Why I Replaced Myself With A Machine

*This post has been written as part of my journey through my Master's Degree in Curriculum & Planning through Brandon University

This week our Internet for Teachers (#BU755) class looked at four different readings, two of which got me thinking about a recent change in my own classroom:

JoolaLMS. (2017). Top experts predict what will transform elearning in 2017. Retrieved on November 21, 2017 from https://www.joomlalms.com/media/com_html5flippingbook/top_experts_predict_what_will_transform_elearning_2017.pdf

New Media Consortium. (2017). NMC/CoSN horizon report > 2017 K-12 edition. Retrieved on November 21, 2017 from https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmccosn-horizon-report-2017-k-12-edition/

     The first article identifies predictions from 14 different "ed tech" experts who share their thoughts on the future of educational technology; everything from authenticity and differentiation to MOOCS and augmented reality. The second article drew my attention with a section on "Challenges Impeding K-12 Tech Adoption". As someone who is often a supporter of tech in the classroom I like to see what difficulties are being identified so that I can help think of ways to potentially overcome some of the hurdles. 

     As I mentioned previously, these articles lead me to reflect on a recent change that I made to my Gr 7 Social Studies classroom; both because I am continually thinking to how this change will play out in the future and because I am now faced with some challenges on how to adopt similar models in my other classes.

     Earlier in the course Chelsea and I presented on two articles and one concept has really stuck with me as we have progressed over the past month: "never send a human to do a machine's job". Let technology do what it can do within your learning context and allow it to free up your time to really focus on those aspects of teaching that you wish you had more time to do. 

     This made me really evaluate my current teaching practices and forced me to ask myself, "what aspects of me are replaceable?" Mr. Nantais shared a quote when I was in my B.Ed degree that mentioned that, "If your teaching can be replaced by a machine then maybe it should." With that in mind I sat down over the weekend and figured out how to do exactly that.... how to replace myself with a machine.

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Inspirational Robots to Begin Replacing Teachers in 10 Years. (2017). Uploaded by Henry Bodkin. Available online at: http://truthunsealed.com/science/inspirational-robots-to-begin-replacing-teachers-within-10-years/

     What I was left with was a system that allowed me to easily differentiate, provide choice, cover course content, and allow me to have significantly more one-on-one time supporting the students in my room. My students walked in on that Monday to a new system that centred around one bulletin board and our iPad cart.

ed tech in the classroom, differentiated instruction, manitoba teaching blog, canadian teaching blog, Ste Rose School
Gr 7 Social Studies Bulletin Board. (2017). Uploaded to Teaching in a Fishbowl. Available online at: https://www.facebook.com/Thompsonclassroom/photos/a.1956310531304727.1073741831.1934477516821362/1962607817341665/?type=3&theater 

How it Works:
- I sat down and re-identified the four essential questions of our unit on Africa & Asia.

- I then developed three or more potential assignments to explore each of these questions. (these are seen in the red, yellow, purple, and pink folders on the bulletin board) I made sure that each assignment contained ALL of the necessary instructions for completion, including the essential question that we were working towards.
     - This has replaced any "large-group instruction" I was previously doing

- My next step was to find online resources (videos, charts, apps, articles, etc) that would be needed to complete the assignment and curated them in our classroom website using Symbaloo. When necessary, I named them using abbreviations that aligned with the names of the assignments so students could easily find the resource they needed.
     - This has replaced any "lecture-based" or "large-group instruction" I was previously doing

ed tech in the classroom, differentiated instruction, manitoba teaching blog, canadian teaching blog, Ste Rose School, symbaloo in the classroom
Gr 7 Symbaloo. (2017). Uploaded by Kirsten Thompson. Available online at: http://thompsonclassroom.weebly.com/grade-7-social-studies.html

- For the purposes of differentiation, I then grouped my students into five different "teams" that they would be working with as we explored this unit.
     - Team members also circulate through different roles such as "tech coordinator", "gopher", "time keeper", etc.
     - This has replaced any time I spent handing out materials and reduced the need for me to provide management prompts

- When students come into the room our agenda on the SMART Board displays the colour of the folder and the assignment for the day/week. In some instances I state which assignments have to be completed. For example: the red folders were the introduction to the unit (vocabulary, mapping, etc) and I asked students to complete all three assignments. In each of the remaining colours, students now have a team choice of which 2/3 or 3/5 assignments they want to explore.
     - This has replaced any "large-group instruction" I was previously doing
     - This provides choice for students

- Once students have their assignment and their iPad I am free to bounce from group-to-group for the ENTIRE class period working with students. This allows me to easily differentiate the assignments (shorten, lengthen, provide reading/language support, introduce assistive technology, etc).
     - I am able to effectively use small-group instruction knowing that my remaining 16 students are on-task and working
       towards their goals

- I have also moved towards using Quizizz for our weekly assessments after being introduced to it in this course by Chris B. Depending on the week I make 3-5 versions of our assessment based on what each team was working towards.
     - I requested that the free Quizizz app be added onto our iPads
     - This program allows me to differentiate by adding in visuals, shortening or lengthening the number of potential
       responses, modify the reading level of the questions, or providing a "read aloud" function for students to use.
ed tech in the classroom, differentiated instruction, manitoba teaching blog, canadian teaching blog, Ste Rose School
Teach Quotes. (2017). Uploaded by Picsmine. Available online at: http://picsmine.com/43-best-teach-quotes-sayings-images/teach-quotes-if-a-child-cant-learn-the-way-we-teach-maybe-we-should-teach-the-way-they-learn/


Moving Forward:
- We are currently on our third week of this model so I am interested in seeing how the long-term success pans out. As of our last two weekly assessments I have had 19/20 students increase their previous class average compared to our first unit; specifically for my students on IEPs or who were significantly struggling before. However, some of this could be related to the different content of the unit or the novelty of a new approach.

- Ideally I would love to be able to go paperless with this idea. We do operate using the Office 365 cloud but we don't have enough devices to guarantee one-to-one (or the broadband to allow it). This is, however, a divisional goal by 2020-2021.

- I currently have to book our iPads about a week in advance so I can ensure that I have them for every Gr 7 Social Studies period (a half hour Mondays, Tuesdays, & Fridays as well as an hour on Thursdays). So far I haven't run into any conflicts but having a class set would be ideal and allow more flexibility amongst staff members.

- I would like to be able to introduce this concept into my other classes, especially some of my high schools classes where the amount of content (and divisional exams) sometimes leads me more towards a lecture-based model of instruction.

______________________________________________

ed tech in the classroom, differentiated instruction, manitoba teaching blog, canadian teaching blog, Ste Rose School
Teaching Quote. (2017). Uploaded by Unique Teaching Resources. Available online at: http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/Quotes-About-Education.html

What are you thoughts on this model?

Do you have any suggestions on how to change/improve it?

What aspects of your teaching could/should be replaced by a machine?

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