Understanding Educational Technology #2: Meaningful Learning with Technology

In this post, I am going to explain my understanding of what meaningful learning is when it comes to the use of technology in the classroom. I really had to build my understanding of this from the ground up. You’ll see the progression from no/minimal-technology meaningful learning to how I see the integration of technology. I am going to call back to the SAMR framework I discussed last time, but I am also going to expand to the TPACK framework because it is directly connected to subject-area learning with technology. What a great tool it was when connecting the pen/paper learning, which was the majority of my education, until some high school classes began integrating more technology. So join me in thinking through meaningful learning versus hollow learning. 

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Meaningful Learning?

When I first heard meaningful learning, I immediately thought, “That’s when learning feels important.” It doesn’t feel like the assignment is just useless busy work.  That thought was great intuition, so if your first thought was similar, high five! In the introduction to her book Learning First, Technology Second (2017), Liz Kolb focuses on the concept of “false or flawed engagement” and how this type of engagement can mislead educators into thinking that “students’ comprehension of the content [is] increasing.” This “false engagement” is when students appear to be engaged in the learning process, but might just be rushing through the work, appearing busy, doodling on the side of the paper, or any other type of disengagement from the assignment.

I immediately connected this “false engagement” with assignments that are busy work. These are assignments that are easy for a student to turn their brain off and just coast through while worrying about other things. These are ‘busy-work’ assignments that many students would not consider beneficial to their learning. Two that jump to my mind as an English teacher are word searches and crosswords. Do they have educational benefits? Yes, if used correctly. Do many people consider them busy work? Yes. The assignments have to feel like they have a purpose to students.

This purpose can take many forms. The most ‘authentic’ purpose is one where the student feels that their assignment has meaning beyond themselves, like it is making a difference outside of the classroom. Howland et al. (2012) put it as the assignment “should engage active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative activities.” I want to focus on how assignments are intentional and authentic because they focus directly on how students can feel like the assignment has purpose. Intentional assignments are ones that have a clear learning goal for students to achieve and a clear task to work through to get there. Authentic assignments are ones “that are situated in some meaningful real-world task or simulated in some case-based or problem-based learning environment” (2012). What does that mean?

I struggled with it too, and then the assignments in the class I am writing this blog for started to emulate this directly. First, I had to evaluate a digital learning tool with a group and make a website to share our findings with the public. Second, I had to start creating the website that this blog is on as a digital resume. Third, I should have been blogging each week instead of spacing it across the final week. Fourth, I had to create a WebQuest–more on those in the next blog post. Fifth, my second-to-last assignment is to make a digital storytelling assignment for my classroom. Finally, I had to ensure that my website met all of the requirements outlined as a digital resume. All of my submissions to these assignments, with some adjustments made in response to my professor's insightful feedback, can be found here.

What did all of my assignments for this class have in common? They were intentional and authentic assignments. They had a clear learning objective: to teach how to use technology in learning through understanding the subject of educational technology. They were also assignments that reached beyond the classroom. Intentional and authentic. They were also assignments that taught through doing. I didn’t just have to write about what I was reading, I had to put it into action. This is meaningful learning. So, how does technology fit into this?

Meaningful Learning With Technology

Thinking back to the SAMR Framework, authentic use of technology should aim to create a learning experience for students that is transformed. The assignment could not exist in the form it is, with all of the scaffolds that it does, or the expected final product without the technology integration. So, meaningful learning with technology is everything that I explained above, plus computers. Done. End of blog post.

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Ok. I’ll expand because it’s simple, but your understanding can be deceptive–I know mine was. Kolb (2017) provided an example that really stood out to me in her introduction.

Going off-topic. And now you’re thinking this guy has only read the introduction of her book, and you’re wrong. I read the 1st chapter as well because that is what was provided in class, but I have actually ordered a copy of the book because I found her insight so helpful. So who knows, maybe there will be a future post as I continue intermittently blogging after these posts for my class

Getting back on topic. The example was of her using fun animations in her presentations to grab her students' attention. It worked… for a few weeks. But I even wonder if it truly worked to improve student retention and achievement in the content covered. She also described an instance of “false engagement” where students may rush through a digital assignment to get to the fun games at the end. These are both cautionary tales for the use of technology that lead to hollow learning. The integration of technology should provide students with the same intentional and authentic learning as more traditional assignments. Thinking through my WebQuest project and how it attempts to achieve and model this meaningful learning with technology, I am pulled to the TPACK Framework.

Creative Commons License CC0 1.0 Author Matthew Koehler

This framework ties pedagogy and content-area understanding directly to the use of technology. If an educator does not have a sound understanding or overlooks one of these areas in their planning to use digital tools, there will ultimately be a flaw somewhere in the lesson/use of technology. This is a high standard to try to achieve, but as educators, we should strive to reach the highest standard we can to educate our students. And it is simpler than it seems at first, think about SAMR. Start small. Instead of handwriting, students type. Instead of physical calculators or graphing, students use digital ones. Get used to digital tools being used in the classroom. Then go a little further. Reach out to other educators and find what they have done and found success with. Use their tools as references to what can be done. 

For example, if students are reading The Diary of a Young Girl or The Play The Diary of Anne Frank, there is a virtual tour of the loft where the Frank family hid. This can be a great digital connection to what the students are learning. It provides an opportunity that would not be possible without the use of technology. So, two checks: content area and technology. Pedagogy is left. I would personally have students view the loft while filling out a Google Form that asked them to make predictions about what they imagined the loft would look like. As they view the loft, the students would have prompts at specific sections of the tour that ask them to think and revise their understanding of what they read. This would be a more visual form of a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (Fisher et al. 2015). I used a digital tool to provide an experience that would not have been possible, and then took the sound teaching strategy and just made it digital instead of on paper. The area where this example lacks is in its connection back to meaningful learning. If I want to ensure that this assignment meets that criteria as well, I need to make sure that students have a connection to authenticity and intentionality. 

I would do this by making the reason for going on the virtual tour to come up with ways that we would have tried to help the Franks improve their hiding place. The assignment would come towards the end, or at the very end of reading the text, and the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity questions would be focused on specific scenarios that the Franks encountered while they were in hiding, and how the student thinks they would have benefited from their advice. While engaging with this activity to try and change the outcome of the story, students are engaging with close-reading skills and demonstrating an understanding of the story they read in the context of the history surrounding it. It would be easy to connect this assignment to the State Standards surrounding reading comprehension.

To conclude because I am realizing this is going on longer than I would have liked. Meaningful learning with technology starts with meaningful learning without technology. Meaningful learning is learning that is intentional and authentic to the students. This means that assignments feel like they have a purpose. Integrating technology can be done slowly at first, but should be tied to best practices in the content area being taught and pedagogy. I hope that all made sense. 

Thanks again for reading.

References:

Douglas, F., Brozo, W. G., Frey, N., & Ivey, G. (2015). 50 Instructional Routines to 

Develop Content Literacy (3rd ed.). Pearson.

Howland, J. L., Jonassen, D., & Marra, R. M. (2012). Meaningful Learning with 

Technology (4th ed., pp. 2-18). Pearson.

Kolb, L. (2017). Learning First, Technology Second: The Educator's Guide to 

Designing Authentic Lessons. International Society for Technology in 

Education.