The stated intention for this activity is to provide an
example of a scaffold that will effectively support higher order thinking and
learning outcomes. The topic for discussion – mobile phone use in schools. I
have to admit that if I had been given this as a linear activity of 1. Topic
and 2. Discussion; I would most likely have only looked at it from a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’
perspective or PMI’s (Positives, Minuses and Interesting).
In terms of learning theory, certainly this activity moved
beyond the teacher focused areas of Behaviourism and Cognitivism. If Behaviourism
as a learning theory, posits that students learn through practice, then having
to repeatedly load the wikispace and re-enter my contribution due to the
technical difficulties with the site, gave me ample understanding of how this
might be a less than stimulating or even frustrating way of learning. It also
highlighted that an important aspect of using ICTs for teaching would be advance
testing, having a backup plan, ensuring that whatever application you are utilising is relatively bug
free and that technical difficulties are minimised for students.
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| Source: onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com |
I did think that sites like Mathletics or Reading Eggs would
be good examples of this type of Behaviourism learning, where students repeatedly cover
basic concepts and content. The learning strategies these sites use include
multiple choice quizzes and pre-recorded explanations and they also effectively
use positive reinforcement with colourful and visually appealing presentation
and reward systems.
The design aspects of the de Bono's Thinking Hats wiki activity incorporated:
- Online student collaboration: this was certainly
demonstrative of Constructivism learning theory with the features of collaboration
and self-guided learning through research and discovery of information about
the topic. Connectivism was also evident as I connected with other students to
share ideas, gain some perspectives I had not considered, via a medium that
allowed us to share various types of content, images and videos with each other
in a way that was pretty much self
directed.
- Scaffolding the activity with De Bono’s Six
Thinking Hats: this was not something I had come across before. Having now been
exposed to this, it makes perfect logical sense and was a powerful and effective
demonstration to consider just how important it can be to properly consider how
you scaffold a learning experience, if you are expecting students to delve
deeper in their analysis and achieve better learning outcomes.
- A topic that is relevant and interesting to the
learners: the relevance to us as pre-service teachers was obvious and reading the
comments of other students indicated this was an interesting topic with some
quite strong views expressed. This incorporated many of the aspects we covered
in knowing your learner and understanding how to structure information to
ensure it is effectively processed and stored by your learners’ brains.
So the value of this scaffolding was apparent to me, where I
moved my thinking beyond the yes and no sides of this issue and considered a
range of perspectives, information and questions. It also provided an abundance
of responses, content, links to other sources and opinions from other students.
This genuinely lead me to a more informed and considered opinion of what my
stance would be in this currently ongoing debate about mobile phone use in
schools. There were implications for what sort of student behaviours, risks,
policies, learning strategies and ethical issues I will very soon be confronted
with on prac. My learning outcomes were so much broader than I initially
expected. I did realise how pertinent this issue was, that it was something I
would need to be informed about before I started prac – to find out what my
school’s policies and disciplinary actions are. Most importantly though, it did
encourage me to explore further positive, creative uses for mobile phones
within my planning of learning activities that would be appealing and
interesting to my students.
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