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TESOL Arabia - Nicholas Yates
- 1. INNOVATE USING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND YOUR BELIEFS Nicholas Yates [email_address]
- 3. Rethink :: Evolve :: Innovate
- 5. Rethink :: Innovate :: Evolve
- 13. What are “teacher beliefs”?
- 19. Just give it to me straight…
- 24. Motivation
- 29. Personaliztion
- 33. Access
- 35. Culture
- 37. Shared Beliefs
- 38. Origins
- 42. Know your beliefs Believe in your knowledge.
Notas do Editor
- “ In a landscape without bearings, teachers create and internalize their own maps” (Kagan, 1992) A dark night, boats, lighthouses.
- The title of the conference is Rethinking English Language Teaching. ReThink literally means think again. But deeper down there’s more to it, isn’t there? Theme = something’s missing. It implies that something could be better (positive way of spinning it) or something is wrong (negative). When you rethink something, you pause to notice something, you need to think again. It’s indicating that you may need to reflect on yourself, your students, your pedagogy, your classes, your classroom, your institution etc… Teachers are natural evolvers in a dynamic education system . We adapt to suit the needs of the students. We modify our lessons for time constraints. We change and redesign materials depending on the learners’ level. This conference is about innovating . We’ve recognized that there may be room to ReThink, we’ve realized that we evolve each day and now it is our chance to innovate. To use what we have and make things better. To redesign something, to use something differently. I believe we can do that without looking beyond our own beliefs. I’ll specifically talk about educational technology.
- DON’T ASK FOR A SHOW OF HANDS. I don’t need to know. These questions aren’t about who is and isn’t using technology often. They’re more directed towards reflection of your teaching . Throughout this presentation I’ll make small references to your teaching situation and knowing where you sit on this continuum is important.
- This presentation is based on a study I completed here in the UAE and it investigated teachers’ beliefs when they use educational technology in the classroom . To that end, most of this lecture will hopefully prompt you to reflect on your beliefs of technology or at least in general teachers’ use of technology. So what causes people to often use technology in the language learning classroom ? It could be that a teacher has used it before as a teacher or student and knows there are pedagogical benefits to it. They could think that technology provides a different medium to learn English. They could use it because it is fun, motivational or just something different in the classroom. Behind these uses of technology are your beliefs , your thoughts, your convictions which guide you as a teacher. These might be based on experience, knowledge, theories, or research but they are the cornerstone to you as a teacher. Beliefs sometimes evolve as you progress throughout your teaching career but sometimes beliefs are resistant to change for whatever reason.
- So when talk about rethinking, innovating and evolving using educational technology in the language learning classroom, we must align our teaching practices with our beliefs. If you hold the belief that student-centered activities promote language learning, then activities and learning using ed tech should be student-centered. If you believe that group work engages students with the target language more, then use group work with ed tech. Refer to the last 3 photos : No coincidence that I chose individual, pair and group work photos . Particularly in our region, many teachers tend to avoid large amounts of group work. Stray off topic They become too group dependent speak too much Arabic Learners aren’t trained Exams aren’t group work based so students practice doing things by themselves When talking about presenting technology as student-centered to teachers of a teacher preparation course, Peggy Ertmer said that teachers who hold teacher centered beliefs are likely to use the technology less and thus when a new practice is aligned with a teachers beliefs, it is more likely to be adopted. Thus to summarize, Ertmer said “ instructional technologists might consider introducing technology as a tool to accomplish that which is already valued.”
- “ The more one reads studies of teacher belief, the more strongly one suspects that this piebald form of personal knowledge lies at the very heart of teaching.” (Kagan, 1992, p. 85) So much happens around a teacher. Influences, impacts, forces, decisions, students colleagues, management, curriculum, assessments, textbooks, personal life, family, friends… the list goes on and the act of teaching is in the middle . So how do teachers not cave under pressure? Throughout this talk I will highlight the personal side of beliefs and give personal examples direct from teachers in the study. Like now… (next slide)
- “ So basically I choose the technology these days, ok, when it adds something. So if I see something, I see my students not doing their homework or not writing outside the classroom, I think technology can add something here.” (Patrick)
- “ In a way it’s like another tool in the toolbox. It just adds another dimension. It just provides another way of doing things. I think especially with regards to being able to make it more enjoyable, (and) being more effective in the end and getting the message across to the students.” (Espen)
- This is the definition used in the sudy: Not just computers: Movies CDs Internet SMARTboards (or Interactive white boards) Mobile phones iPads Kindles and e-books Projectors As an application in the classroom, educational technology could be broadly defined as being the facilitation of learning and/or teaching using tools from the sum of using resources, techniques, and knowledge to create products, fulfill needs, complete objectives or satisfy desires, which is applicable to education (Koehler & Mishra, 2008).
- PERSONAL Reflection Relates to continuum re: their teaching situation Discussion comes later
- What are beliefs? What good are beliefs? What do they help us do? Is it beliefs that is behind this elephant thinking it can reach the food? Is it beliefs that the mother or father of this child thinks that the child is safe? I won’t be talking about the theoretical make up of beliefs but rather we accept that beliefs exist and we’ll look at what effect they have.
- Burns (1996) explored how influential teacher decision making in the classroom can be and how teacher thinking and specifically beliefs shape and guide the classroom interaction . Burns argues that the very personal theories for practice , distinct from theories of practice, underlies teaching and should be seen as “the motivating conceptual frameworks shaping what teachers do when they teach” (1996, p. 175). Theories of practice = those developed organically by the teacher Theories from practice = those developed for research, imposed top down methods Beliefs are described as being cognitive and “consist of an individual’s view of the likely consequences or outcome of an action, together with a positive or negative evaluation of those outcomes” (Kennedy & Kennedy, 1996, p. 355) “ they are conceptual systems which are functional or useful in explaining some domain of activity” (Nespor, 1987, p. 326) Nespor, in my opinion, was putting the practical back in a theoretical definition keep us in mind that is us teachers who have our own beliefs affecting our own classrooms.
- Beliefs are the cornerstone of what a teacher does, says, and thinks. They provide a systematic justification process with which to plan, assess, judge, decide, accept, deny, or act; basically covering all aspects of teaching.
- Woods – curriculum and lesson planning (as an aside woods also describe BAK being Beliefs Attitudes and Knowledge all overlapping to a certain extent) Kennedy and kennedy – talking about change implementation - Links with Ertmer’s quote Breen – when researching beliefs in teachers of 18 ESL teachers of adults and children - Links with Burns In contrast to Woods a little, Nespor defined beliefs and attitudes in a causal relationship saying beliefs influence attitudes Similar to Kennedy and Kennedy and Ertmer, talks about acceptance of innovations and let’s face it, technology can sometimes be nothing but new innovation after new innovation.
- Ertmer (2005) prophesizes how crucial beliefs are in conjunction with technology integration and teacher education programs. Lawrence (2000) (MA THESIS) The framework thus describes the process from a teacher’s belief systems through their attitudes and perceived utilities, onto their intention and finally to their action. The study concluded that just as technological innovations are continually updated so should our investigation of teacher beliefs when using these innovations. The investigation was concluded by indicating that adoption or non-adoption of technology isn’t necessarily based on teachers knowledge of technology, but rather their personal beliefs (Lam, 2000, p. 413). Meskill et al Locus of Learning: Expert teachers viewed technology as a tool in the lessons and activities made for teaching and learning whereas beginning teachers commonly referred to the technology as teaching their students. Self / Student Learning: In addition, self-referential language used to identify themselves differed as novice teachers spoke about themselves as the centre point but the experienced teachers often said the focus was on student learning. Classroom management / Empowerment: A clear difference that arose from the study was the difference in classroom control when expert teachers spoke about empowering students with technology but in contrast the inexperienced teachers were more preoccupied with classroom management. Product / Process: Finally experienced teachers talked about the process of learning with technology, however, novice teachers talked about the product of the technology based lesson.
- Where do beliefs come from? How do they form? Lortie (1975) was one of the first to demonstrate that images teachers hold from a former educational environment influence teachers’ current beliefs and, therefore, practices. The term apprenticeship of observation was coined to extrapolate the nature of understanding students internalize from being involved in a classroom . Goodman (1988), in his study of pre-service teachers, and Calderhead & Robson (1991), in their investigation of novice teachers , add to this notion of teachers reaching back into their experiences by saying that teachers use guiding images to understand their situation and ultimately act accordingly. Kagan (1992) found that in-service teachers will tend towards developing beliefs based on “ actual practice, primarily from their own and then from the practice of fellow teachers” (Kagan, 1992, p. 75)
- So what does it all mean or boil down to? As we’re all language teachers, let’s quickly talk about the teaching and learning of grammar . if you believe that learning grammar is an internal, individual process , then you can set up tasks and activities using ed tech these beliefs might guide you to completing discrete learning exercises online or practicing producing grammar in discussion forums . Students could choose a movie they’re interested in a start reading the subtitles . They can pause it and note down grammar they don’t know and research it. If you believe that grammar is best learnt in pair or group modes , then there’s nothing stopping you from combining this with ed tech. Students could chat with each other online or they could write a wiki . The wiki could be completed face-to-face or via computer. Students could listen to songs together , sing together and talk about what lyrics there are. (This being dependent on culture and religion of students)
- Interviews Individual Semi-structured – prompted on beliefs, teaching context, classroom practice Showcases One-on-one with me Show, guide me through the activity and discuss different aspects Reported uses of tech… not observed Comparative analysis comparative analysis was used to code categories emerging from the data Coding of the data was completed by the researcher and categories were compared and triangulated with the interview and showcase data with other literature and studies. The data analysis was iterative in nature and as categories emerged, the data were revisited and coded accordingly . A list of categories, beliefs and origins, was slowly developed and sub-categories, conceptualizations, and manifestations were also compiled. University Public university in AUH English Language Program Participants 16 teachers All Masters level US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England Most teachers have taught for 6-15 years on average Most teachers have taught for 1-2 years at university EAP Content based Learning
- DISCUSSION Now that we’ve heard what beliefs are, heard a few examples and heard about the thesis and study methods, it is time to revisit the earlier question. Pairs or groups Caring is sharing – don’t hog the floor. No right or wrong answer
- Whilst motivation was the over arching belief , it was realized in many different ways . Teachers mainly spoke about two kinds of motivation and this depicts it perfectly: Intrinsic Motivation The desire and conviction to paddle between two islands That feeling of self-preservation Extrinsic Motivation 1. An external force driving him forward – prize money for coming first? 2. Only when the threat becomes real does the paddler paddle and go as fast as they can
- Teachers’ basic rationale being that the more students want to complete the activity, the more benefits that students may get from the activity. Anna, Jordan, Karmen, and Stanley detailed their regular attempts to use the internet to target their interests. “ Winning a battle” - Espen Anna spoke of using blogs to increase creative writing opportunities. Karmen often asks students to deliver mini-presentations about one of their favorite YouTube videos, while Stanley gives male students opportunities to compare/contrast or present on the most recent football highlights online they watched.
- Only a handful of teachers described their use of technology to increase extrinsic motivation among their students. Ingrid represented this small group of teachers when she described her use of technology as the carrot and stick to the horse. She revealed her belief that certain technologically based activities, like SMARTboard vocabulary games , could be used as rewards for being productive in class. Patrick uses film as a reward for students – continues to do language activities with the film
- Many teachers described their beliefs by describing the students and their culture. Patrick was adamant that students’ world is run by technology and their very comfortable with it . Patrick felt that students became de-motivated when they didn’t use technology. Ed - MSN CHAT!> students live through it, their lives would lose connections without it so why fight it? Ed didn’t and he uses it in class . EXPLAIN! Ingrid described classes of male students who would become quiet and “reluctant to think critically or extend their learning.” Howard claimed that technology can be a tool for stimulation and to capture his students’ short attention span which he nicknamed “the sesame street attention span”. For vocabulary learning and practice, Howard engaged students with activities made on the vocabulary exercise software of hot potatoes to “jazz it up”.
- Ryan praised the web2.0 “ revolution ”, as he termed it, and spoke of the ability of students to engage with these websites more. Audience and authenticity, like Patrick and Maria, was one area Ryan discussed a lot. Because of the user-driven nature ofweb2.0, Ryan held strong convictions that web2.0 contained a very wide audience and contains an almost infinite number of opportunities to interact with authentic language . In contrast to non-technological classroom based activities, which Ryan describes as “artificial”, web2.0 were “interesting tools where you can get students to produce language whether it’s written or spoken.” Ryan went on to contrast this with Al Jazira’s program by saying that motivation is the key to learning languages and the program doesn’t offer these authentic opportunities enough. Examples of beliefs in action include Ryan’s use of web2.0 site called Panoramio for students to describe a place they’ve been to, Patrick’s integration of blogs to give more writing opportunities, and Maria’s employment of voice discussions to chat with international students in Spain. Discrete practice vs. Language Production N: So is that the kill part of drill and kill? R: Yeah well there’s no creativity involved. They’re not productively using language. I think discrete practice is good and it’s necessary. I mean I think they should be doing some stuff like that. In fact, even in a 2.0 class there are times when I would say if they need work in an area, they should do some discrete practice. There’s nothing wrong with that. I mean it’s like, language learning is like playing tennis. You know, you should learn how to serve and you should learn a backhand. But eventually you got to play a game. N: To put it all together. R: (10:31) To put it all together so language learning is like that. The traditional CALL activities are fine but the really interesting part, the putting it all together part, playing the match, is using web 2.0.
- Personalization was talked about in different terms or ideals and realized in different ways, but all come back to the core idea that using technology in the class would add a personal element to the teaching and learning process for each class and individual students .
- One common personalization was that teachers often used different technological mediums to target students’ interests . Patrick asks students to write regularly on private blogs and to personalize their blogs by choosing topics that interest them. Delving deeper, Patrick explained that blogs gave students a voice . For him, the voice of female students in the Middle East culture is often lost or drowned out at home due to males being more dominant so the blogs become a vehicle for which to express themselves and practice writing at the same time. Jordan also uses the internet to personalize to students’ interests . For comparative language, Jordan asks students to go to some online classifieds and compare two items that are being sold. The example he gave was of a class with male students and most chose the auto classifieds. Students were engaged and interested in the class and as Jordan points out, “they’re reacting to natural English language as opposed to a lot of the language which is necessarily contrived” for them.
- Personalization was revealed in a different way by Espen and Jordan who both use technology to personalize feedback given to students in terms of writing and grammar. Espen takes notable errors from students writing and uses a projector to display for the class to see. Students are called upon to identify and fix the errors . Espen particularly values the work they’re doing all together . He turns it into a competition too by asking grammar related questions to improve their language. Similarly Jordan incorporates students’ own grammatically incorrect sentences and makes a small group game out of it using Microsoft Word. Jordan adds that Emirati students are competitive by nature and will work together in groups to fix the mistakes and get points for their group .
- Other personalization could be seen as tailoring the lesson with educational technology to either the student or class. Ingrid demonstrated how she uses a single SMARTboard screen for most classes she teaches. She arranges her SMARTboard almost daily to make learning for that day explicit and to tailor her SMARTboard to her lesson. Photostory – students make a ppt with speaking. Ryan tells each student which grammar point they should be aware of. Then checks their grammar and identifies grammar mistakes in their first draft. (Blended learning example) Learning styles Frontline.pbs.org OR TED.com – listen, read transcript, interact with links, post comments online,
- The next two will be quicker because the beliefs here revealed themselves through the same activities and similar rationalizations as before. There’s a lot of overlaps and connectedness between the beliefs and the reported activities. Access involved a few different aspects. The belief of access centers around gaining something that you wouldn’t have without technology. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION :: What do you think teachers can access through tech that you may not get without it?
- 24/7 Beth said “ So using the web allows the students to practice 24/7 if they have any desire to.” Teachers talked about students having increased access outside the classroom to reading, listening, writing, vocabulary, grammar and even speaking opportunities. It is my personal belief that students can have increased access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to even micro skills like spelling and pronunciation through different websites and movies. 24/7 web2.0 … ever called a company and gotten the voice recording and they actually give you “You will wait no longer than 24 seconds or 38 minutes in Etisalat’s case… web2.0 is the opposite – someone is always out there writing, reading, listening, speaking and students can potentially communicate with them. Friends, classmates… web2.0 audience is always waiting In-Reach Access to international students - Maria – voice discussions Now a ton of stuff is available in the classroom. Access to different pronunciations, access to an image to define a word. Independent learning possibilities – Eloise - listening ello.org Ed – blogs Howard – hot potatoes vocabulary Culture Eloise – learning culture through listenings, bridging the cultural gap Good segway to the next part
- The impact of culture can’t be underestimated. I’ll refer to how culture affects teacher beliefs in a minute but the culture of our students affects our classrooms enormously. There wouldn’t be one standarad UAE culture either. I teach in Abu Dhabi but I can also imagine that there’s pockets of different culture around the Emirates that affects classrooms in Fujeirah or Dubai differently. Whilst I say this, it is good to see how this research’s participants viewed the culture of students and the classroom in the UAE. There’s a reason I chose this photo to introduce culture. Look at what’s under the lady’s hands. A phone. The mix of culture and technology is unique in every person, classroom, culture and country.
- Beth = She was referring to female students in her class:: the computer at home is the boy’s domain. Thus if there’s an interest, motivational. Patrick = Internet affords freedom . Maria, Ryan, Gabriel = Students don’t care about work quality when they submit to teacher but blogs are different . Ties in with the belief of access that web2.0 can produce better work because the audience has exponentially multiplied from 1 (the teacher) to infinity + 1. I’ve already talked about the belief held by numerous teachers that some Emirati students have a low attention span. This is in contrast to students in Japan (my personal belief) The last bullet point is a quote from Sarah but other teachers like Ryan, Ingrid, Karemen, Martin also referred to this point. This quote refers both to their culture as well as ed tech. The next minute of conversation from Sarah talked about BlackBerries, MSN messenger. However what wasn’t said but what we might imply from this is that there isn’t a strong reading culture here. In Sarah’s mind, why try to fight them reading a paper book when you can “mask” it and get them to read through a medium they’re more comfortable with. Jordan and Patrick viewed some students as the opposite to the picture painted by the majority of teachers. Jordan mentioned that students can be hesitant with new technology and that they need constant support. Patrick discussed the fact that for all the bells and whistles that we see in the Gucci and BlackBerries, some families are poor and don’t have a computer at home.
- I purposely didn’t write any examples for “access” because they were for the most part going to be the same examples from before. And that’s the point here. When people showcased their activity, they didn’t just show their belief in motivation, it was their belief in motivation, personalization and access in the same activity . One activity demonstrated different beliefs. Likewise, when people talked about motivation, a shared belief, they realized this in totally different ways or activities . Attention span belief – different ways like SMARTboard games, hot potato activities Motivation – intrinsic (mini-class presentations about a topic they want to deliver) vs. extrinsic (games as a reward).
- Refer to culture here (for teachers) Teachers all get beliefs from somewhere Lortie (1975) The term apprenticeship of observation was coined to extrapolate the nature of understanding students internalize from being involved in a classroom . Goodman (1988), and Calderhead & Robson (1991), novice teachers , - reaching back into their experiences by saying that teachers use guiding images to understand their situation and ultimately act accordingly. Kagan (1992) found that in-service teachers will tend towards developing beliefs based on “ actual practice, primarily from their own and then from the practice of fellow teachers” (Kagan, 1992, p. 75)
- Despite the literature indicating that many teachers learn from their “apprenticeship of observation”, many teachers here didn’t indicate that to me. This reflects the age of most teachers and the fact that modern technology wasn’t around when they were at school or during their time as student teachers. 12 out of 16 teachers indicated they had 11 or more years of experiences. 3 said 30 years +. Beth summarized the information succinctly when she said “ I’ve always felt that I’ve been playing catch up and what I’ve learned is often cobbled together, not formally taught or formally learned, leaning over somebody’s shoulder and seeing what they’re doing and seeing how they do it.” Learning from colleagues teachers often commented that they shared collegial support with other teachers, whether it be through formalized workshops or just bouncing ideas off each other. Stanley and Anna have shared classes previously and worked closely together. Their use of blogs evolved from shared beliefs in their use and implementation to increase language learning. Ed, Gabriel, and Ryan belong to the educational technology committee and Ingrid, Howard, and Jordan mentioned that they often like to listen to what they and others sprout. Themselves as learners Ryan and Ed confessed that when he was first becoming aware of web2.0 and their pedagogical implications, he would immerse himself for hours and become aware of the inherent value. Practical uses Maria commented that she found herself going through the experiential learning cycle when she spoke online to a teacher in Spain to arrange and design the international communication voice chat. Personalization and inspiration for Ed was found in his use of MSN chat with family and friends . Ed demonstrated his use of chat to encourage active participation from all students and to give those shy or reserved students a voice in an often loud classroom. Jordan noted that he often uses, sees the function of it, and then realizes the pedagogical value for his students. He learnt the hyperlink function within a Word document and realized he could produce an editing game for his students.
- “ In a landscape without bearings, teachers create and internalize their own maps” (Kagan, 1992) Boats, lighthouses, students, colleagues, all are in the boat to influence but the beliefs are the captain. As you all probably know and can attest to, classrooms and teaching environments are dynamic, evolving places. There aren’t too many anchor points but if we look internally, we can use our beliefs to guide us through our teaching.
- So these were just some examples from the study of 16 english langauge teachers reporting on their use of ed tech in the classroom. Don’t copy them, reflect on your own beliefs and let these guide you in your teaching because unfortunately, there’s really no silver bullet. A one belief fits all doesn’t exist. “ there is no single technological solution that applies to/for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching” ( Koehler and Mishra, 2007, p.7)
- Instead my suggestion is to:
- If you don’t use ed tech often and you want to innovate in the classroom with some ed tech, then firstly realize your own beliefs about teaching and learning . Trust that they’ll prove useful as they’ve gotten you thus far . If you want to be adventurous and use more ed tech, keep true to your beliefs and experiment to your hearts content. Like I said early on, if you believe that learning grammar is an internal, individual process, then you can set up tasks and activities using ed tech. If you believe that grammar is best learnt in pair or group modes, then there’s nothing stopping you from combining this with ed tech. To sum up, keep true to your beliefs and let them guide you when using educational technology.
- Sunset or sunrise? One final thing, this may be the sunset of this presentation but hopefully the sun is rising on your beliefs.