If educators are to design more appropirate learning opportunities for students, they must look beyond the voices of current practice, curriculum guides, and educational fads. They must seek deeper answers to the question: What are the emerging principles and guidelines for the design of learning opportunities? -Priscilla Norton In developing a whole new mind, Pink (2005) includes design as an fundamental aptitude for successful existence in the Conceptual Age. The implications for education are that teachers need to be designers. They need to learn the principles of design and they also need to incorporate means to develop design aptitudes in their own students. Teachers as designers is possible and essential because technology affords a variety of ways to become our own designers. By creating our own learning opportunities, we can meet the needs of our classroom, build in connections to the real world while attending to standards, and help our students to develop the critical thinking skills needed to be competitive in the Conceptual Age. Design can help teachers change their practice. Teachers as designers has been particularly influential in my thinking. Everything I encounter in my work and in my studies leads back to design. Everything works out much better when there is a well-planned design (or at least it is easier to find the weak link when things go bad). From activities and lesson plans that we create for our students to graduate courses and programs, design ensures that we have thought about all the pieces. I was introduced to these pieces in my Master's program: The FACTS model (Norton & Wiburg, 2003). A well-designed k-12 unit, staff development program, graduate course, graduate program is created when incorporating the principles of the FACTS model. FACTS principles include consideration of the foundations that students need to learn in the discipline, the activities that promote active learning, the content and standards that need to be addressed, the use of available tools which enhance student learning, and the system of assessments that will be used. In addition, the learning needs to be taken place in a learning environment, where intellectual, physical, and emotional needs are considered within the design. I have come across other design models in my studies and experiences but none compare to the utility and significance that the FACTS model affords to educators working in today's school environment. A design model must have both functionality in its ability to work within the 'system', to use the language and ideas that are part of the teaching culture in describing the design process, and to elicit meaningful outcomes to educators, i.e. students learn. For example, the activities that are designed in the FACTS model include authentic activities, building knowledge activity, constructing activities, and sharing activities. Creating activities that are situated in the culture of use "provides the bridge from 'inert' knowledge to the entrance into a culture of practice" (Norton & Wiburg, 2003). Background knowledge is not ignored in the FACTS design model. Nor is background knowledge simply the facts in an content area. It is knowledge built through activities that connect facts with meaning within the discipline. This design inclusion is extremely important not only for student learning but in that this feature makes the model useable in today's school environment. Content standards are a part of the school landscape. I have seen teachers discount instructional strategies that do not address the standards, mainly because of external pressures interpreted as 'teaching to the standards'. Standards give teachers a framework in which to design and constructing activities offer students the opportunity to do something with the knowledge they have learned. These performances of understanding allow students to take that inert knowledge and make it active. Constructing activities show students the relevance of the knowledge they learned to activities that are authentic in life. Well- designed sharing activities give students a voice in sharing what they have learned. We all know the importance of talking the talk in our disciplines. Teachers need to give students this practice in authentic sharing activities to prepare them for life. The FACTS design model supports an underlying mission of teaching: to teach literacy. Eisner (1994) defines literacy as "the ability to encode or decode meaning in any of the forms of representation used in the culture to convey or express meaning." Forms of representation are any symbol system that our culture has created: language, print, math, American Sign Language, dance, music to name just a few. Therefore in order to teach literacy as defined by Eisner, teachers need to expose students to multiple forms of representation as well as offer ways in which students can express their meanings in multiple forms of representation. Technology tools integrated into curriculum are one example of tools that can be used to accomplish this objective. Each technology tool has its own affordances and when used appropriately, technology tools enhance critical thinking skills. Understanding the affordances of technologies prevents teachers from using technology as a gimmick, which so often happens when technology education is not available or poorly designed. Choosing the best tool for the job takes experience in using the tools in situations which model appropriate use. The FACTS
model is not an easy model for practicing teachers jump into. It
really should not be difficult. It just takes thinking and thinking
and thinking about one's own practice. But teachers have not been
taught to think in this way. All evidence presented in the works
of Toffler (2006), Friedman (2005), Pink (2005), Prensky (2005), Levy & Murnane
(2004) point to the fact that teachers need to understand the
world around them in order to know what students need to learn. These
things that students need to know can be summed up by PICKL- Problem
solving, Information using, Community practice, Knowledge, and Liteacy.
There are strategies to scaffold teacher thinking in the FACTS design
model as well as ensuring the students get the PICKL.
Learning about the affordances of technology tools by learning with the
tools is combined with a set of design strategies:
These strategies not only give teachers a way to structure their design process but also gives them words to describe and justify what they are doing. Just as it is important for K-12 students to communicate their learning, it is important for educators to communicate the learning associated through application of the strategies (i.e. DROET supports visual language, one of the forms of representation). I see the importance of offering learners opportunities to talk the talk and share how they are changing their practice to promote learning. It is a pathway towards leadership and being a change agent Placing the teacher in the role of a student learner, modeling instructional strategies and lessons that exemplify best practices, coaching teacher learners through authentic activities in which they use the tools and design strategies to solve authentic problems, and offering ways for them to test their knowledge in their own practice, situates learning in the culture of teaching. I have learned the value of apprenticeship as an instructional model as I see my students transform just as I did in the program. This is a testament to how important it is for teachers to try out their lessons, to participate in the kinds of learning that they will be asking of their students. It is a way for teachers to empathize with their students. My reflection on the concepts that have influenced my thinking about teaching and learning been directed towards what I have learned in face to face instructional environments. These same concepts translate to online learning environments as well. Afterall, online learning is education just the same. Online learning offers an alternative to learners while developing self-regulation and efficacy, skills generally not promoted in face to face instruction. There are concepts that I have learned specifically in the context of online learning. These concepts help promote the skills required in good online learning environments, such as self-regulation and socialibility. The Community of Practice Learning System (COPLS) developed by Priscilla Norton is the interaction among an expert mentor, a learner, a challenge, and performances of understanding. Support resources are available to the expert mentor and instructional resources are given to the learner. The representative problem/challenge and the performances of understanding are used to promote dialogue between the expert mentor and learner, to help the learner build bridges to practice. Like all the concepts that have influenced my thinking, I have used the COPLS model in my teaching. The Integration of Technology in Schools Online Certificate program is a COPLS designed course. Until The Online Academy for Teachers, I had very little formal instruction on being an expert mentor. Through this program, I was introduced to the ART of Mentoring- assessing, responding, and targeting and learned the importance of providing education about online learning to expert mentors. I discovered that the ART of mentoring gave me the language to voice the strategies I had been using as a mentor. My experience in applying these concepts in my own practice with K-6 learners and with practicing teachers have allowed me to internalize them and define me as an educator. I am better able to walk in the shoes of my students because I have learned the concepts just as they are. Does this make me more narrow in my thinking? I don't think so. I am working in an environment in which new ideas are continually fostered and the emergence of new technologies motivates change. I believe these concepts have provided me a good foundation in learning theory and instructional practices. These experiences and ideas have fueled my interest in designing quality coursework in higher education for both face to face and online environments. Online learning now plays a role in the landscape of higher education. We have lots of information on how to create an online course and the features that support learning. I believe it is time to look at how online learning is used in higher education, the quality of these courses and the impact on student learning.
Conceptual Framework Narrative
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