From Teacher Education to Opportunity to Learn – Creating the Conditions for Teacher Innovation

Few moments in history have created such a catalytic moment for education as the current influx of technologies. The immediacy and ubiquity of access to information afforded by mobile devices allows anyone to become a learner from anyplace, at anytime, and from anyone, directly contradicting many of the structures on which schools base their identities (Collins & Halverson, 2010). Today, educators face a new era characterized by rapid advancements in technology, global connectedness, and a knowledge-based economy (Levy & Murnane, 2013). Unfortunately, researchers have consistently documented the systematic rejection of technologies to transform students from passive recipients of information to knowledge constructors as educators cling to previously held teaching strategies (Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001; Cuban, 2017; Frank, Zhao, & Borman, 2004; Reich, Willett, & Murnane, 2012; Zhao & Frank, 2003; Zhao, Pugh, Sheldon, & Byers, 2002). To remedy this problem, both teachers and leaders need the opportunity to engage in the types of learning experiences that they hope to implement for their students – a key tenet driving the author’s current research study.

Most educators formed their perception of education as students within a largely behavioristic, transmission-as-teaching, analog system. Therefore, many reject the culture of active-learning and student creation that accompanies new technologies and do not view the adoption of these pedagogies as necessary components of their conceptualization of an effective teacher (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). Even when provided with a mental model such TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), many resist acculturation into the digital world and continue to espouse the values associated with more traditional pedagogical approaches.

Since individuals create knowledge through active and vicarious experience (Bruning, Schraw, & Norby, 2011), the challenge for educational leaders, as well as teachers of educators, lies in the design of opportunities to build new mental representations about teaching and learning (Ertmer & Newby, 1983). Instead of traditional, transmission-based professional development or teacher-education programs that perpetuate existing mental models, educators need opportunities on which they can socially construct new meaning (Gee, 2008). Educators and leaders need to have that initial experience on which they can then design new practices. They need an opportunity to seek out problems, design novel solutions, construct new knowledge, and create dynamic representations of their understanding as learners. To create the conditions for their students to engage in active learning and harness the power of mobile devices, teachers and leaders first need to experience a similar environment for themselves.

Ignite School Innovation through the Power of Paradigms

Paradigms create worldviews on which future comparisons can be drawn and provide concrete representations for what something could look like. For centuries, school has been represented by a mental image of students in chairs, age-based curriculum, a teacher at the front of the room disseminating content, etc. Mobile Devices and digital technologies fundamentally challenge that paradigm (Collins & Halverson, 2010).

When faced with new paradigms, individuals have historically responded in one of two ways. If the new paradigm does not match the existing one, then they may reject it altogether and resist learning (Alexander, Schallert, & Reynolds, 2009); or, the person might try to tame the paradigm and force it into compliance with existing structures such as what often happens with digital technology (Zhao & Frank, 2003). Instead of allowing mobile devices to fundamentally change classroom practice, educators often assimilate them into the existing paradigm of school. Devices often serve as little more than digital worksheets, test-prep, or glorified typewriters.

However, paradigms can foster a sense of comfort and provide an initial foundation on which to build new ideas. Few tools have been embraced by schools as often as productivity suites as students can efficiently respond to essay prompts and give stand-up-and-deliver presentations. However, these suites also offer teachers an opportunity to take the familiar and then completely re-think the tasks associated with the tools. Slides could become narrated, animated storybooks. Documents might evolve into infographics that allow students to distill complex information into consumable visuals.

Similarly, consider the paradigms associated with creation tools. Audio recording could mimic cassette tapes or connect students with a global audience through podcasting. Video might be nothing more than a digital VHS recorder, or an opportunity to use media as a component of a social justice campaign. Apps like Explain Everything might replace interactive whiteboards, or encourage students to engage in metacognition as they screencast their thinking; and while a tool such as Book Creator intentionally build on the paradigm of a paper book, it also provides students with a platform to create and share multi-media, multi-touch eBooks with their community. The paradigm of the familiar can serve as a springboard and provide unlimited opportunities for students to construct new understanding and create new artifacts of their learning.