Learning in a Rural Classroom with Ict and 'Learning to Learn' Strategies

Promoting Thinking in a Rural Classroom with ICT and 'Learning to Learn' Strategies

Linley Cornish, Glen Kite and Paul Cecil

Linley Cornish teaches pre-service teachers in the School of Education, University of New England; Glen Kite was previously a primary school teacher in a Country Areas Program (CAP) school; and Paul Cecil is currently a third-year Bachelor of Education student at UNE. Promoting Thinking in a Rural Classroom with ICT and 'Learning to Learn' Strategies

ABSTRACT

A collaborative project was carried out to embed ICT and 'Learning to Learn' strategies in an integrated unit of work for a Year 1/2 class. The ICT component involved using iMovie. Student learning was scaffolded throughout by a variety of learning tools to develop higher-order and metacognitive thinking, including graphic organisers, various matrices, and a range of reflection tools. The embedding of ICT increased students' motivation and engagement, and the embedding of 'Learning to Learn' strategies increased their skills as independent learners. The combination of ICT and thinking tools was a powerful stimulus to learning.

ICT AND LEARNING

The promise of ICT as a powerful stimulus to learning has largely remained unfulfilled, at least in schools. This statement needs to be examined from two angles — that of provision or availability of ICT and that of its value to learning when it is available.

Technological infrastructure and support are not universally available, and issues of access are regularly cited as problematic by people wishing to increase their use of ICT. In many rural areas particularly, infrastructure is a very poor copy of that available in larger urban areas. The desire for ICT, however, is often more widespread in rural areas, and in rural schools the use of ICT is often more accepted as a normal part of schooling. Both the information and communication aspects of ICT can help those who live in rural areas compensate to some extent for the 'tyranny of distance' and lack of facilities they have to endure.

Leaving aside the question of availability, the more interesting educational question is what role ICT can play when it is available. Can claims that ICT 'adds value' to learning be substantiated? The answer depends in part on how 'value adding' is measured. Broadie (2003, p.3) claims that 'proving what learning gains come directly from ICT is actually impossible', where the important word is 'directly'. He goes on to say that 'it is not ICT which brings the learning benefits; but ICT is the catalyst and enabler that makes it possible to implement the changes which bring the major benefits'.

How ICT is used, then, is crucial. Just sitting a student in front of a computer might lead to changes in behaviour, motivation and even views about learning but to use ICT as a 'catalyst and enabler' requires careful planning and implementation, as with any other teaching and learning strategy. Predictions that computers would be used to encourage higher-order thinking and deepen student learning have not been realised (Burns, 2005/6). Burns reports that 'students generally use lower-order applications that offer few opportunities for problem solving, analysis, and evaluation' (p.50). The two most common classroom uses of computers are reported by Burns as electronic presentation (e.g. PowerPoint) and word processing, even with older students. While these two uses of technology are valid, valuable and important, they are not enough on their own to stimulate deep and critical thinking. They are valuable introductions to using technology and they can be combined with content in meaningful ways but there is no necessary link to analysis, evaluation, problem solving or other higher-order thinking.

Jonassen (1996) and Jonassen, Carr and Yueh (1998), on the other hand, describe the untapped power of computers to engage learners in these types of critical thinking. Careful choice of software, they argue, will of necessity lead to powerful thinking. They name such applications 'Mindtools' and describe them as 'computer applications that, when used by learners to represent what they know, necessarily engage them in critical thinking about the content they are studying. … Students cannot use Mindtools as learning strategies without thinking deeply about what they are studying' (p.24). One example of a Mindtool is a concept map, or semantic network. To construct a concept map as a summary of learning, a student must analyse the topic into constituent concepts (the parts), work out how the concepts relate to each other (the links), and map all the relationships into one summary diagram (the whole). Working out how to show the relationships among the concepts requires judgement as well as analysis ('is the link clearer when arranged this way, or that way?'; 'is the influence one-way or two-way?'), and the design of the final map requires creative synthesis into a readable and informative map. A concept map cannot be constructed without these higher-order thinking skills being practised, sometimes to a very great extent. A concept map can be constructed with pencil and paper, but software which allows concepts to be moved around easily, labels on linking arrows to be altered, page size to be expanded, and various other possibilities certainly makes the construction process less frustrating. The ICT does not encourage thinking which would not be possible without it but it does fulfil the need articulated by Burns (2005/6, p.52) as the need for students and teachers to 'become creators of information and ideas, not simply users of technology'.

The structure of a learning environment becomes even more important when ICT use is viewed as essential for such creation of information. Using a computer for word processing requires different classroom organisation from using a computer for creating information such as a concept map. The first activity can be solitary and carried out in short, interrupted bursts of time. The goal is simply one of translating material into electronic form, probably for the purpose of presentation. The second activity is more obviously focused on learning, and therefore what we know about what makes learning effective becomes relevant. Some relevant factors are that learning is a social process (Vygotsky 1962, 1978; Wood, 1998), that it requires active involvement in the process of understanding rather than just remembering, and that 'cognitive conflict' (Wood, 1998, p.59; McInerney & McInerney 2006, p.39) can be a stimulus to such learning. Many writers believe that contemporary students, especially 'Generation Y' students, have learning preferences that 'tend toward teamwork, experiential activities, structure and the use of technology', i.e. that they want 'experiential, interactive and authentic learning experiences' (Murray, 2005). All of these preferences and desires are entirely consistent with our current beliefs about what makes learning effective (Means, 1994; MCEETYA 2005).

Even when thinking only about simple issues such as classroom layout, consideration of these few factors shows that the learning environment must be arranged so that students can work collaboratively, which means that more than one student must be able to see each computer; that alternative ways of interpreting information must be accessed and debated; and that significant amounts of time must be allocated for the distillation process to lead to improved understanding. When moving beyond classroom layout to include overall planning — organisation of learning activities, teaching and assessing of appropriate skills (social as well as academic), and learning of required software programs — it can be seen that effective integration of technology into learning environments is 'a long and complex process demanding that we learn about affordances and limitations of the technologies and how to use them effectively' to support learning (Kirkley, 2005, p.2; Appelman, 2005).

Therefore two essential factors in any successful learning experience are the physical environment and the learner's experience in that environment. Appelman (2005, p.67) describes these factors as 'attributes of the environment, and the learner's perceptions while operating within that environment'. The challenge for teachers is twofold — to arrange the classroom physically in ways that facilitate learning, and to implement learning activities that lead to both cognitive and affective change. Technology is one tool to support this process (Means, 1994).

To summarise so far, then, integration of ICT into education has been somewhat disappointing. Much ICT use is still focused on lower-order skills such as finding and presenting information. For ICT to act as a catalyst for higher-order thinking and learning, computer applications which function as 'mind tools' must be taught and used. The focus needs to expand from 'learning technology' (such as word processing or PowerPoint) to 'using technology to learn', or from learning from and about computers to learning with computers (Jonassen, 1996). Many excellent computer applications to encourage higher-order thinking are easily and cheaply available. Applications must, however, be 'developmentally appropriate' for the particular learners. It would be unrealistic to teach Kindergarten students how to construct a database. It is perfectly realistic, however, to teach young students how to use PowerPoint, iMovie and other presentation tools. How can teachers of very young students combine the teaching of (low level) technology with the teaching of thinking skills to encourage development of independent learners?

Just as many educators are disappointed with the use of ICT in schools, many are disappointed with the teaching of thinking skills. Just as many educators are asking whether the promise of ICT has been realised, many are asking whether graduating students have developed a level of critical thinking necessary in today's information-explosion world. And just as with the teaching of ICT, arguments have focused on whether thinking skills can be taught in isolation or whether they should be taught in relation to specific subject matter, with the latter view being the one most supported (Kuhn 1999, p.24). Kuhn argues (p.17) that the cognitive competencies most relevant to development of critical thinking are metacognitive. If we want our students to develop into critical thinkers as adults, we need to provide opportunities for them to develop their meta-knowing skills.

Metacognition is defined as the ability to think about your thinking, to move beyond the actual process of thinking and be able to articulate that thinking. It is one type of meta-knowing — what do I know and how do I know it? Metastrategic thinking is thinking about and monitoring different possible strategies — which strategy could (did) I use here and will it be (was it) effective? In many classrooms, the two different types of meta-knowing are collectively referred to as metacognition.

Metacognitive ability follows a developmental path, beginning with pre-schoolers (Kuhn 1999). Young students are thus perfectly capable of some sorts of higher-order thinking but they need to be taught how to do it. Countless 'learning to learn' strategies provide teachers with scaffolds for learners to develop skills of metacognition, analysis, evaluation and reflection. The combination of such strategies with 'lower-order' experiences of using technology is one way that ICT can be used as a catalyst for higher-order thinking, even with very young students. In this paper, we describe how we planned and implemented an integrated unit of work embedding ICT and 'learning to learn' strategies as learning tools.

CONTEXT OF PROJECT

The rural Central School with 225 students K–10 is located in a town of 1300 people in the Western Slopes of New South Wales. Most of the people in the area have farms or work in the town. A river and a creek are part of the town and are widely used for recreation. There is a State Forest in the area and abandoned gold-mining landscapes. The project involved making a movie (using iMovie) within the HSIE (Human Society and its Environment) unit 'Wet and Dry Environments'. Both environments exist locally, giving the opportunity for authentic field excursions.

The class consisted of 27 students (13 male and 14 female), of whom 19 were in Year 1 and 8 were in Year 2. The class was diverse in terms of the range of behaviour and learning abilities and problems, with two students medicated for ADHD, one student identified as Oppositional Defiant, one student identified as 'intellectually mild' and others with various degrees of learning difficulty. There were no indigenous students in the class.

THE PROJECT

The unit ran over ten weeks in Term 3 and was carefully planned to embed both ICT and 'Learning to Learn' (L2L) strategies in the students' learning. Outcomes from English, SAT (Science and Technology), PDHPE (Personal Development, Health and Physical Education) and CAPA (Creative and Practical Arts) were integrated into the HSIE unit, e.g. an Information Report was written on either a wet or a dry environment and a collage was created to represent either a wet or a dry environment. Students worked in collaborative groups of three throughout the unit, though some individual work was also produced. The technology product was a short 2-minute movie incorporating both still and video images, narration, titles and music.

The project satisfied the criteria identified above (Murray 2005) as necessary for learning — teamwork, interaction, experiential activities, structure, the use of technology, and authentic learning experiences. Structure was provided by the constraints of making a movie (learning to take photos, learning to download images and so on) but also by the incorporation throughout of various scaffolds and L2L strategies. For example, a summary matrix was provided to help students sort their information-gathering efforts into categories (type of environment, climate, description, animals, plants, natural and built features, what we get from it, who looks after it?). This matrix was completed by the students in their collaborative groups prior to their individual construction of an information report. A further scaffold (5 Senses) was provided to help them think about suitable words to use for the 'description' category of their report.

Incorporating L2L strategies for higher-order thinking and metacognition

The description so far of the project indicates that the students were learning about technology (how to take photos, how to make a movie) and that they were involved primarily in activities requiring lower- order thinking (information gathering, comprehension). Some sorting of information into categories was required (e.g. a Venn diagram was used to compare and contrast wet and dry environments) and some discussion and debate certainly occurred but on the whole the technology and the structure did not stimulate higher-order thinking. This aspect of their learning was provided by the incorporation of various L2L strategies. Some of these scaffolds and strategies will be described briefly for a better understanding of their role in helping the students to develop their metacognitive abilities and higher- order thinking skills.

Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats (de Bono 1987) is a strategy for developing particular types of thinking, with each type represented by a different coloured 'hat'. When a thinker metaphorically wears the yellow hat, for example, s/he engages in positive thinking — what is good about this idea? what is an advantage of this strategy? what is something I did well in that activity? Other coloured 'hats' are linked to types of thinking in the following ways:  the black hat is for negative or cautious thinking — what is wrong with this idea? what are the disadvantages of using this strategy? what didn't I do well today?  the red hat is for emotional thinking — what are my feelings about this idea?  the white hat is for objective thinking — what are the facts? what information do I need?  the green hat is for creative thinking — what could I do differently to improve this idea or strategy? how could I overcome the problems identified with the black hat?  the blue hat is for planning and metacognitive thinking — has what I have done so far been productive and where has it got me? what do I need to do next?

In this project the students used three of the 'hats' (yellow, black, green) to analyse their completed movie. A further scaffold to guide their analysis was provided in the form of a table, constructed as a class, describing various criteria of a movie. For example, students identified 'filming', 'photos', 'titles' and 'music' as four aspects of a movie which could be analysed. Under these headings they identified characteristics of bad filming, OK filming, and good filming; bad music, OK music and good music; and so on. These characteristics gave the students criteria against which to assess their own movies. Some 'yellow hat' assessments (with original spelling) were: 'We had correct spelling in our titles', 'the subject was in the midl', 'our movie makes ssense', 'our pictures are in focus'. Some 'black hat' assessments were: 'the pan was too fast', 'the pictures was a litller bit fuzee', 'mist a bit of talking', 'to mane umbs [too many ums] in the talking'. Finally, some 'green hat' comments were: 'we cood make a clash [collage] moovi', 'next time we can go to the zoo', 'we cood film awe bfthbay', 'next time we make a more fune [funny] movie'. Instead of just talking about their thoughts, the children individually wrote them on strips of paper and each group then assembled all the comments into a three- dimensional graphic summary, with relevant points sorted and arranged under different coloured hats which they constructed themselves. This activity includes the three most complex thinking skills according to Bloom's Taxonomy (a well- known framework for classifying thinking), i.e. analysis and evaluation (the assessment comments) and synthesis ('green hat' assessments plus creation of the graphic product). As well as higher-order thinking in general, some of the comments indicated metacognitive thinking in particular: 'we had a good plan', 'we toc tonus [took turns]', 'we cooperate'. These comments indicate an analysis not just of the product — the movie — but of their involvement in the project, their behaviour and their thinking. The students were engaged in ‘detection, interpretation and remediation’ of their learning, activities which Wood (1998, p.294) identifies as ‘an important part of acquiring and making intelligent use of knowledge’.

Other strategies used to develop the students' metacognitive thinking included reflection stems and capacity matrices. Reflection stems, as their name implies, provide the 'stem' to which a student must add 'foliage'. Typical examples are: 'One thing I did well was …', 'I was disappointed that …', 'One thing I could change next time is …'. The stems provide a structure or scaffold for students to engage in reflective analysis, thus developing their metacognitive skills. Capacity matrices involve self- assessment against pre-determined criteria. The criteria form the rows of the matrix, the self- assessment categories form the columns. For example, a capacity matrix for digital imagery has four categories: digital cameras, iPhoto, video camera, and iMovie. Criteria in the iMovie category (down the page) include the skills of: importing movie from camera, saving movie, opening movie, editing clips, adding music, adding sound effects, adding transitions, adding titles, adding photos, exporting to QuickTime. Students assess their abilities (across the page) against each criterion as 'I need to learn more about this', 'I can do this with some help', 'I can do this with a friend', 'I can do this on my own', 'I can teach someone else'. A final column for 'evidence' gives a teacher further information to use when making judgements about the student's metacognitive self-assessment.

Are very young students able to reflect productively, to be genuinely metacognitive? In our own use of the Thinking Hats to evaluate the project, we identified this ability. A Yellow Hat point from one of the university-based participants was expressed as 'seeing that even very young children can reflect productively and use the language of reflection'. Other questionnaire responses included: 'I really cannot speak enough of these strategies and their effectiveness … this should be an experience for every preservice teacher to see' and 'there are people at uni who cannot use these cooperation and communication techniques … these skills take the emphasis off the teacher and allow the students to become independent learners who have strategies to help them learn … is this not the purpose of education?? Once again, WOW'.

MEASURING THE 'VALUE ADDED' IN STUDENTS' LEARNING

Broadie (2003) identifies eleven characteristics of added value which are possible from ICT. In this particular project, not all these characteristics are relevant but we have identified five which are: increasing motivation (which Broadie believes is the area of prime importance), re-balancing teacher- mediation and autonomous learning, more information channels, publishing and audience, and management and recording. With integration of a range of learning experiences and teaching strategies, including teamwork and interactive learning, experiential and authentic activities, and structure (as described above and identified by Murray 2005, Means 1994), the characteristics were able to be achieved in a way that would not have been possible with ICT alone.

The learning experiences and teaching strategies employed to maximise student enthusiasm and motivation included visits to local sites; regular student decision-making; maximising students’ technology use; increased responsibility for control of technology including use of digital cameras; cooperative learning; and a concluding presentation of student work to the wider school community. Visits to local sites were day trips often involving bus trips which gave students not only quality hands-on interaction with the environment but also the thrill of increased responsibility and freedom. Students’ decision-making involved choosing a local environment to study; choosing appropriate music, titles, photos, transitions and video clips to include in their movies; and freedom with their use of digital cameras. A ratio of one computer to each group throughout the unit ensured students regularly had full control over the computer. Students also had available five digital cameras and one video camera. When using the various technologies students were required to use the equipment within a mutually agreed set of standards. However within these standards students could work as they chose, i.e. take pictures and film any content they deemed suitable. Cooperative learning was an added motivator as students worked with their close peers. At the conclusion of the unit students’ movies were presented to the wider school community. This gave students’ work a real purpose and the students themselves kudos among the school community.

Throughout the unit student enthusiasm was at its peak when students were using technology for authentic purposes, engaged in the use of new technologies, on excursion and being celebrated by the school community for their work. Generally student enthusiasm was at its lowest when students encountered difficulties in using technology. Overall student enthusiasm was consistently high throughout the duration of the unit, demonstrated by students’ willingness to participate in classroom activities and lack of behavioural problems.

Students achieved the vast majority of indicators, as assessed by work samples and teacher observations. Roughly 90% of students achieved all desired learning indicators except for two writing outcomes. Prior to the project criteria were established to measure the value added to learning from embedding ICT and L2L strategies. Against the value-added criteria students performed equally as well. Most students (all but two) came to the unit with little or no experience of video cameras, still cameras, video software or photo software. On completion of the unit all groups were successful in completing their movies and their capacity matrices and thus achieved the outcomes. However the majority of students performed poorly against several of the criteria: rotating images using iPhoto, connecting cameras (both video and still) to the computer, adding sound effects, and exporting movies to QuickTime. Only the former two criteria, however, should be viewed as indicators of student achievement as the latter two were only taught to a select group of students who were successful at other tasks.

Students were, of course, successful at varying levels of competency. As students were required to complete the various tasks as a group, more able students naturally led the less able. This was an intended and desirable outcome, but it blurs individual achievement. To track individual achievement, students kept a record of their learning through a capacity matrix. These matrices showed that all students had mastery of most of the skills except for: importing images from both still and video cameras, rotating images, connecting cameras to the computer, adding sound effects, and exporting movies to QuickTime.

CONCLUSION

Even with very young students it is possible to embed ICT successfully in learning. Because of their stage of cognitive maturity it is not possible to use ICT in a way that allows them to learn with technology in the way that Jonassen (1996) describes. However the higher-order thinking and metacognition which Kuhn (1999) believes are essential for the later development of critical thinking can be embedded in the learning through various L2L strategies. When these strategies are practised, the value added to learning which Broadie (2003) claims results from embedding ICT can successfully be achieved. The integration of ICT and L2L and their joint embedding in curriculum, as learning tools, leads to powerful learning.

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