Teaching Your Teachers About Technology

Turning this…

Into this…

A lesson in four parts:•Why don’t more teachers use technology?•How can we help teachers overcome these obstacles?•How do people learn?•What strategies can we use to help teachers learn?

Fundamental Attribution Error, Mindset, Expertise, Reluctance to Change

Why Won’t My Teacher Use More Technology

Fundamental Attribution Error•When a problem with a person is really a problem with the situation.•We tend to attribute people’s behaviour to their core character rather than to their situation. • It's the Situation, Not the Person.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Issue One: Mindset

• Take the survey•Watch the video•What do you think?• The Talent Myth video

Issue Two: Expertise• 10 000 Hour Rule•Watch the video• You, driving a car for the first month = your teacher, using technology

Cutting Edge Technology Eighties-Style

Why Teachers Don’t Change

Need for certainty, control

and simplicity

Why Teachers Don’t Change

Seek examples to confirm

current methods

It worked for me so it will work for you

Why Teachers Don’t Change

Some teachers do not seek evidence that demonstrates

what we do doesn’t work

Why Teachers Don’t Change

Student is the problem when he/she doesn’t learn, teacher is the cause when the

student learns

Why Teachers Don’t Change

Teachers build up an immunity to new or different ways of

doing things

Changing Mindsets, Developing Expertise, Seeking SuccessHow You Can Help

Helping Your Teachers Change Their Mindset

• Listen for times when they are listening to their fixed mindset• Talk to them with a growth mindset• Praise their effort not their ability

To Become An Expert…It takes considerable, specific and sustained efforts to do something

you can’t do well or at all.Progress is built on failure

Feedback – if you don’t know what you are doing wrong, how will you

know what you are doing right?

Creating Change

The Rider and the Elephant

Direct the Rider• FOLLOW THE BRIGHT SPOTS.

Investigate what’s working and clone it. • SCRIPT THE CRITICAL MOVES. Don’t

think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviours • POINT TO THE DESTINATION. Change is

easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it.

Motivate the Elephant• FIND THE FEELING. Knowing

something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something.• SHRINK THE CHANGE. Break down the

change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. • GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Cultivate a

sense of identity and instill the growth mindset.

Shape the Path• TWEAK THE ENVIRONMENT. When the

situation changes, the behaviour changes. So change the situation. • BUILD HABITS. When behaviour is

habitual, it’s “free”—it doesn’t tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. • RALLY THE HERD. Behaviour is

contagious. Help it spread.

Thought, Attention, MemoryHow Do People Learn Best?

People are naturally curious

But we aren’t naturally good thinkers

Thinking is slow, effortful and uncertain.

Unless conditions are right, we will avoid thinking

And rely on what we did before or what we remember

However, successful thinking is pleasurable

For thinking, successful = solvable

For a problem to be solvable, we must have:•Adequate information from the environment•Room in working memory•Required facts and procedures in long-term memory

Background knowledge is necessary for cognitive skills

Factual knowledge improves your memory

Understanding is Remembering in Disguise•We understand new things in the context of things we already know, and most of what we know is concrete

Memory is the residual of thought…

We remember what we pay attention to.

So, how do you keep a learner’s attention?

Keeping Attention• Cover one concept in 10 minutes• 1st minute is the ‘gist’, no details• Next 9 minute used to provide a detailed description of a single general concept

• Chunking• No Multitasking• Brain processes meaning before detail

Now that we have their attention, how do we help them remember what we taught?

What we remember

•Emotions•Stories•Patterns •Meaning

We remember emotions…

We remember storiesCausality

ConflictComplicationsCharacter

Remember to repeat

We remember meaning and patterns

For things that don’t lend themselves to stories:

•Use mnemonics•First letter method (HOMES)•Songs and rhymes (30 days has September…)

•Mnemonics give you cues• Impose order on the material

Direct Instruction, Problem Solving, Spaced Practice

Teaching Strategies that Work Best

Direct Instruction• What are learning intentions?• Success criteria (how will I know I have taught the

material successfully)• Building commitment and engagement (use a

‘hook’)• Input, modeling, check for understanding • Guided practice• Closure• Independent practice

Problem-Solving Teaching• Understand the problem• Obtain/create a plan of the solution• Carry out the plan• Examine the solution

Spaced Practice• Repeat to remember

• It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice

•What should you practice?• Processes that need to become automatic