Week 4: Integrating Technology

The NMC Horizon Report for Higher Ed discussed the role of students as shifting from consumers to creators.  Although the report itself is focused more on makerspaces and 'students as producers,' the driving idea behind the trend is the shifting the role of students from passive vessels to active participants.  The role of the teacher will need to change in order to support student creators.  Constructivist pedagogy emphasizes the importance of students as creating their own meaningful learning experiences, which teachers can support by connecting learning to their past experiences.

Technology can be applied in such a way to support student creators in the library classroom.  Just as cutting edge technology can still result in a disengaged, lecture-based format, older technologies can be used to create an engaging classroom.  I believe the trick is in how and why the teacher chooses to apply the technology in question.  I have some rather long wish-lists for what I would like technology to do for me in the classroom, so I will focus on one aspect to explore tech tools: assessment.  

To this day, we send out paper surveys to classes that have received bibliographic instruction.  The surveys are usually sent out weeks after instruction.  While the surveys do provide summative assessment data, I believe there are a number of other tools that can be used for formative assessment in the classroom during instruction.  Live polling grew in popularity a few years ago and I believe it is still a good tool for formative assessment because it is instantaneous and anonymous.  Live polling provides an opportunity for students to interact using their ubiquitous smartphones in class.  Additionally, the anonymity of live polling makes it safe to fail.  Any wayward or wrong answers can lead into review and instruction in much-needed areas.  My experience has been that students enjoy seeing their own responses.  Live polling is most definitely not the only tool that could be used for formative assessment.  Short response assignments, such as 'minute papers' (where the students write for one minute on a targeted question) can also provide a snapshot of learning, as could quizzes and other more traditional forms of formative assessment.

Live polling has definitely improved my instruction by providing me with an opportunity to address any gaps in instruction after the peer-to-peer teaching exercise, where I don't have as much control over the material as a standard lecture.  For my final project, I am tempted to fall into cutting edge trends.  I love technology and I'm always interested in using the next shiny, new tech tool in the classroom.  Instead, I'm going to focus on creating an active classroom using current technology in an innovative way.  I'll be posting my final project soon after some thinking and writing.  We'll see if I'm successful or not!