Digital Pedagogy and Pre-service Teacher education in the time of COVID
It certainly is an interesting time in the world to be a secondary school teacher in training! At the start of the 2020 school year, teachers and schools had to quickly redefine what they do by hurriedly transitioning to a remote model. Leaving me, a second year Master of Applied Learning and Teaching student, suspended between analogue and digital teacher education.
Anecdotally, by asking around my Australian teacher friends and mentors, I’ve gathered that some schools were somewhat prepared, while others faced a stark gap of resources, knowledge and experience needed to effectively teach online.
Why are some schools more adaptable than others?
Don’t we all adhere to the same standards which require the use of ICT in the classroom? Doesn’t technology at school translate to online learning?
Well, the answer isn’t so straight forward…
As technology advances, schools and teachers integrate it into the learning environment in different ways. Unless a school has a coherent ICT focus in pedagogical approach, devices and connectivity across the entire school, the disparity can lead to an inconsistent use of technology.
AITSL STANDARD 2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students.Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership Standards
Standard 2.6 for example is broad enough that something as uninspiring as using a powerpoint presentation can qualify as meeting the standard, which would translate to online delivery of content…however classroom student engagement strategies would be lost without a redesign of the lesson.
To continue this discussion, let’s define a few distinct learning environments.
Improving teacher practice in different environments
An important distinction to make is that…the rapid shift to remote teaching in response to COVID is NOT online teaching…it’s Emergency Remote Teaching.
Teaching has been forced online temporarily but the intention is to return to F2F teaching, ASAP. So, rather than redesigning the teaching strategies, lessons and assessments for an ongoing digital delivery, teachers and schools are doing the best they can – buying time until returning to the classroom when things can “resume to normal.”
But is “normal” good enough for the modern technological landscape?
Educational researcher John Hattie urges us to learn from the experiences of ERT because an experiment such as this would never fly!
We have stacks of teaching and learning theory, practice principles and evidence-based strategies such as Hattie’s High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) to ensure a strong teaching and learning practice in the F2F classroom. But also, in the 10 years since AITSLs standards were first developed, we have access to far more new technologies which have the potential to evolve how we achieve these standards of excellence.
By now, can’t we mesh theory and technology to create a “new normal” for f2f classroom teaching?
Increase digital resilience
If I had been fresh out of Uni, would my students and I have been digitally resilient enough to maintain quality learning and engagement during the remote shift? I’m not so sure..
My lesson plans from 2019 all included technology (ICT) such as powerpoint presentations, kahoots and apps but how well would they translate to an online or ERT learning environment? Eady & Lockyer (2013) stress that using technology for its sake isn’t enough to properly incorporate ICT into the teaching practice, it must be embedded into the pedagogical strategy.
Enter, Digital Pedagogy…
In the same right, online learning doesn’t inherently use digital pedagogy. As other PSTs studying at the moment would know, there’s heaps of variation in delivery and maintenance of online learning environments at Uni. Some units are simply sharing analogue resources in a digital and more widely accessible manner; useful, especially in the time of COVID, but not to be confused with using digital pedagogy to engage and enhance student outcomes.
The reinventing of lessons using digital pedagogy just might be the bridge between a smooth versus turbulent transition to ERT in times of need.
A model, a strategy and a tool
Have I been adding digital pedagogical tools to my teacher toolbox, or simply replacing old with new tech? Chalkboard to Whiteboard? Handout to Powerpoint? How can I evaluate the use of ICT in my lesson plans to achieve higher levels of digital pedagogy?
The SAMR model gives us language to discuss how we use tech in the classroom, HITS gives us strategies to work towards and Google Classroom can help us enhance the way we differentiate lessons for improved student outcomes. Check out this video where I combine all three to illustrate how we can improve our teacher practice.
How can we best prepare for ERT as PSTs?
As a future media teacher, I’m comfortable with technology. I like learning new apps and programs, and I have gone out of my way to explore using new and different tools to expand my own media literacy.
Not all pre-service teachers share my proactive, positive disposition about new technologies though (Gunter 2001, p. 13) and there is more that teacher education programs and PSTs ourselves can do to prepare in light of the recent surprise lesson in digital learning.
8 Tips for PSTs to upgrade #digiped skills
Download PDF for clickable links and shareable guide by Lexi Keeton
References
2017, High Impact Teaching Strategies, by Department of Education and Training, Victorian State Government.
Eady, M & Lockyer, L 2013, ‘Tools for learning: technology and teaching strategies’, in M Eady & L Lockyer (eds), Learning to teach in the primary school, Queensland University of Technology, pp. 71
Gunter, GA 2001, ‘Making a difference: Using emerging technologies and teaching strategies to restructure an undergraduate technology course for pre-service teachers’, Educational Media International, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 13-20.
Hodges, C, Moore, S, Lockee, B, Trust, T & Bond, A 2020, The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning, Educause, retrieved 13 June 2020, https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning.
Jude, LT, Kajura, MA & Birevu, MP 2014, ‘Adoption of the SAMR model to asses ICT pedagogical adoption: A case of Makerere University’, International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, vol. 4, no. 2, p. 106.
Feature Image Julia Cameron, Boy in Gray Hoodie Looking at iMac, CC0
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