Why Technology Is NOT Changing Education

Mike Barker 10/20/2000 1

Why Technology Is Why Technology Is NOTNOT Changing EducationChanging Education

Presented by Mike BarkerEducational Media Creation Center, MIT

10/20/2000


Today’s Agenda

• What do we mean by education?

• What do we mean by technology?

• Let’s take a look at some!


What Do You Mean by Education?


A Definition of Education

“Systematic training and instruction designed to impart knowledge and develop skill.” (OAD)


What Do I Mean By Education?

“The best education starts with a great teacher at one end of a log and a student who wants to learn at the other end.”


Rethinking University Teachinga framework for the effective use

of educational technologyby Diana Laurillard


Teaching Persuades

“teaching is essentially a rhetorical activity, seeking to persuade students to change the way they experience the world. It has to create the environment that will enable students to learn the descriptions of the world devised by others.”


Teaching is Mediated Learning

“… [teaching] is mediated learning, allowing students to acquire knowledge of someone else’s way of experiencing the world.”


Generating a teaching strategy

• there must be a continuing dialogue between teacher and student

• The dialogue must reveal both participants’ conceptions

• The teacher must analyze the relationship between the student’s and the target conception to determine the focus for the continuation of the dialogue

• The dialogue must be conducted so that it addresses all aspects of the learning process


Rethinking University Teaching

Education is a dialogue!


What People Need to Learn

• Learner-Centered Environments• Knowledge-Centered

Environments• Assessment to Support Learning• Community-Centered

Environments


Learner-Centered Environments

• Effective instruction begins with what learners bring to the setting; this includes cultural practices and beliefs, as well as knowledge of academic content.

• Learner-centered environments help students make connections between their previous knowledge and their current academic tasks.


Learner-Centered Environments

What you already know shapes what you can and will learn.


Knowledge-Centered Environments

• The ability to think and solve problems requires knowledge that is accessible and applied appropriately.

• Concepts must be presented in ways that link learning to current understanding, so that students learn connected knowledge.


Knowledge-Centered Environments

We need to build knowledge and understanding, not just a catalog of disconnected facts.


Assessment to Support Learning

Feedback is fundamental to learning, but feedback opportunities are often scarce in classrooms. Summative assessments occur at the end of projects.



What are needed are formative assessments, which provide students with opportunities to revise and improve the quality of their thinking and understanding.



Assessments must reflect the learning goals that define various environments.



I.e., we need to test our students in ways that focus on whether they are developing understanding and applying knowledge, and we need to test in ways that encourage them to improve afterwards.


Community-Centered Environments

• Students, teachers, and everyone else in the community needs to value learning and hold high standards. These values and standards increase people’s opportunities and motivation to interact, receive feedback, and learn.

• Activities in homes, community centers, and after- school clubs can have important effects on students’ academic achievement.


Community-Centered Environments

I.e., when the people around you value learning, you will too.


Four Areas for Learning

1.

2.

3.

4.


Four Areas for Learning1. Learner-Centered: what you already know

shapes what you can and will learn

2. Knowledge-Centered: build knowledge and understanding, not just a catalog of disconnected facts

3. Assessment: test for understanding and knowledge, and encourage improvement

4. Community-Centered: when the people around you value learning, you will too.


What Do You Mean By Technology?


What Do I Mean By Technology?

• Web-based presentation and interaction

• Videostreaming

• Instructional Tutors

• “Courseware”

• Etc.


What Do New Technologies Offer?

Because many new technologies are interactive, it is now easier to create environments in which students can learn by:

• doing, • receive feedback,• continually refine their understanding and• build new knowledge.



Technologies can help people visualize difficult-to-understand concepts.



New technologies provide access to a vast array of information, including:

• digital libraries,

• real-world data for analysis, and

• connections to other people.


What Can We Do With New Technologies?

• Bring exciting curricula based on real-world problems into the classroom

• Provides scaffolds and tools to enhance learning

• Give students and teachers more opportunities for feedback, reflection, and revision

• Build local and global communities• Expand opportunities for teacher learning


Education: Interaction

The roots of education lie in a great teacher at one end of a log and a student who wants to learn at the other end.


Returning to Our Roots

Technology is helping us return to those roots. The log may be made out of glass fiber, the connectivity complex, but technology is returning interactivity to the center stage of the educational enterprise.


Some of Our Products

• Physics Interactive Video Tutor (PIVoT)

• Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

• Public Broadcasting System (PBS)

• MITWorld

http://curricula2.mit.edu/pivot/

http://web.mit.edu/sma

http://curricula.mit.edu/javarev/

http://curricula.mit.edu/mitworld/


References

1. Rethinking University Teachinga framework for the effective use of educational technologyby Diana Laurillard, ISBN 0-415-09289-2, 1993

2. How People LearnNational Research Council, 1999

Documents

Why Technology Is NOT Changing Education