Infusing technology with Bloom’s, SAMR Model
While some students are eager to learn, others dare you to teach them. Teachers need to get and keep the attention of their student in order for learning to happen.
Reminders that the content will appear on an upcoming test motivate those concerned about their grades. A warning that an assignment is due before they leave works better before lunch and the last period of the day. Other students are more motivated by incentives such as parents paying for grades or teachers paying with token economies.
Some of the more earnest resisters who aren’t easily motivated by the stick or carrot approach may be enticed into producing work if given the opportunity to collaborate with peers and use technology.
The infusion of technology and collaboration into the lesson requires some strategic planning. The goal is to get students producing tech products not just consuming content delivered by technology. This sort of synthesis is higher up on Bloom’s Taxonomy of thinking. Substituting electronic worksheets for paper ones is a start to assist with recall, but by no means the end goal. The goal of educating students is to enhance their thinking and this has long been categorized on Bloom’s taxonomy or hierarchy. These levels of thinking begin with recall. First, teachers want students to remember so they might substitute technology by having them take notes using an app called Evernote or Notability. These digital notepads offer searchable notes and images which can be organized electronically.
To demonstrate their understanding, students need to make their thinking visible via written or spoken output so using a program like Word could help them quickly process new input. They then submit it electronically so teachers can formatively assess if students are ready to move further into the content.
Applying the new knowledge is the third level of the taxonomy. Analysis can be done using a program such as Show Me or Explain Everything which allow students to draw electronically and then record explanations in a type of screencast situation. This can be played back for fellow students and then submitted to the teacher.
Analysis is critical to defending reasoning so citing sources that provide the evidence may require an organizational tool such as Noodletools or Diigo. Both of these programs keep electronic bookmarks and allow annotation as well as notes on electronic notecards so that research sources are more easily cited.
Evaluating content can be done by having students blog their critique using Kidsblog or Goodreads where their authentic audience broadens beyond the classroom which helps motivate more content production and better editing.
Synthesis involves high level thinking such as using imovie to produce a video or Powtoons to animate student understanding of a concept. Students enjoy completing these projects and presenting content to their peers.
The SAMR Model of technology integration is an acronym that describes the level of technology use including Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition.
At first teachers may begin integrating technology by finding a substitution such as giving a quiz online instead of with paper and pencil. Substitution involves doing the same thing with technology as you would do without. A geography travel lesson might have students use Pages to describe their destination and paste in pictures.
Next, Augmentation might be tried which adds a bit more of the power of the technology by using a program that grades this online exam such as Socrative or Illuminate. The travel brochure could be enhanced by adding hyperlinks that connect the reader to more persuasive online tourism data.
Moving to Modification, teachers actually change the assignment to enhance it in a more rich multi-media way such as requiring students to add an audio/video file component to the project. Students can use their own narration about the best tourist attractions for their destination.
Redefinition is when teacher changes the whole assignment. For example, using Google Earth and Tour Builder students can evaluate the destination for a vacation plus add interviews. This virtual tour may include uploaded photos with captions, interview videos with the curator and a tour of a museum. An electronic book including text being read when an avatar is clicked plus animated pictures can also be assigned.
Technology integration using SAMR and Bloom’s help to enhance the rigor and entice reluctant students. It’s important to give students assignments worth completing. Tech tips plus timelines and deadlines of the various component parts all help to scaffold success and motivate completion.