Today in EDCI 336, we had a great presentation from two members of our cohort about their inquiry project on using podcasts in the classroom. This is something I myself have thought about a little bit when I’ve been thinking of my future classroom. It might initially seem like a bit of a stretch to incorporate podcasts into the science classroom, but I can easily see the benefits. As the wonderful women who presented their ideas today mentioned, students can, as an assignment or project, both listen to and create their own podcasts. There are some excellent podcasts that explore science topics, most notably for me: Radiolab. Radiolab is a podcast from WNYC studios that has been “investigating a strange world” since 2002. I’ve listened to all the episodes I can get my hands on, through Spotify. Their podcasts can be listened to for free through their website, making it easy to use in the classroom or assign to students as required listening for an assignment or project. Their episodes feature elements of storytelling, interviews with experts, music, and explorations of social issues. Often, their podcasts have themes of science, philosophy, and social justice, making them easy to incorporate into a science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) lesson.

Besides completing an assignment or a short paragraph response from listening to a podcast, students could also engage with podcasts by creating one of their own. Students could, in groups or on their own, choose a science topic to research for their podcast. Their chosen topic could be a scientist’s life and discoveries (e.g. Marie Curie’s discovery of radon and polonium), a scientific concept (e.g. radioactive elements), a science topic with related social issues (e.g. nuclear waste disposal), or any science-related topic of their choosing. Podcasts can easily be recorded on student’s phones using an app like Audacity.

I think podcasts can be an excellent educational tool to foster interest in science among students. I hope to use them myself in my own classroom!

An article with some great suggestions for science podcasts can be found here.

In EDCI 336 as well as EDCI 352, we have learned about the SAMR framework for integrating technology in the classroom. We also looked at the TPACK model in EDCI 352.

These videos below summarize the models pretty well!

I especially see the value in the TPACK model because of its emphasis on the pedagogical reasons for adapting certain activities in class. I think I often get caught by the “technology for technology’s sake” because of the heavy emphasis in this program that is placed on incorporating technology in the classroom. Many of my classes, this one included, preach multimodality and technology integration to enhance student learning. While I definitely se the use in certain situations to incorporate technology, I appreciated the technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) aspect because it requires the technology to serve a purpose when it is used alongside pedagogy in a way that is appropriate to the activity and the discipline. I also like the technological knowledge portion to be a useful aspect to this model. Some technologies will require a decent amount of both student learning and teacher learning, as was the case with using Comic Life in a previous class where one whole lecture period had to be dedicated to learning how to use the app and becoming comfortable with it. I found the TPACK model to be quite useful for making technology integration work successfully in a classroom setting.

The SAMR method seems less useful to me just because of the scaffolding of each step. I was unsure whether the goal to using this framework to integrate technology into the classroom was to go through each step of the model and redesign an activity so that it is “redefined” or whether it is also ok to simply stop at the “substitution” or “augmentation” stage. I do feel that this model also addresses the “why” when it comes to technology integration. At each step of the model, you redesign the activity and are forced to ask yourself the reasons for which you are doing so. We discovered this when we worked as a group in the workshop on the activity. Replacing a pen and paper essay assignment with writing the essay on a computer could not provide any augmentation for a particular student while also providing many extra enhancements to another student. Different students will invariably have different needs in the classroom, and using a particular technology may enhance student learning for some while providing no benefit or even a detriment to others.

A few weeks ago, our EDCI 336 class had the opportunity to visit the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII). PSII is a very small inquiry-based independent school that is located on Douglas street in downtown Victoria. It was explained to us that the students have a lot of autonomy when it comes to their own learning. They choose topics that they are interested in to explore through inquiry projects, and their teachers help them by gently guiding the direction of their inquiry. Technology is integrated in every inquiry project and in many aspects of the school. Students create blogs, use computers instead of textbooks, use tech during their inquiry process, and can present their inquiry projects using any sort of technology.

One obvious question that comes up with this model of learning is a question I struggle with every time student-directed, inquiry-based learning is mentioned: are students able to cover all the required content for their academic courses through these inquiry projects? Teachers at PSII guide the students towards certain paths through which they can explore their topic, allowing, supposedly, for all the content to be covered over the course of the year. Coming from a science discipline, this seems hard to believe. Even if a student attempting to cover chemistry 12 content (for example) though inquiry projects is able to touch on each of the five “big ideas” of the chemistry 12 curriculum, it seems unlikely to me that the student would come away with a thorough enough understanding of all the content needed to succeed in a chemistry course at a post-secondary institution. As a teacher, I would hope to completely prepare my students with all of the knowledge they will need to succeed in post-secondary courses. The transition from high school to university can be very difficult, and it can be compounded if you don’t have a firm grasp on the base knowledge upon which post-secondary science courses build. Of course, my concern about this idea wouldn’t matter as much if the student did not intend to pursue chemistry (or whichever science) at post-secondary, or even intend to go on to post-secondary education at all.

Another interesting thought is that a student at PSII pays $7,200 in tuition fees per year. If indeed attending this school advantages their students as much as PSII educators say it does, these advantages are therefore limited to those students of a certain socioeconomic status whose families can afford to send them there. This potential lack of student diversity could potentially lead to a less enriching learning environment and experience for PSII students who may not be as diverse a population as in a public school. These concern about student diversity and opportunity that I have would apply to any private school, not just PSII.

Overall, though I am doubtful and have a few reservations, I think that the folks over at PSII are trying an interesting experiment. I would be interested in knowing how PSII graduates fare academically in introductory level science courses at post-secondary institutions.

An interesting article in The Tyee about how British Columbians feel about private/independent schools can be found here.

As homework for EDCI 336, we watched a film called “Most Likely to Succeed”. The film was a documentary about a high school in the U.S. where conventional teaching methods are flipped upside down and students have much more autonomy in their own learning. Rather than the usual format of students learning course material and their learning being assessed through an exam, the students at this high school work for the semester on large, sometimes cross-curricular, projects. These large works are then presented at the end of the semester at a school-wide gallery for the community to see.

While the arguments presented in the film about student learning are very persuasive, I am not fully behind the idea of this revolutionary approach to secondary education. The teachers in the film argue that the more self-directed learning style, where students follow their own passions through these projects, better prepares young adults for the workforce they will one day enter. I agree with the idea of preparing students for life outside of high school by teaching fundamental skills like problem solving, collaboration, leadership, as well as creative and critical thinking. I do not, however, agree that learning all of the key concepts in a particular high school course should be compromised in order for students to gain these skills. In my particular area, chemistry, students would absolutely not be well-served to only learn a portion of the Chemistry 11 or 12 material. These two courses provide a very basic level of knowledge needed to succeed and even survive further any post-secondary Chemistry course. Without knowing all of the key concepts and lab skills that they will need in university or college, I would be very surprised if students did not experience tremendous difficulty in their first year of post-secondary.

The makers of the film did provide information showing that students who graduated from this high school did not have academic difficulties in getting accepted to their post-secondary institutions of choice. While this is good to hear, I find this very difficult to wrap my head around. Perhaps there is something that I am missing? Maybe educators at the high school were actually able to teach a sufficient amount of course material within the self-directed projects, or maybe I am overestimating the amount of content knowledge you need to have to succeed in post-secondary? Either way, I am a little bit confused.

The film certainly is inspirational to me and to many of my classmates that I have talked to, although I’m not sure I embrace the pedagogy of the high school in the film. In my future career, I will try to educate students about the core concepts of chemistry as well as foster the necessary foundational skills that students will need in their lives after secondary school.