EDU 6250 Article 3

Stillar, B. (2012). 21^st Century learning: How college classroom interaction will change in the decades ahead. International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, & Society, 8(1) 143-151. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.cod.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=3013d9e6-1e80-43f4-9ff4-54af2683e38d%40sessionmgr113&hid=128&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=91544679.

This particular article was written to discuss the changes that are occurring specifically in the college classrooms.  Although college education is influenced by many of the same factors as public education, the college classroom may be affected by these influences in a drastically different way.  The standards, expectations, and student population undergo a very significant change from the high school level to the college level. Since the implications of advances on college classrooms vary from the public education spectrum, it is important to investigate these changes separately. 

               Often curriculum and education changes apart from technology, based on societal needs, but a large factor recently in how lessons are taught are driven by the new technologies available for the classroom.  This article focuses mainly on the changes that are related to the increase and advancement of technology.  Because technology is so prevalent, many people are encouraged by their businesses to seek additional training to support their job.  This leads the college to develop classrooms and environments that suits the needs of professional seeking certificates or advanced training.  Because employers are looking for specific skills, it often drives college to provide a very specific course on a flexible schedule so that people who work can complete the class, and directly apply it to their profession.  Employers and colleges will see an increase in communication to ensure that the college offers the services needed by specific employers.  Technology is the key in allowing flexible courses, many of which occur online, or in a blended atmosphere.  Without the communication between employers and colleges, many high paying highly skilled jobs will go unfilled for lack of qualified applicants. 

                The previous circumstance deals with individuals who know what skills they need to be successful because they are already set in a position.  However many traditional aged students do not know what career they will end up with.  Thus the college curriculum must ensure that school is teaching the students critical thinking skills.  Then when students leave college, no matter what job they end up with, they will have the necessary cognitive skills to adapt and learn new material as the train in their new career.  Technology plays a big role in preparing students for jobs they may not even know exist yet.  With technology, it is possible to create virtual labs in many disciplines, which allow students to work out real life problems and develop problem solving skills.  The idea of creating adaptable lessons for small groups is very encouraging for the development of critical thinking skills for many facets of life.  This also caters to many different intelligences in the classroom.  Students can take advantage of their kinesthetic, visual, auditory, and other modes of learning and absorbing information.  If needed, these labs could also be more career specific, such as for nursing or other vocational careers.  This type of learning is much more self-driven as well, which takes the focus away from the instructor, and puts the student in the center of their own learning.  Students will need to know how to navigate large amounts of material presented by technology, and how to distinguish valuable information from incorrect material.  Because of the large amounts of free source information available, a majority of research and discussion can be done without the strict oversight of the professor.  This method should seem natural to many students as time progresses, because technology has been a part of many younger students lives since they were very young.  It would be unusual to many of these students to learn without using technology. 

                In addition, technology will help drive the idea of a worldwide community of learners.  Because of the ease to which people can connect all over the world, classrooms will continue to encourage students to exchange ideas with people from various countries.  Many college classrooms will no longer be isolated to the small group of students in the course, or even the relatively small number of total students at the college, but the investigating of ideas can be discussed by many individuals with many different backgrounds.  This again leads the importance of the ability of the student to distinguish what information is useful and what is not.

                The advance of technology leads to a shift in the structure of the college classroom.  Professors become much more of a facilitator rather than the main source of knowledge.  While the professor is still an expert in their field, the professor must encourage students to explore ideas on their own, because eventually the student will leave the classroom and no longer be able to rely solely on the knowledge of the professor.  Students must themselves become experts at finding and synthesizing information through the process of completing college courses.  The fact that the professors role is changing may be scary to many teachers.  Many professors enjoy being the main source of knowledge, but if a professor is to truly conduct their classroom to maximize the benefit to the student, the professor must accept this change spurred on by technology.  Instead of fearing or avoiding this change, it is a professor’s responsibility to investigate new technologies and new learning methods, and when applicable incorporate beneficial technology into their classroom.  The ultimate goal is to create life long critically thinking students, and technology is going to play a big part in how this is accomplished.

EDU 6250 article 2

Powell, W. & Kusuma-Powell, O. (2015). Overcoming resistance to new ideas. Phi Delta Kappan, 96 (8) 66-69. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=5e0ea98f-c262-45f0-89fd-d88dae804bda%40sessionmgr115&hid=101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=102291250

The article I read dealt with the resistance to change many teachers may face when implementing new strategies in the classroom.  Technology is often a new idea for the classroom, and is constantly changing, but this article covered a wider concern than just technology.  The article begins by discussing how during a staff survey about differentiated instruction, many teachers had negative feelings toward the validity or viability of implementing differentiated instruction.  Many teachers either saw no reason for the change, because they felt their students were succeeding with the current model, or thought there is simply not enough time and resources to complete the adaptation.  The article discusses how this negative feedback is a result of underlying beliefs and attitudes that many teachers have that cause them to cling to the status quo for their classroom.  In many cases, the teacher may not even be aware of the fact that they have an underlying belief that causes them to be so resistant.  The author notes that these teachers who had these adaptive challenges were generally considered good instructors, and had their student’s best interest in mind. 

The proposed idea to combat this resistance was to create opportunities for deep reflection and cooperative learning.  The article mentioned how important it was to create an environment where the instructors did not feel threatened, as many teachers strive to "protect our self-esteem, our reputation with colleagues, our perception of past success, and even our feelings of professional fulfillment" (p. 67).  The study was conducted by grouping the resistant teachers together, and giving them an opportunity to explore their underlying beliefs by answering open ended questions.  These questions dealt with feelings of success in the classroom, strategies for helping struggling students, and what student success really means to them.  These questions provided an opportunity for the teachers to reflect and discuss their ideas about how their classroom is structured.  After the discussion, teachers were asked to identify one goal they had for their classroom that involved adaptive change, and then they were set up in groups to help them co-plan, co-teach, and co-reflect on the process.  This process was continued over an extended period of time, as the changes in the classroom are often not made overnight, but rather through a gradual process. 

The outcome of this study was that by introducing this reflective method to a small group of teachers, the method spread throughout the school.  The teachers in the study used to the same reflective process within their team and department meetings.  The teachers saw the benefit to working collaboratively and using the reflective process to overcome obstacles in making changes in their classrooms.

This article I believe really hits at the heart of the resistance to technology.  Many teachers become comfortable with the status quo, and perhaps without even realizing it, develop underlying beliefs that cause negative reactions to implementing new strategies / technologies.  The study suggests several good ideas for overcoming these issues, however in my experience for the college level, it is much easier for instructors to resist the team approach.  The cooperative exploration may help many teachers at the college level, but there are those teachers who will choose to omit themselves.  There is not much an associate dean can do to force participation by individual instructors.  In a public school system, it would seem much easier to require this type of training.  This isolation only becomes an issue if new technology requirements need to be approved by an entire department, which often is not the case.  Thus I think using this cooperative strategy, which my college are encourages, is a great way to overcome obstacles in continually updating a teacher’s current style. 

EDU 6250 Article Review # 1

Reference:

Joanne, C.S.M, & Lateef, F. (2014). The flipped classroom: Viewpoints in Asian universities. Education in Medicine Journal 6,(4), 20-26. Retrieved from

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.cod.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=5f9bb4d6-b3d8-4bf0-8ced-d52ad1af6200%40sessionmgr113&hid=101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=101593180

This article discusses the viewpoint of the flipped classroom in Asian cultures.  The flipped classroom is an idea where students complete a lesson at home on their own, and then perform homework problems in the classroom.  The purpose of the flipped classroom is to try to increase engagement in education.  Having the students work on problems in a classroom, perhaps collaboratively with other students, can possibly create an engaging learning environment which may increase overall learning.  In order for the flipped classroom to be successful, there is a certain amount of technology that a student must have access to at home.  As many people can probably relate, reading a school textbook is not terribly invigorating, and could cause issue for students completing assignments at home.  Thus various technologies: videos, websites, interactive media, etc., is very important in the possible success of the flipped classroom.  

The article takes the assumption that western culture lends itself to students who like to work in groups to learn, and are more interested in being involved in their learner when compared to Asian learners.  The article describes Asian learners as passive and shy.  The article further discusses the role of the teacher in the classroom for western and Asian learners.  In Asian cultures, the teacher “received utmost reverence by society, alongside parents and the emperor” (p. 21).  The study itself was conducted between 2013 and 2014.  There were 9 Asian countries involved in the student totaling 12 case studies.  The participants in the study were university students, and the case studies ranged from as few as 24 to 344 students.  Students in the case studies were taught a class in a flipped classroom style, and then feedback was collected. 

When receiving feedback, a large percentage of students wrote favorable comments about their experience in the flipped classroom.  They liked the extra time for discussion with their teacher.  Quantitative data was also collected regarded performance in the flipped classroom when compared to a traditional classroom.  There was no significant difference between the traditional class and flipped classroom.  Thus it seems likely that the flipped classroom does not cause students to do worse on exams, but it may not provide much additional benefit in regards to learning content.  One aspect that seemed to be consistent for learners in all case studies was the positive feedback about the learning environment.  Student satisfaction was significantly high for students in the flipped classroom model.  The article also discussed how instructors in Asia appeared to be willing to test out the new model.  In general the instructors cared most about the success of the students, and so introducing a flipped model into Asian schools may not present a problem of dispelling the “sage on the stage” which has dominated education previously. 
 

Overall the article is interesting because Asian countries consistently score higher in math than students in Western countries, and so to examine how Asian students respond to a flipped classroom could be valuable information for our school systems.  The article focused a lot on student enjoyment.  When deciding which learning technique to use, I am not always sure that the student satisfaction should be of utmost importance.  It is difficult to say for Asian schools, but my experience teaching at the college level tells me a majority of students would be happy simply to be passed along in the school system, regardless of what they may have actually learned.  If a student is happy to simply receive an A without any actual learning, than this is not a good model to adapt.  However students in Asian societies may put more weight on their education, and thus their satisfaction may be pure in a sense that they actually felt that they were learning more, and in a more profound way.  However student satisfaction is certainly a benefit I see based on the results of this study.  There are however some potential issues that I could see with the flipped classroom that this article did not discuss.  The flipped classroom requires a strong self-motivated student.  If a student is not self-motivated, they will not complete the lessons on their own at home, and then the class time will be wasted relearning material the student should already know.  What should a teacher do with a student who is not prepared for the day’s work? Also there is a large deal of technology involved in the flipped classroom model.  As mentioned before, students must be able to access the lessons, which are often videos or interactive programs.  Not all students have access to these necessities, and thus these students could be left behind.   The flipped classroom may create a bigger gap between students within the same classroom than a traditional model.  Having a variety of abilities in a classroom is always a challenge that a teacher must face, but the flipped classroom may expand this issue.  Overall, it does not seem that the flipped classroom is an educational idea restricted to one culture.  Perhaps there are benefits of the flipped classroom for all students, but pinpointing exactly how successfully this model can be is yet to be seen.  More time is needed to examine the outcomes of student who progress through a flipped classroom model.