Demystifying Quality Teaching for Distributed Learning Contexts

1. Demystifying Quality Teaching for Distributed Learning Contexts Dr Robert Parkes Deputy Head of School, Teaching & Learning Senior Lecturer in Curriculum Theory, History & Media Education School of Education University of Newcastle

2. Overview • Technology as Pedagogy • Authentic Tasks, PBL, and Backward Design • Demystifying Quality Teaching

3. Technology as Pedagogy

4. Technology as Pedagogy • Technological Competence • Defined by skills (constructed as ‘neutral tools’) • Media Literacy • Production, Representation, and Reception (exposes purpose-driven, value-laden, and situated within a cultural-historical context)

5. Technology as a Tool Affordances and Constraints?

6. Technology as a Tool Affordances and Constraints?

7. Distributed Learning? What is more important: • Proximity? • Presence?

8. Fifth Generation Distance Education • The Correspondence Model • The Multimedia Model • The Telelearning Model • The Flexible Learning Model • The Intelligent Flexible Learning Model (James C. Taylor, 1999)

9. Key Features of New Media Technologies • Non-Hierarchical Organisation • Non-Linear (Digital vs Analogue) • Flexible (Synchronous or Asynchronous) • Relational (Networked) • Continuous Connectivity • Approximate Professional Production

10. Three Generations ofFlexible Learning • Behaviourist / Cognitivist – Self-Paced Individual Study • Constructivist – Groups & Interactivity • Connectivist– Networks (Terry Anderson, 2010)

11. Example: Wikis, Blogs, or Forums?

12. Example: Lists or Maps?

13. Vygotsky’s Zone of ProximalDevelopment Concept Collaboration with More Capable Peer, Play , or Cognitive / Mediational Tools Zone of Proximal Development Actual Level of Development Level of Potential Development

14. Throwing down the gauntlet: New Media and the raising of expectations New Media Information Communication Technologies Allow students to approximate professional productions Zone of Dynamic Development Actual Level of Development Level of Potential Development

15. Content Knowledge Pedagogical Knowledge TPACK What do teachers have to know? Technological Knowledge Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher’s knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.

16. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge • Knowing which technologies to use with what pedagogies for teaching specific content to particular students; • Knowing the existence, components and capabilities of various technologies as they are used in teaching and learning settings; • How teaching might change as the result of using particular technologies; • Understanding that a range of tools exist for a particular task, the ability to choose a tool based on its fitness and affordances; • Pedagogical strategies most suitable to use with particular technologies.

17. Authentic Tasks & Project Based Learning Reeves, Herrington and Oliver (2002)

18. The Task as the Curriculum • The best assessment tasks will be ‘central to the curriculum’ not peripheral – they drive what teachers need to teach and students need to learn • The task will be focused on a compelling ‘real world’ problem or issue • The task will represent an educational outcome of substantial and demonstrable substance and education value • The task may take in as many outcomes as possible in a single task (minimising the need for lots of additional assessment tasks)

19. The Task as the Curriculum • The task will be well-formed (so students know what is expected) but ill-defined (so they have to develop their own strategies) • The task will be complex, requiring student engagement over a substantive period of time • The task will provide students with opportunities to reflect • The task may require student to draw on multiple disciplines

20. How Do We Design Effective Project Learning? Introducing Backward Design: Beginning with the end in mind

21. Four QT Questions (Gore & Ladwig, 2003) • What do you want the students to learn? • Why does that learning matter? • What are you going to get the students to do (or to produce)? • How well do you expect them to do it?

22. Backward Design (Wiggins and McTighe , 2000) • Step 1: What are the important and enduring things students should know or be able to do? • Step 2: What would constitute evidence that they know or can do it? • Step 3: What learning experiences and teaching methods would promote knowledge and capacity?

23. Step 1: What are the important and enduring things students should know or be able to do? • What do you want the students to learn? • Why does that learning matter?

24. Step 2: What would constitute evidence that they know or can do it? • What are you going to get the students to do (or to produce)? • How well do you expect them to do it?

25. Step 3: What learning experiences and teaching methods would promote knowledge and capacity? • What are the important milestones along the way? • What activities do students need to engage in to achieve the milestones? • What do you need to explicitly teach for students to be successful? Questions of sequencing are implicit here!

26. An Example: Filmmaking

27. Milestones of a Film Project

28. Production Team Roles

29. The Three Act Plot Structure • ACT I – The Hook (Orientation) The main character is living their everyday life then something happens that disrupts their life and sends them on a ‘journey’. Situate your lead in the problem context, establish the ‘tone’ of your story, and hook your audience in. Make me want to watch! • ACT II – The Struggle (Complication) Obstacles and complications make it difficult for the protagonist to achieve their goal, which is solving the problem and returning things to normal… eventually they find out what to do, but it is too late – a catastrophic event keeps them from their goal. Keep me engaged! • ACT III – The Payoff (Resolution) A surprising resolution is achieved (which may be comedic, tragic, or positive) often with the assistance of an ‘ally’, or something unexpected. Let me feel it was worth my time watching!

30. Visual Grammar:The Rule of Thirds Compare the above picture which places the bird at the centre… versus: This picture which gives the bird “room to fly”.

31. Low Angle Literally, “looking up to someone”, gives the power to the person being looked upon. They are bigger than the person doing the looking. Point of View High Angle Literally, “looking down on someone”, gives the power to the audience, the people doing the looking.

32. Storyboarding & Shot Sequencing Thanks Greg Alchinand the iShine project!

33. Short Film Marking Scheme

34. Rethinking the Role ofthe Teacher Guide on the Side Guide on the Side Sage on the Stage Sage on the Stage

35. Important Tips • 20% Overrun Buffer • Frequent Checkpoints • Involve students in project and rubric design • Avoid making decisions for students • Teachable Moments • Use examples of professional work • Just-in Time Instruction • Make sure technology is crucial or don’t use it

36. Demystifying Quality Teaching Thinking about QT as a game of CH-E-S=S

37. Quality Teaching as the NSW Model of Authentic Pedagogy • Re-evaluating the QSRLS data • Developing a professional development model for NSW DET schools

38. How people sometimes approach the QT model and why it fails • There are two many elements, so we are just going to focus on Higher Order Thinking this year. • We are already doing this stuff. • This stuff is no different to X.

39. How to ‘read’ the Quality Teaching model • The Three Dimensions are ‘critical’ • Intellectual Quality = students being challenged to learn something • Quality Learning Environment = students being socially and pedagogically supported • Significance = students being engaged • Each ‘element’ is really an ‘indicator’ of the presence of its dimension, or a ‘pathway’ to achieving the dimension.

40. What happens if IQ is emphasised at the expense of SIG and QLE? Significance Intellectual Challenge 1 = Disengagement Quality LearningEnvironment Intellectual Challenge 2 = Failure for Some

41. What happens if SIG and QLE are each emphasised over the other dimensions? Intellectual Challenge Significance 1 = Students unchallenged, and engaged in tasks that repeat what they already now; ‘busy work’. Intellectual Challenge Quality LearningEnvironment 2 = Success at trivial tasks; ‘busy work’.

42. Quality Teaching – The Two Balances Intellectual Challenge Significance 1 = Buy In Intellectual Challenge Quality LearningEnvironment 2 = Success for All

43. How do we build intellectual challenge? • You can intellectually challenge your students by engaging them in tasks that require them to demonstrate: • Deep knowledge (Tasks that focus on the important, central concepts of a topic, subject or issue) • Problematic Knowledge (Tasks that have multiple, contrasting and conflicting answers, or that reveal how knowledge is socially, culturally or historically constructed and open to question) • Higher-Order Thinking (Tasks that require students to synthesize, analyse, evaluate, hypothesize, generalise, etc. not simply ‘transfer’ information from one place to another, but to ‘transform’ it) • Deep Understanding (Tasks that require students to provide information, arguments or reasoning that demonstrate their grasp of central ideas and concepts) • Metalanguage (Tasks that require students to address how language is being used to create meaning by specific individuals, for specific audiences and purposes) • Substantive Communication (Tasks that require students to provide extended or elaborate arguments, explanations, interpretations in written, oral, graphic or dramatic forms) Step 1: Ensure the conceptual challenge of the task Step 2: Ensure the communicative challenge of the task

44. How do we increase the likelihood of student engagement? • You can increase student engagement through the significance of a task by: • Connectedness (Requiring students to respond to real-world problems, to apply knowledge in real-life contexts, or exhibit work to public audiences) • Narrative (Providing narrative framing for the task/problem you want students to work on; Requiring them to write, tell, perform or illustrate their understanding in a story form; Having students share their aspirations, and connecting tasks to these aspirations) • Background Knowledge (Providing students with opportunities to make links with what they already know, from inside and outside school life) • Cultural Knowledge (Explicitly acknowledging and valuing different cultural perspectives; Encouraging students to look beyond stereotypes; Require students to reconsider their response to a problem from a different cultural perspective) • Knowledge Integration (Requiring students draw on knowledge from more than one discipline when solving the problem set) Step 3: Make the task look and feel ‘real’ and worth doing Step 4: Ensure the task acknowledges and draws upon what students already bring to the table

45. How do we increase the likelihood of student success? • You can show your students that you expect them to do well, and support them to do so by providing them with: • Explicit Quality Criteria (Detailed criteria regarding the quality of work you expect; and provide them with opportunities to evaluate their own work in relation to those criteria) • High Expectations (Present students with challenging work and reward them for taking conceptual risks; Encourage all students to aim high; Provide access to the highest level challenges to all) • Student Direction (Present students with the opportunity to exercise control over the choice of activities they will do, the deadline for completion of the task, the pace at which the task is completed, and the criteria by which the task will be assessed) Step 5: Develop clear expectations and structure in opportunities for social and academic support Step 6: Ensure opportunities for student ownership of the task

46. Quality Teaching: Why it is a 3D Model Quality Learning Environment Intellectual Quality Significance

47. Good Pedagogy as a game of CH-E-S=S (Parkes, 2011) • Challenge + • Engage + • Support = • Success Support Intellectual Challenge Engagement

48. Thank You. Please feel free to contact me at: Robert.Parkes@newcastle.edu.au