The use of Microsoft Teams to enhance communication and collaboration amongst high school teachers

Click the link The use of Microsoft Teams to enhance communication and collaboration amongst high school teachers to view the presentation done during my three week remote learning module, which is part of my PGDip course I am attending during 2020. It attempts to apply the principles of the AODM 8-Step-Model (Mwanza 2002) & the socio-cultural garden metaphor (Lim 2002) to the activity outlined.

Presentation on Activity Oriented Design Method's (AODM) Eight-Step-Model (Mwanza 2002) & Activity Systems Triangle (Lim 2002)

Below is a link to a presentation that details the application of the AODM 8-Step-Model (Mwanza 2002) & illustrated through the Activity System Triangle (Lim 2002) on a blogging activity designed by Prof. Ng'ambi. The blogging activity instruction was for course participants to blog useful apps for families to use during the COVID - 19 Lockdown of 2020.

• AODM and AST on blog

Sociocultural view of understanding learning and teaching with ET using a garden metaphor, Lim (2002).

The garden metaphor resembles an onion diagram. I look at each layer and how it influences the activity systems which are a the core of the garden (Lim, 2002). Firstly, societal requirements and norms guides educational activity's purpose. The changing environment for society has an impact on the context in which many activities are set. Currently, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also impacting on the design and delivery of activities. Due to the lock down, later possibly limited physical presence at schools, all educational activities need to be remotely done.

The educational system sets standards for the aims and goals of activities; however, I feel these are very slow to change with the requirements of society. This is understandable as it takes considerable cost and labour to change these standards. However with the digital platforms used in today's world it should allow for more flexibility.

Schools regulate the day to day aspects of the learning and teaching process. They provide the underlying ethos for activities and provide the structure to the schooling environment. Schools want teachers to be innovative in their activities, but still want the most consistent results possible. I personally don't know if these two ideas are always compatible. This is going to be highlighted even more now that teachers and learners have been forced into remote learning due to the lock down. Many were required to do so without proper guided instruction on how these lessons and remote learning tools work.

The type of students also impact of the level and type of activities that can be done, as well as their access to resources. The diversity of learners' socio-economic backgrounds in a single school make activity design and deliver a formidable challenge.

Course study is again something that is slow to change at school level and can sometimes constrain ambitious teachers. The new circumstances with lock down is going to have a big impact on assessment policies and standards. It is challenging to set assignments that need to be done remotely now, that once was done under control conditions in the classroom.

Each of these layers impact and influence the others at different levels as well. I, as a teacher, need to take in account the layers that influence how I design and implement activities for learning. Similarly, I look at how I can influence the delivery or acceptance of the activities.

Reference: Lim, C.P. (2002). A theoretical framework for the study of ICT in schools: a proposal. British Journal of Educational Technology. Vol 33, No 4, 411-421

Authentic assessment - element 9 of authentic learning

Authentic assessments need to align with the tasks main goal. This meaning not assessing individual steps but rather completed and refined final products. In a scholastic context, this takes the form of rubrics for projects students would complete over a number of weeks. The rubric should assess the learning and development the students have achieved as wells as the end product the students have delivered (Herrington, 2011).

Unfortunately, the current Curriculum Assessment Programme relies heavily on a student’s individual performance in exams and other written tests. These tests and exams do not align with real world problem solving skills and performance assessments.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 9: ASSESSMENT [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/gjzER-FDByE

Coaching and scaffolding - element 8 of authentic learning

The element of coaching and scaffolding speaks to the idea that the educator not submitting to merely giving answers or delivering solutions to students posed questions, but rather guiding the students through posing questions to them. I school context it would mostly come down to inquiring whether the student has probed various resources for solutions or even discussed the issues with more knowledgeable peers (Herrington, 2011). The educators can use technology in inventive ways of having the learners ask questions such as social media platforms like twitter or like in my case posting questions to me, the educator, on a MS Teams channel or even messaging me directly.

It is also useful to post questions on a public platform so that other students can share their experience of solving similar problems.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 8: SCAFFOLDING [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/b1ZXJExy9eE

Articulation - element 7 of authentic learning

These element looks at ways to achieve the previous element, reflection. Specifically, it looks at providing opportunity for the student/s to present their ideas and thoughts to a public audience which could include their peers or experts allowing for various perspectives. The reflection can be a presentation or in written form. Either way requires the audience to give feedback or present questions to the student/s. The discussion or argument that takes place forms a basis of reflection for the student/s (Herrington, 2011).

Mostly in school context the presentations would be to their peers in a classroom, however technology affords the opportunity to present to individuals that work in a relevant field to be reached and for them to be part of the audience.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 7: ARTICULATION [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ndwW1GztWRk

Reflection - element 6 of authentic learning

Reflection is an important part of the learning process and therefor an authentic learning process must have reflection as one of its elements. Reflection allows the student to think about decisions made during and after a task. Reflection in action refers to the reflection taken during the activity and can provide the student with opportunities to changes aspects of the work they have done (Herrington, 2011).

Reflection on action refers to the reflection done after a task or activity is completed and provides benefit in retrospect. Thus, allowing the student to think of improved approaches in future tasks.

This reflection happens individually with students but should also happen socially through discussions with experts, their peers and educators (Herrington, 2011).

In a school based assessment, it would be good to have a check in with the students every few days to have them reflect their progress to the teacher. The teacher can also include the making of a reflection journal, whether it be hand written or electronic, part of the assessment criteria.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 6: REFLECTION [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/7cjks3Yo7Y8

Collaboration - element 5 of authentic learning

For authentic learning to take please the educator needs to provide a scenario for the students to work together to solve problems and have social support during the tasks or activities (Herrington, 2011).

This can be accomplished in school context through allowing learners to collaborate during lessons; however, educators should be looking at how they can promote the use of technology as well. Fortunately, my school has embraced the Microsoft Office 365 package that would allow students to collaborate remotely on documents and afford them the ability to communicate with each other as well. Many other products like this exists, such as Google Suites. The students can also collaborate through the production of podcasts, videos and presentations (Herrington, 2011).

It is mentioned that these collaborative tasks are denoted by the fact that the educator will be assessing a final product or a group performance (Herrington, 2011). We do however sit with the issue that our current Curriculum Assessment Programme does not truly cater for this sort of assessment protocol to be sustain throughout the year. At most two or three assessments, out of eight or more, can be assessed in this manner.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 5: COLLABORATION [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/coY91ZncCsY

Multiple perspectives - element 4 of authentic learning

This element deals with the ability of students to access and study information from different perspectives to provide them with different points of view (Herrington, 2011). This mostly entails educational technology that enables students to access online libraries, informative media sources such as YouTube and search engines such as Google Scholar.

In school context, these resources have grown tremendously in variety. Therefor it is required that the educator in the early stages of the task assist the students with some initial guidance on how to discern relevant information from irrelevant information. This skill is part of the larger picture of creating an authentic learning environment.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 4: MULTIPLE VIEWS [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/qGmjv7yQSHQ

Expert performances - element 3 of authentic learning

Here we deal with the greatest advantage technology can afford students. This element refers to access to expert thinking and the modelling of processes. For authentic learning to take place students should be able to have access to experts in the field of the topic the are required to study. It is pointed out that this should not always primarily be the educator. The experts should also be at different levels for the students to be able to benefit from various perspectives. An issue at school level is that the students do not always realise that they can easily access knowledge from other students in higher grades. Students tend to rely heavily on the teacher as the only person with the experience and knowledge they are seeking (Herrington, 2011).

Further than this is the fact that students can with little effort communicate with experts in a relevant field with the aid of technological platforms such as skype, email and discussion forms. These platforms might have to be monitored and done with adult supervision, however they are resources the educator should think of making available to students (Herrington, 2011).

Students should also have opportunities to sharing their experiences. This could be with respect to various aspects. They might share what they have learnt from talking to experts or even share their personal challenges to access expert insight. It is very important than the students have opportunities to communicate and interact with various experts as this different insight for various fields might deliver different knowledge to the students (Herrington, 2011).

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 3: EXPERT PERFORMANCE [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/liPIpI8IGMs

Authentic tasks and activities - element 2 of authentic learning

Jan Herrington (2011) points to the fact that the task or activities are the most important parts of creating authentic learning.  As educators, we can tend to over instruct an activity. By providing step by step instructions on how to complete an activity the learning process is not modelling real world learning environments. School teaching environments can become isolated from the real world. Tasks and activities start to focus on the repetitive practices of skills instead of the learning that could take place during the completion of authentic tasks. Looking at these issues are why Jan Herrington (2011) outlined 4 main features an authentic task needs to produce authentic learning. These features are as follows:

• The task or activity must have real world relevance, it must speak to real world problems that need solving.
• Production of knowledge must be the focus of the task, not the regurgitation of knowledge through repetitive tasks.
• Do not simplify the task by giving too many instructions. The task needs to be ill-defined to present a level of complexity. The task should invoke the need to make choices and afford the opportunity to pose questions.
• An authentic task should be completed over a longer period. The complexity should require time for reflection and improvement.

An example of a task I could give in my context is related to one of the topic in mathematics namely Shapes and Measurements. Within the topic students need to learn about calculating perimeter, area and surface area of several basic 2d and 3d shapes as well as combined 2d and 3d shapes. The task scenario is based on a cultural food festival our school presents as multi subject project. This would introduce complexity and stretch the task over a longer period. I favour this approach due to the short time frame to complete topics and disconnectedness of topics at school level for juniors. The part of the project they need to cover for mathematics is to draw up a report for a manufacturer of food containers. That the students design and give the dimension requirements to the manufacturer. Technology can be introduced in areas such as the design with MS Paint 3d, researching container material on the internet as well as shape and dimension calculations can be done with the aid of computer and internet access. The learners will need to make choices with regards to many aspects of the container and they can collaborate within their project teams to make decisions to these issues. They will also likely have to reflect on designs they have looked at and adjust as needed.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 30). Authentic learning 2: AUTHENTIC TASKS [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/7euTz6iQ2Bc

Authentic context - element 1 of authentic learning

The context to which a task is set is important to preserve the authenticity of the learning process. An authentic context can be a physical or virtual environment that points to the usefulness of learning skills to solve real world problems (Herrington, 2011).

An authentic context should aim to preserve the complexity of the real-life setting or problems. The context must provide a purpose and even the motivation for why knowledge needs to be obtained to solve a posed problem. Notably, the context might not even point directly to the problems to be solved however only provide a scenario or environment for the students to identify issues to address (Herrington, 2011).

In the high school context finding an authentic context for all subjects or topics can be a challenge. I do however think that this is where collaboration between educators needs to be improved. The sharing of best practices and task ideas can aid educators in this task. The combination of subject areas can also help connect related topics to one scenario.

Another issue is that students that are not interested or very weak at a subject will not care how relevant the context is. I feel that the cross disciplinary creation of an authentic task will aid to the affordance for collaborating students to be able to work to their individual strengths within a given authentic context.

A cultural food festival can provide context for subjects like Economic Management Science with regards to sales and stock purchasing; Mathematics with regards to calculations of volume of food containers, mark-up and discounts; and Visual Arts can cover marketing with posters and stall designs.

Another Task that could be looked at is the combination of Natural Sciences and Technology. A task about electrical circuits would be ideal. The context could be to build an alarm system for a home or shop. This will require them to make observations of entry points, research components that can be used and how to connect them in circuits. The would need to draw electrical diagrams and then build the system.

Reference: Herrington, J. (2011, September 29). Authentic learning 1: AUTHENTIC CONTEXT [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/QB_EarRcoFU