade for an incorrect result even if the thinking demonstrated excellent logic and well thought out connections.