Enter the Matrix: A Pedagogy for Infusing Technology

Deborah Kozdras, Ph.D.Gus A. Stavros Center for Free Enterprise and Economic Education

University of South Florida, Tampa, FLUSA

dkozdras@usf.edu

James L. Welsh, Ph.D.Florida Center for Instructional Technology

University of South Florida, Tampa, FLUSA

jlwelsh@usf.edu

Abstract: While technology is commonplace in many classrooms, technology use is often centered on the teacher. Many teachers use interactive boards, document cameras, and other tools to present lessons to students. The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) provides a framework to help teachers conceptualize effective integration. Following the story of a teacher struggling with technology, the authors provide tips and an outline to soundly scaffold the integration. This article explains the essential characteristics and levels that comprise the TIM. Using the TIM as a guide, a teacher learns how to untangle her lesson and provide engaging student-centered, literacy-based technology activities.

A Beginning

Wendy paced quickly around the room, counting off the tablet computer stations she had prepared for the first lesson of the morning. Wendy teaches 5th grade at Roller Elementary and this was her first time integrating tablets into a language arts lesson -- or any lesson for that matter. Wendy’s school received a grant to purchase tablet computers at the beginning of the school year and had several sets available for teachers to check out. Most teachers had not touched them.

The principal believed that technology integration was important and strongly encouraged teachers to use the new resources. Feeling the pressure, Wendy had taken the plunge. She remembered a tablet lesson plan included in a summer workshop she had attended and decided to use it. In this lesson, Wendy had high hopes that her classroom would be transformed into a “21st century learning environment.”

Haiku Digital Poems Lesson

Things began promisingly. When the students arrived, they were very excited to see the new “toys” spread around the room. Wendy hadn’t seen them this excited in months and was ready to capitalize on this high level of engagement. Somewhat apprehensive about using the tablets, Wendy closely followed the lesson plan provided in the workshop. Although her class wouldn’t be working with poetry for another month, this lesson had the students creating haikus, embedding images, and recording narration.

The lesson involved a multimedia presentation app and images from an online library of photographs appropriate for classroom use. Wendy explained the goals of the lesson and showed the example haiku she had created in the workshop -- a haiku about a cat with an image of a gray and white tabby. Wendy wrote the steps students should follow clearly on the board, assigned the students to their groups, and told them to get started.

Haiku Havoc

Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as Wendy had hoped. Group 1’s tablet couldn’t connect to the school’s wireless network, despite the fact that Wendy had tested it the previous day. Group 2 didn’t understand what a haiku was. Group 3 wanted a picture of a lemur, but the photo site Wendy had given them had none. They

began searching the Internet, immediately got distracted, and wandered into questionable territory. The students in group 4 included struggling readers who got frustrated and stopped working, unnoticed while Wendy frantically moved from table to table trying to put out fires.

Every time students hit a roadblock, Wendy tried to resolve it so they could move on to the next step of the lesson. At one exasperated moment, Wendy looked around and despaired that no one seemed to be learning anything about poetry.

Thirty-five minutes later, Wendy had no haikus, no semblance of order, and no intention to ever use tablets again. What went wrong? Wendy did what many teachers have done before: she started with the technology tools immediately available, found a lesson plan that matched her subject area and grade level, and went for it.

Haiku Help

There are many things that led to the meltdown that occurred in this lesson, but Wendy’s biggest problem was that she didn’t have a conceptual framework–a big picture understanding–to guide her integration of technology. Without an idea of how technology intersects and interacts with pedagogy and literacy content, Wendy followed the steps she had been given and they led her off a metaphorical cliff. What Wendy needed was a model for technology integration to guide her decision-making.

One such model is the Technology Integration Matrix, or TIM. In the sections that follow, you will find an introduction to the TIM and its role in the ELA classroom.

Figure 1: Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) Summary Descriptors

TIM to the Rescue

As illustrated in figure 1, the TIM model has two major parts: levels of technology integration and characteristics of learning environments. The intersections of the levels and characteristics form a five by five grid, or matrix. The model includes detailed descriptions of each level (column), each characteristic (row), and each intersection (cell), as illustrated in Figure 1.

The levels in the TIM are ENTRY, ADOPTION, ADAPTATION, INFUSION, and TRANSFORMATION (Harmes, Welsh, & Winkelman, 2016). A key TIM concept is that these levels describe differences in pedagogy, not differences in technology. In an ENTRY level lesson, technology use is typically conventional and teacher-centered, the focus may be on procedural understandings, and the lesson will include time to learn the technology tool in question. As we move toward TRANSFORMATION level, technology use is increasingly complex and student-centered, more focused on conceptual understandings, and the lesson spends little or no instructional time on learning about the technology tools being used. This pedagogical focus means that if a technology tool is only being used by the teacher, even if it is a cutting-edge technology, the use is probably ENTRY level.

What Level Is Best?

It depends. Another key TIM concept is that the level of technology integration should support learning. The “best” level for one lesson may be ENTRY. For another, “best” may mean TRANSFORMATION. Rather than “best,” think of “best fit.” What level of technology use best fits the needs of students in a given situation? Applying the TIM means the teacher makes decisions about technology based in a firm understanding of pedagogy and content knowledge. While a teacher who is just starting off with technology integration may find it easier to do ENTRY level lessons, a teacher who is more experienced with technology integration will use the whole spectrum, ENTRY through TRANSFORMATION, always carefully matching pedagogical strategies to specific classroom situations.

The five characteristics described in the TIM are ACTIVE, COLLABORATIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE, AUTHENTIC, and GOAL-DIRECTED (Harmes, et al., 2016), adapted from Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra (2003). These characteristics represent effective teaching strategies and provide a set of lenses through which technology integration can be described and evaluated. The characteristics overlap; for example, a lesson that employs a high level of technology use for CONSTRUCTIVE learning probably also uses a high level for ACTIVE learning. A use that is high on the GOAL-DIRECTED spectrum is probably also high on the AUTHENTIC spectrum. Although informally, one might talk about “an ACTIVE lesson,” in actuality, ACTIVE (like any TIM characteristic) is a lens that can be applied to any lesson.

The cells within the TIM each represent the intersection of one level with one characteristic. Each cell contains detailed descriptors of typical student activity, teacher activity, and environmental factors. Each cell also contains classroom videos of lessons that exemplify the characteristic and the level. Can a lesson be both ACTIVE and COLLABORATIVE? Yes. As stated above, the characteristics are lenses through which any lesson can be interpreted. Rather than the general question, “What TIM level is being used in this lesson?” the information within each cell helps answer, for instance, “What TIM level is being used to enhance collaboration in this lesson?” or “What TIM level is being used to enhance authenticity in this lesson?”

The TIM is describing something very specific. It is possible to have a highly collaborative lesson in which technology is not used to enhance collaboration. For instance, a teacher might use a think-pair-share technique in which students are co-constructing responses to literature that students are reading online. The lesson is highly collaborative, but does not incorporate technology to support the collaboration. On the COLLABORATIVE spectrum of the TIM, this would constitute an ENTRY level lesson. Again, this is not necessarily a “bad” use of technology. Whether the technology use is “good” or “bad” depends on the needs of the students, the curriculum demands, and the capabilities of the available technology tools.

So, the TIM is a model that describes different pedagogically-based approaches to technology integration. TIM describes a spectrum of approaches from teacher-centered to student-centered, from conventional to complex, from tool-focused to content-focused. TIM provides several lenses through which to interpret the role of technology within a lesson. As important as it is to understand what the TIM is, it’s equally important to understand what the TIM is not.

The TIM is not prescriptive; it provides a framework for making pedagogical decisions but does not require that all lessons use particular technologies or teaching strategies. The TIM is not exclusive; it is compatible with other technology integration models, such as the ISTE Standards (n.d.) and the TPACK (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). Finally, the TIM model does not require teachers to use technology as much as possible. This model is about understanding why and how to use technology strategically to achieve your goals as a teacher.

Enter the Matrix

As a way of better understanding the TIM, let’s imagine how a single lesson might look at several different TIM levels. For our example, let’s consider a third-grade literature lesson that focuses on distinguishing the narrator’s point of view from different characters’ points of view.

Entry

The teacher uses a laptop, digital projector, and presentation software to explain the concept of point of view, drawing examples from several books the students have recently read. Afterwards, the students take a computer-based quiz. This is an ENTRY level lesson because the teacher is the only one making meaningful decisions about technology use. The students’ direct use of technology is limited to a computer-based quiz.

Adoption

Using tablet computers and an eReader app, the teacher and students read a text together aloud, as a whole-class shared reading. The teacher guides the students to use different colors to highlight different examples of point-of-view within the text. Each student is highlighting his or her own individual copy of the text in an identical way as they work through the text together. The students are being guided through the use of a technology tool. Although they are using technology individually, the teacher dictates which technology and how it is used.

Adaptation

Students choose to use any eReader app or note-taking app on their tablets as they independently search for and highlight examples of point-of-view within any of the texts they’ve read so far this year. The introduction of a choice between two different technologies and the independent use of those technologies marks this example as ADAPTATION level.

Infusion

Students have meaningful, independent access to many different technology tools (hardware and software) available within the learning environment. Many students choose to demonstrate their understanding by creating visual representations of point of view within stories they’ve read, including slideshows and movies. A small group of students works together to create a wiki that demonstrates their understanding and gives examples from many different books. This example demonstrates INFUSION level because the students have the opportunity to make meaningful, critical choices about which tools to apply and how to apply them.

Transformation

Based on their prior experiences, the students work together to create four different movies that each tells the same story from a different perspective. They embed hyperlinks in the movies so that viewers can switch back and forth between different storytelling perspectives within the same narrative. In this example, the students chose to collaborate in an innovative use of technology. This kind of innovation emerges from meaningful access to a broad range of tools and a willingness to accept creative representations of knowledge.

Haiku Part Deux: Wendy Rescues Herself

Let’s reimagine Wendy’s story with a few key changes. Wendy’s principal strongly encouraged teachers to use the tablet computers made available through a recent grant and Wendy decided to take the plunge. She had a lesson plan she liked in which students used tablet computers to create multimedia haikus, using a Haiku app. Wendy also understood how to use the Technology Integration Matrix to make pedagogically-centered decisions

about applying technology tools. She evaluated and adapted the example lesson plan. She considered the needs of her students, the demands of the curriculum, and the affordances and limitations of the school’s tablets.

She first introduced the tablets in an ENTRY level lesson during small group rotations. Rather than a whole class set, Wendy used five tablets at a teacher-led learning center. At the center, students worked with an app that required them to sort words based on different traits. As the students rotated through her center, Wendy had time to help each student become comfortable with the tablets. In the second rotation, one tablet lost network access and she had to set it aside. Fortunately, she had an extra tablet that she used to demonstrate the app and she was able to add it to the group. After class, she learned how to fix the connection problem if it occurred again. She also realized she needed to develop a clear set of expectations for how students use the tablets, which she and her class did as a group the following day.

Over the next several weeks, Wendy chose to do several more ENTRY level lessons with the tablets, incorporating different poetry apps. Both Wendy and her students became more comfortable and confident in the use of the tablets in their classroom. The students understood Wendy’s expectations for acceptable behavior. Wendy began incorporating more student choice into the use of the tablets as she became more confident in her ability to manage the classroom with the new tools in place. Although she had initially been afraid of losing control of the lesson, she developed simple strategies for monitoring behavior and redirecting students when necessary.

Gradually, the lessons that involved tablets became more focused on content than tools and Wendy realized she was able to apply higher TIM levels when they were needed. Finally, Wendy was able to use the Haiku lesson plan she had adapted. Based on the experiences of the preceding weeks, she was able to incorporate more student choice into the lesson than the original plan had called for. The multimedia Haiku lesson turned out to be a favorite for Wendy and one her students would remember for years to come.

Implications

According to Roland (2015) a nationwide survey of K-12 educators found that even though schools are putting more technology into the classrooms, there is not enough professional development to help teachers integrate it into their lessons. In fact, six out of 10 teachers felt that they were not prepared to use technology in their classrooms. The TIM framework helps illustrate that effective technology integration takes place on a continuum. It can be used in conjunction with other models to improve professional development.

References

Harmes, J. C., Welsh, J. L., & Winkelman, R. J. (2016). A framework for defining and evaluating technology integration in the instruction of real-world skills. In S. Ferrara, Y. Rosen, & M. Tager (Eds.), Handbook of research on technology tools for real-world skill development (pp. 137-162). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Howland, J., Jonassen, D.H., & Marra, R.M. (2011). Meaningful learning with technology (4th Ed.) Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

ISTE Standards (nd). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards

ISTE (nd) Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/essential-conditions

Jonassen, D.H., Howland, J., Moore, J., & Marra, R.M. (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology: A constructivist perspective (2nd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common core state standards English language arts and literacy. Washington, D.C.

Roland , J. (2015). Empowering teachers to implement technology-driven educational programs. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=569

Dalal, M., Archambault, L, and Shelton, C. (2017). Professional development for international teachers: Examining TPACK and technology integration decision making. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 49(3-4), 117-133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2017.1314780