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What I am Doing Now

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 6, 2018

What I am Doing Now

I am currently home with my family in North Vancouver which is the home of some of the best Mountain Biking in the world, it is early spring.

My Primary Professional Focus:

I create significant learning environments (CSLE) by giving learners choice ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities (COVA).

CSLE+COVA Discussions Youtube & Podcasts:

Dr. Thibodeax talk almost daily about ways to enhance the learning environment. Since most of our discussion happen over a Zoom connection (we live thousands of miles apart) we have decided to hit the record button and let you all in on our musings, speculating, and dreaming up new ways to enhance the learning environment by giving learners choice, ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities.
You can access these videos from the CSLE2COVA Youtube channel and our podcast versions of these discussions from CSLE+COVA SoundCloud.

Collaborative Writing Opportunities:

Are you getting tired of all the hype related to educational reform, educational technology, or the next big thing that will revolutionize education? If so, then I would encourage you to join Dr. Thibodeax and I in looking at ways to cut through the hype of so many of these educational promises. Take a few minutes to review the post How to cut through the hype of educational promises, review the list of topics near the end of the post, and let us know what you would like to write about and we will explore the best place to publish these insights.

COVA Professional Development Series:

Learner’s Mindset Workshop
Online/blended Learner’s Mindset PD courses

Articles in Progress:

COVA as Threshold Concepts
Research into Video Feedback/Feedforward
Student Perceptions on Authentic Learning
Moving from Constructivist Rhetoric to Practice

Books I am working on:

COVA eBook updates
Learners Mindset – editing stage

Research I am exploring:

COVA Communities of Practice (CoP) as a way to Promote STEM
COVA PD as a way to promote CoP effectiveness
3rd phase of ePortfolio Persistence research
Exploring the use of Deliberate Practice in DownHill Mountain Bike Racing and Freeride

Revised December 07, 2019
I will be updating this page as things change or at a minimum on or around the first of each month.

Computers in Schools – Not Working…Yet

Dwayne Harapnuik — December 19, 2017 — Leave a comment

I have been working on finding ways to use technology to enhance learning since the early 1990’s so when I read the Students, Computers and Learning Making the Connection research report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) I was disappointed and also encouraged.

Disappointed – It Isn’t Working

After so many decades of working toward getting computers and related technology into our classrooms and school systems it is disappointing to see the research that shows:

Overall, the evidence from PISA, as well as from more rigorously designed evaluations, suggest that solely increasing access to computers for students, at home or at school, is unlikely to result in significant improvements in education outcomes. Furthermore, both PISA and the research evidence concur on the finding that the positive effects of computer use are specific-limited to certain outcomes, and to certain uses of computers. (OECD, 2015 p. 163)

While the report confirms that we have solved the acquisition problem of getting technology into our student’s classrooms it also reveals that:

…students who use computers very frequently at school do a lot worse in most learning outcomes, even after accounting for social background and student demographics (OECD 2015, p. 5).

The report’s authors admit that there are many questions that the report has left unanswered but perhaps the following statement may point to the core of the problem that we are seeing when we use technology in the wrong way:

If students use smartphones to copy and paste prefabricated answers into questions, it is unlikely to help them become smarter. If we want students to become smarter then a smartphone, we need to think harder about the pedagogies we are using to teach them. Technology can amplify great teaching but great technology cannot replace poor teaching (p. 6).

I was initially planning to cut the quote after “…pedagogies we are using” because I get annoyed with authors who are quick to blame teachers for the challenges we are facing in using technology to enhance learning. Most teachers are working tirelessly to improve their student’s lives but because they are mired in a system based on 19th & 20th-century practices when they add 21st-century technology to the mix it is no better than bolting a jet engine to a horse cart (Papert, 1993). Perhaps more troubling is that we are still using the 19th-century Thorndikian information transfer model and the recipe and regurgitation of information through a steady diet of standardized curriculum and testing. It doesn’t matter how much technology you add to this mix if you are using a digital worksheet, form, or test you are still simply asking your learner to regurgitate information.

We have known for a very long time that just adding technology to the classroom does not have any significant impact on learning. In the early 1990’s Thomas Russell and several other researchers pointed to the results of a meta-analysis of the research into technology use in distance education and found that there is no difference between technology-based instruction or classroom instruction (1999).

This no significant difference phenomenon is found in study after study. For example, in 1998 the ETS reported a negligible positive relationship between computer use and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores in math for 4th graders and a slightly more positive result for 8th graders (Wenglinsky, 1998). A more expansive multi-year study that involved hundreds of schools and thousands of students by the U.S. Department of Education (Dynarski, et al., 2007) found that “test scores were not significantly higher in classrooms using selected reading and mathematics software products” (p. xiii).

The research over the years confirms that substituting, augmenting or replacing (i.e. SAMR model) passive information transfer paper-based models with digital models of instruction does not improve the learning. Researchers like Hattie (2008) and Fullan (2015) have shown that focusing on the technology as a way to bring about change in the learning environment will not work – the focus needs to be on building the learning first and then using technology to enhance the learning.

What will work?

So if bolting technology onto our antiquated classroom and augmenting the 19th-century information transfer model of standardized curriculum and testing doesn’t work than what does? According to the OECD (2015) report:

Technology can support new pedagogies that focus on learners as active participants with tools for inquiry-based pedagogies and collaborative workspaces. For example, technology can enhance experiential learning, foster project-based and inquiry-based learning pedagogies, facilitate hands-on activities and cooperative learning (p. 6)

The OECD (2015) report also pointed to John Hattie’s research into what contributes to student achievement and confirms that:

Computers were more effective when they are used to extend study time and practice, used to give students control over the learning situation (pacing of material) and when used to support collaborative learning (p. 163).

Encouraging

So this finally leads me to explain why I am encouraged by the OECD report. When we look at the recommendations in the report like active learning, hands-on experience, student control and project-based learning it just confirms that giving learners choice, ownership, and voice through at authentic learning opportunities or what we have labeled the COVA approach can actually make a difference.

If we focus first on creating a significant learning environment in which we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through at authentic learning opportunities then when we add technology to help with creation, communication, and collaboration we will be able to make a greater difference in our learner’s lives.

References

Dynarski, M., Agodini, R., Heaviside, S., Novak, T., Carey, N., Campuzano, L., … Sussex, W. (2007). Effectiveness of reading and mathematics software products findings from the first student cohort: report (p. 140). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences,. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pdf/20074005.pdf

Fullan, M., & Quinn, J. (2015). Coherence: The right drivers in action for schools, districts, and systems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

OECD (2015), Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection, OECD Publishing, Paris.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264239555-en

Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. Basic books.

Ruiz-Primo MA, Briggs D, Iverson H, Talbot R, Shepard LA. Impact of undergraduate science course innovations on learning. Science. 2011;331:1269–1270.

Russell, T. L. (1999). The no significant difference phenomenon: A comparative research annotated bibliography on technology for distance education: As reported in 355 research reports, summaries and papers. North Carolina State University.

Wenglinsky, H. (1998). Does it compute? The relationship between educational technology and student achievement in mathematics. Princeton, New Jersey: ETS Policy Information Center. Retrieved from https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICTECHNOLOG.pdf

In EDLD 5305, Technology & Culture COVA, CSLE, EdTech, no significant difference

EDLD 5313 Perspectives

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 16, 2017

How to Succeed in the DLL
If you haven’t already reviewed this page and the related links you owe it to yourself to spend the 30 minutes that it will take to see how to really do well in the DLL.

New Culture of Learning
Creating Learning Significant Environment – EDLD 5313 Week 1 Assign Tips

Significant Learning Environments – exploring the power of an authentic learning environment.

Organic Learning – we need to create the environment in which the learner can do the learning, grow and flourish.

Opening Up Spaces for Answers – Why we run EDLD 5305 the course on innovation planning before we run EDLD 5313, the course on creating significant learning environments

The Power of Constraints – When combined with choice, constraints can be very powerful tools.

Learning Philosophy
Learning Philosophy – EDLD 5313 Week 2 Assign Tips

Four keys to understanding learning theories – Regardless of where you land in your thinking about learning the fact that you are thinking about learning and how learning works means that your learners will benefit.

Are you preparing them for real life or just the test – the power of authentic learning opportunities

Piaget’s Key Implications for Learning – Excerpts from one of the original constructivists that support the CSLE+COVA approach

Foster Inquisitiveness Rather than Rebuild It – When we focus on the right answers instead of starting with questions we not only extinguish our learner’s ability to question, inquire and innovate we create an environment of rewards and punishment that fosters fear in the learner when they aren’t able to regurgitate the right answer.

What are the best ways to study for the test? Read this review from Scientific American to see which techniques accelerate information retention and which techniques are just a waste of time. While the introduction to the article suggests that the focus is on learning the reality is this article focuses on how to improve information transfer and test achievement. Unfortunately, some folks equate this with learning–but it is not.

This Will Make You Rethink Learning Styles Research shows that learning styles DO NOT exist yet many too educators are wrongly inclined to believe that they do.

CSLE & UbD
Aligning Outcomes Activities & Assessment – EDLD 5313 Week 3 Assign Tips

EDLD 5313 Week 4 UbD Assignment Tips Mar 2019

4 Keys to aligning outcomes activities & assessment – There is an easy way and a difficult way to work through Fink’s taxonomy and the 3 column table – please take my advice and use this post and use the easy way.

Mapping Your Learner’s Journey – It is our responsibility to guide our learners through their personal development journey and help them take ownership of their learning.

Why Create Significant Learning Environments – Are you looking at the bigger picture or have you intellectually stepped far enough back to see the full learning environment?

Why you need a BHAG to design learning environments – Use a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to help define a visionary type goal that is more strategic and emotionally compelling rather than being simply tactical.

Why You Need to Rethink Your Role as an Educator – If you really don’t want to be replaced by an inspirational robot then you need to not only talk the talk of Dewey but walk the walk.

Difference Between “Doing Projects” and “Project Based Learning” – Project-based learning is very powerful but we tend to limit its impact by focusing on just doing projects.

DLL Program Map – How we have created a significant learning environment in the DLL program and in your courses.

Review the CLSE+COVA Resources on this site:
CSLE+COVA
CSLE

Mindset

How to Grow a Growth Mindset – You need more than just belief and action you need to change the environment

COVA+CSLE Mindset vs Traditional – Comparison of the COVA+CSLE Mindset and Motivation with the Traditional Teacher-Centered Approach

Mindset – Overview of Dweck book, site, and related videos and resources

Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age – This notion of adapting to a constantly changing environment is also important when we consider our move from a static print information age to the dynamic digital information age.

Five Standards of Authentic Learning

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 7, 2017 — 2 Comments

Constructivist or those who believe that we learn by making meaningful connections and we construct new knowledge when we combine or relate it to what we already know have argued that working on real-world or authentic learning opportunities is one of the most effective ways to learn. Authentic learning is a key component of the CSLE+COVA approach and when we talk about authentic learning or refer to giving learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities we are summarizing authentic learning in the following way.

Learners are given the opportunity to select and engage in real-world or authentic learning opportunities that enable them to make a genuine difference in their own learning environments. The selection and engagement in these real-world problems that are relevant to the learner furthers their ability to make meaningful connections (Donovan, Bransford, & Pellegrino, 2000) and provide them with career preparedness not available in more traditional didactic forms of education (Windham, 2007). Research confirms that authenticity is only developed through engagement with these sorts of real-world tasks and that this type of authentic learning can deepen knowledge creation and ultimately help the learner transfer this knowledge beyond the classroom (Driscoll, 2005; Nikitina, 2011). It is also important to recognize that authenticity is not an independent or isolated feature of the learning environment but it is the result of the continual interaction between the learner, the real-world activity, and the learning environment (Barab, Squire, & Dueber, 2000). This is also why we stress that in the CSLE+COVA model choice, ownership, and voice are realized through authentic learning and without this dynamic and interactive authenticity, there would be no genuine choice, ownership, and voice (Thibodeaux, Harapnuik, & Cummings, 2017).

The authentic learning aspect of the CSLE+COVA approach maps closely to Newmann, & Wehlage five standards of authentic learning:

Higher-order thinking – learners move beyond the regurgitation of facts to making meaningful connections that transform information and ideas through analysis, synthesis, design, and creation.
Depth of knowledge – learners are able to solve complex problems and systematically synthesizing large amounts of fragmented information into cohesive arguments and explanations that lead to a deeper understanding.
Connectedness to the world beyond the classroom – learners address authentic or real-world and use these personal experiences to apply their gained knowledge and experience.
Substantive conversation – learners collaborate with peers and experts to use higher order thinking to enter into a dialogue that can collectively improve the understanding of the authentic problems or projects.
Social support for student achievement – learner use collaboration rather than competition as the path to developing an environment that promotes, diversity, respect, and inclusion.

By pointing to these five standards of authentic learning we are confirming that the CSLE+COVA approach is not only a synergy of well established constructivist ideas we are also confirming our it is better to build on the positive narrative about improving learning by building on a solid foundation that we emphasize in the following video:

References

Barab, S. A., Squire, K. D., & Dueber, W. (2000). A co-evolutionary model for supporting the emergence of authenticity. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(2), 37-62.

Donovan, S. M., Bransford, J. D., & Pellegrino, J. W. (2000). How People Learn: Bridging research and practice. Washington D. C.: National Academy Press.

Newmann, F. & Wehlage, G. (1993). Five standards of authentic instruction. Educational Leadership, 50 (7), 8-12.

Nikitina, L. (2011). Creating an authentic learning environment in the foreign language classroom. International Journal of Instruction, (4)1, 33-36. Retrieved from http://www.e-iji.net/dosyalar/iji_2011_1_3.pdf

Thibodeaux, T. N., Harapnuik, D. K., Cummings, C. D., & Wooten, R. (2017). Learning all the time and everywhere: Moving beyond the hype of the mobile learning quick fix. In Keengwe, J. S. (Eds.). Handbook of research on mobile technology, constructivism, and meaningful learning. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Submitted for Publication.

Windham, C. (2007). Why today’s students value authentic learning. Educause Learning ELI Paper 9. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3017.pdf

In EDLD 5305, Learning authentic learning, COVA, CSLE, CSLE+COVA

Why You Need to Rethink Your Role as an Educator

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 3, 2017 — 10 Comments

Over the past 25 years that I have been involved in education, I have seen so many claims that this or that technology will begin to replace teachers in “X” number of years. Years ago, my initial response to these types of articles was humor and occasional annoyance because I know from first-hand experience that there is much more to learning than just delivery of content. Unfortunately, authors of most of these types of articles are wrongly assuming that learning just involves the delivery of content and then the regurgitation of that content by the student. This commonly held and very naive understanding of how we learn goes back for centuries. If you look at the notion of the Nuremberg Funnel from the 17th century that is depicted in this image/stamp you will see that this idea of pouring information or content into the brains/heads of our students is a very old idea.

The 19th-century commercial artist Jean-Marc Côté created a series of picture cards as inserts that were intended to depict how life in France would look in a century’s time. The education card depicts the notion of pouring information directly into the student’s minds.

While some may see this as an early prediction of the audiobook the notion of pouring information into the learner’s minds is the focus of the image and is at the heart of the problem with these types of depictions/predictions. Before I focus on what I believe is the primary issue I need to acknowledge that there is a very long history of unrealistic claims of how technology would reform education. The following three contemporary authors have documented how schools have failed to effectively use technology to enhance learning. Larry Cuban’s Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920, addresses how the potential of film, radio, TV, and computers has been wasted in the classroom. Todd Oppenheimer’s The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology expands on Cuban’s work and further reveals that the creative power of computers has been squandered due to their use as standardized testing tools. Both these authors acknowledge the potential and power of technology but show how we have failed to leverage that power for learning.

In the timeline History of Teaching Machines Audrey Watters points to the list of teaching machines that have been invented, patented, and promoted as time-saving solutions to the problems of education. We see major figures like Thorndyke, Skinner, and even Neo from the movie Matrix promising a future of instant learning. In her discussion of the dystopian future portrayed in the Matrix Watters questions how we value the process of learning when we so often want to supplant it with something that is, fast, cheap and instant. She argues that this desire for instant learning will continue to resurface time and time again and in the more recent stages of her timeline she points to Kahn Academy and MOOCs as the most recent iterations of the teaching machine.

This brings me back to the heart of the matter. Are we using technology as a tool to help make meaningful connections and to address the challenges of tomorrow or are we just using technology to deliver content and confirm that the student can regurgitate that content? There was a time not so long ago when getting access to information was the greatest challenge. We only have to look back a few years to a time when the Internet didn’t exist and we had to go to the library or other repositories of information to get at the content. I am not that old but I can recall a time in the 1960s when a set of encyclopedias was one of the most important purchases a rural family could make; I grew up searching those books for all kinds of answers. In the last 15-20 years the explosive growth of the Internet and more recently the ease with which we can find information with Google, YouTube, or other search tools and then can share that information on blogs, social media, and in so many other ways has changed the way we need to view our challenges regarding information. The greatest challenge of the industrial age was accessing information and now that we have moved into the digital information age our greatest challenge or problem is assessing information. This means we need to reassess our primary role or job as teachers.

If I imagine my primary job as a teacher is to serve information, am I helping solve the current informational problem or do I make it worse?

And given the vast complexity of the informational network, if I insist on my centrality and authority, does that establish or harm my credibility as a teacher?

If assessing information – and the wisdom & experience that this requires – is the central challenge of the current informational age, then are teachers more or less necessary?

Depending on how you answer this question should determine if your role as a teacher can easily be replaced by a computer or an inspirational robot. If you believe that your primary job is to deliver information to your students then these predictions will come true sooner than you expect. Technology is at the point where the delivery of information and the assessment of the reception of that information through some form of standardized test is already happening and can easily be automated. If you are a teacher that practices content delivery as the primary way to prepare your students for standardized tests then you can easily be replaced by a computer, robot, or other technology.

If you are a teacher who believes it is your responsibility to inspire your learners and to help them assess information and make meaningful connections by creating significant learning environments (CSLE) in which you give your learner choice ownership and voice through authentic (COVA) learning opportunities it will be impossible to replace you with technology. Furthermore, if you hold to the CSLE+COVA approach then you are not afraid of technology and can put technology in its proper place by using it to enhance the learning environment.

Before you breathe that sigh of relief that your teaching job is secure because you believe in the student-centered rhetoric of Dewey and other constructivists you may want to have a look at your practice. Are you talking the talk of Dewey but walking the walk of Thorndyke? Along with the long history of misapplying technology in education, we also have a long history of using the constructivist or progressive rhetoric of Dewey but practicing the behaviorist methods of Thorndyke’s standardized testing (Labaree, 2006).

If you really don’t want to be replaced by an inspirational robot then you need to not only talk the talk of Dewey but walk the walk. Does your practice match your rhetoric? If it doesn’t what are you doing about it?

References

Bodkin, H. (2017, September 11). “Inspirational” robots to begin replacing teachers within 10 years. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/11/inspirational-robots-begin-replacing-teachers-within-10-years/

Hill, D. J. (2012, October 15). 19th-century French artists predicted the world of The future in this series of postcards. Retrieved October 3, 2017, from https://singularityhub.com/2012/10/15/19th-century-french-artists-predicted-the-world-of-the-future-in-this-series-of-postcards/

Labaree, D. F. (2005). Progressivism, schools and schools of education: An American romance. Paedagogica Historica, 41(1–2), 275–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/0030923042000335583

Nuremberg Funnel. (2017, January 6). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuremberg_Funnel&oldid=758530021

Watters, A. (2016, March 2) The allure of ‘Matrix-Style Learning.’ Retrieved from http://hackeducation.com/2016/03/02/matrix

Watters, A. (2016) History of teaching Machines. Retrieved from http://teachingmachin.es/timeline.html

In EDLD 5305, EDLD 5313, Learning