Transcript ICT and the Curriculum Canon: Responding to and Exploring

ICT and Learning: Dust or Magic?
Prof Angela McFarlane
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
"An idea can turn to dust or magic,
depending on the talent that rubs
against it."
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Dust or Magic?
ICT improves learning
Assessment drives up standards
Dust or Magic?
ICT improves learning
ICT can make a contribution to
educational outcomes
•for some learners
•under certain circumstances.
Impact 2
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2 Preliminary studies
Main team at Nottingham, MMU and OU
60 schools
Teacher researchers
Pupil researchers
Ended July 2002 funded by DfEE
Impact 2 - Questions
(1)
What is the involvement of pupils with computers
and the Internet at home and in school?
(2)
Does curriculum centred usage have
a measurable effect on performance
and attitude ?
(3)
(4)
Are these effects confined to usage in school?
Are all kinds of computer usage equally productive
of learning?
If ICT based learning involves interactions between
home and school, what are the attendant problems
and how can these be met?
(5)
Impact 2 – Answers?
75% primary pupils, 90+% secondary pupils have a
computer at home
Use in school subjects – never or hardly
ever
5 from 13 subjects show a small positive correlation
between ICT use and added value of attainment
Use at home seems to correlate to improved
attainment in school
The data on types of ICT usage was
inconclusive
Impact 2 – Answers?
There is no consistent relation between the average
amount of ICT reported for any subject at a given
key stage and its apparent effectiveness in raising
standards.
It therefore seems likely that the type of
involvement is all-important.
ICT is not a single entity or experience –
it has many facets which are entirely
different from one another.
Aspects of ICT that can contribute to learning
Feedback
Automation
Representation of dynamic processes
The ability to edit
Multiple representations of knowledge
Shared work space
All depend on the prevailing learning culture
and style of the teacher.
ICT seems to be at its most powerful in
the support of learning as part of
iterative, productive tasks that include
assessment for learning
Dust or Magic?
Assessment drives up standards
Perspectives on ICT and Testing
• Testing ICT skills/competences
• Testing what we have always tested
better/cheaper
• Testing a very different set of achievements –
skills, understanding, ‘digital literacy’
Assessment in Education: Assessment for the Digital Age
Theme One: the use of computer-based
assessment tools
which broadly replace conventional measures—
although they usually if not always in fact change
and/or develop the measure, e.g. through the use
of adaptive testing in computer-based tests. The
key point here perhaps is that the assessment
criteria remain largely unaltered between
conventional tests and the computer-based
versions of them.
Assessment in Education: Assessment for the Digital Age
Theme Two: the use of computer-based technologies
to assess skills and/or knowledge which are difficult
or even impossible to assess using conventional
media.
Here the assessment criteria will differ from those
used in conventional tests, although they may well
apply to formative, task-based and teacher
administered assessments.
Assessment in Education: Assessment for the Digital Age
Theme Three: the use of computer-based
technologies in learning, and an examination of the
outcomes and how to measure them.
Currently there is little evidence that the kinds of
learning validated through tests, and the kinds of
learning supported through the use of ICT,
necessarily overlap.
‘It is very noticeable that all the authors, to a greater or lesser extent,
address the way in which assessment shapes the curriculum.
There is a recognition of the phenomenon of ‘teaching to the test’ and
the subsequent damage poor tests, or tests that credit only a restricted
range of valuable learning, can do to education.
There is also a common view that the advent of digital technologies has
led to a shift in emphasis, or even a complete change, in the skill set
that will serve pupils well when they enter the world of work.
Key learning outcomes are seen as skills not knowledge, and require a
dynamic environment in which to capture the practice of these skills in
action.’
McFarlane 2003
From Ridgway and McCuster 2003
• Promoting meta-knowledge
• Using new representations and symbol
systems
• Finding rules and relationships
• Constrained decision making
• Handling complex data
• Modelling complex processes and problems
Understanding and representing problems
Speed is a task for 13 year-olds which presents students with a video of a car
travelling along a road. They are required to represent the journey as a graph, which
they build from line segments. Students find this task easy.
Ridgway and McCuster 2003
Problem exploration
SUNFLOWER is a task for both 9 and 13 year old students which presents students
with the task of growing the world’s tallest sunflower, using some combination of the
two nutrients that are provided. The task rewards systematic work such as
controlling variables, recording results, and careful exploration of the search space.
ICT and Assessment for Learning
….research indicates that improving learning through assessment
depends on five, deceptively simple, key factors:

The provision of effective feedback to pupils;
 The active involvement of pupils in their own learning
 Adjusting teaching to take account of the results of
assessment

A recognition of the profound influence assessment has
on the motivation and self-esteem of pupils, both of which
are crucial influences on learning;
 The need for pupils to be able to assess themselves and
understand how to improve.
From Assessment for Learning 1999
The Magic Ingredient?
The intended outcomes must be part of a wider
vision of the curriculum and its assessment,
which are compatible with the chosen
application of ICT to support learning.
There must be a shared model of valid learning
and its manifestations.
[There has been] a chorus of pronouncements that "the
information society" both requires and makes possible new
forms of education. We totally agree with this. But we do not
agree that tardiness in translating these declarations into
reality can be ascribed, as it often is, to such factors as lack of
money, technology, standards or teacher training. Obviously
there is a need for improvement in all of those areas, But the
primary lack is something different - a shortage of bold,
coherent, inspiring yet realistic visions of what education
could be like 10 and 20 years from now.
Papert, S. and Caperton, G., 1999
Key Texts
Becta (2002/3) Impact2 reports see http://www.becta.org.uk under
‘Research’
Burns, T. C and Ungerleider, C. S, (2002) Information and Communication
Technologies in Elementary and Secondary Education. International
Journal of Educational Policy, Research and Practice, Vol 3 no 4 p 27-54
Harlen, W and Deakin Crick, R. (2003) Testing and Motivation for Learning
Assessment in Education, Vol 10 no 2
Kozma, R.B. (ed) (2003) Technology, Innovation and Educational Change –
a global perspective. ISTE ISBN 1-56484-230-4
McFarlane, A.E., (2003a) Learners, Learning and New Technology.
Educational Media International (Routledge) Vol 40 3/4
McFarlane, A..E. ed (2003b) Assessment for the Digital Age, Assessment in
Education vol 10(3)
CAL 05 – Virtual Learning?
www.cal-conference.elsevier.com
ICT and Learning: Dust or Magic?
Prof Angela McFarlane
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol