Educational Digital Technologies and Learning

Passey (2014) Educational Digital Technologies and Learning.

Begins by explaining that many studies have failed to show that technology specifically enhances learning due to the many variable. But observes that 'inclusive technology enhanced learning' is possible if each person's difference is taken into account.

Learning can be:

• Neurobiological (the way that biological structure enables learning)
• Cognitive (processes that occur internally that constitute ways of learning)
• Emotional (approaches we individually take in understanding and being involved in our own learning, and short- and long-term interests we take in that learning)
• Social (ways that learning occurs in different social settings and circumstances)
• Societal (long-term interests and opportunities that drive our commitment to learning)

p.14: Learning is concerned with choice on the part of the learner; imposing learning through a singular approach or concept or theory may not do this choice justice. When educational digital technologies are involved, choice of learning adopted by the learner becomes not only more important, but provides for more potential - so long as those supporting learning can recognise the potential range of alternatives and options, and these are also made available to the learner.

p.20: Words used to describe learning can be groups into two taxonomies

• higher-level category termes 'aspects' of learning (referring to perspectives, aspects or domains, and
• lower-level category caned 'elements' of learning *referring to much more specific processes of learning within each aspect.

 

Aspects of learning

 

p.21 Megacognitive Concerns - leading to deeper and wider learning

This aspect of learning consists of elements becoming recognised as fundamental to developing 'expert learners', deeper and wider learning, concerned with learning that goes beyond the ability to just memorise facts or understand a topic range. These elements encompass abilities that enable learners to transfer their learning both within and across subject or interest domains, with applications of involvement in real and authentic learning situations.

Three key elements fundamental to effective learning (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000):

1. Knowing about the 'big picture' - having a sufficient overview of a field to understand how additional details fit within a wider canvas, being able to reposition understanding or ideas on the basis of comparison, contrast, match and integration with that wider picture and building it further.
2. Transfer of learning - recognising that learning in one setting can have potential value in other settings, being able to draw on previous knowledge through a 'past' transfer, or thinking about how to use learning in possible 'future' transfer situations/
3. Reflecting on previous learning - on knowledge and ideas, selecting and accessing appropriate mechanisms to do this, and considering the way new knowledge and ideas fit within an existing canvas, perhaps challenging, adding to or reinforcing previous details.

 p.22 Engaging learners in meaningful and authentic learning is also important (1997).

 p.23 Cognitive Concerns - Content and Process

This aspect concerns elements affecting impact of information or external stimuli on the internal mind, forms of sensory stimuli engaging learners, ways in which information is handled within an existing internal information context, and ways a learner can demonstrate or use acquired learning.

Three distinct areas in cognitive aspect (Childs, 1973):

1. Internalisation - how knowledge and ideas are engaged, and how they are brought into mind
2. Internal cognitive processes - active processes in mind, manipulating knowledge and ideas, allowing them to be considered in the context of existing knowledge and ideas already held in mind, and integrating into a wider learning canvas
3. Externalisation - ways the learner makes their learning known to others.

Internalisation: three fundamental elements:

• Attention - the focus on the activity, willingness to give attention to task, and level of focus on accessible knowledge or ideas.

• Sensory stimulus - the form of accessible knowledge or ideas, and how the learner engages through one or more senses, in turn stimulating interest and interaction. Gardner (1991) identified nine distinctive forms of sensory stimuli:
• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinaesthetic
• Emotional
• Social
• Textual
• Musical
• Interpersonal - interaction between the learner and one or more others
• Intrapersonal - interaction within the mind of the learner, where discussion is internal

• Acquisition or reception - the learner recognises knowledge or ideas have impinged upon the consciousness, are accepted into the mind, in a form that can be taken further and handled through a range of internal cognitive processes.

p.24 Internal cognitive processes: can be defined through:

• Subject knowledge. The educational curriculum requirements across a range of different subject areas in primary and secondary education in England refers to:
• Searching
• Summarising
• Generating or developing ideas
• Hypothesising
• Imagining
• Gaining skills
• Gaining understanding

• Ways knowledge can be handled or manipulated. Using Bloom (1956), knowledge might be handled in six different ways:
• Acquisition
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation 

• Approaches to thinking and thinking skills.
• Creativity
• Enquiring
• Questioning
• Conceptualising - allowing ideas or knowledge to be shaped within a set of dimensions or criteria
• Comparing
• Reasoning
• Interpreting - allowing understandings to emerge not necessarily stated within originating material

• Elements concerned with memorisation.
• Rehearsal - abilities to consider existing knowledge and ideas, to recognise differences or additions that might be of interest or value, then access these from long or short-term memory.
• Retention - retaining knowledge in memory in appropriate forms, e.g. visual auditory, textual, emotional or social.
• Recall - abilities to recall knowledge and ideas from memory, through associations or hooks from mental schemas.

p.26 Externalisation: forms learners use to externalise their understandings include:

• Writing
• Reporting
• Speaking
• Presenting
• Drawing
• Completing
• Moving - using motor and manipulative skills to move items into order, or to move them into patterns of sequences that show knowledge and understanding

Metacognitive Concerns - Recognising How We Can Learn

This aspect includes elements concerned with ways learners learn to learn and know how to learn. It covers elements describing how learning strategies can be identified, adopted or chosen, or ways information or knowledge are transferred from one scenario or situation to another. Two broad areas and six specific elements (Presseisen, 2001)

• Monitoring task performance - recognising how a task is proceeding:

• Keeping place and sequence - identifying different stages, milestones reached
• Detecting and correcting errors - reflecting on work as it proceeds, reviewing what has been done, identifying errors and correcting them as far as possible
• Pacing of work - using concepts of time and scope, recognising an end point, and at any one time the effort that might be needed to accomplish the task and levels of detail relating to possible scope and quantity of feasible output.

• Selecting and understanding appropriate strategy - having a range of strategies to be drawn on, selected and tried out in the context of any learning task:

• Focusing attention on what is needed - selecting appropriately from a range of strategies, and matching needs of the task with strategies that might be used.
• Relating what is known to material to be learned - using previous experience, drawing on techniques used and applied in those previous situations.
• Testing the correctness of a strategy - recognising if a strategy selected is appropriate, whether a result appears to be feasible, reasonable or correct, and perhaps selecting alternatives allowing feasibility of outcome to be checked. 

Social Concerns - the Roles of Others

This aspect includes elements concerned with ways learners interact with others. Different forms of interaction allow different forms of engagement and output, allowing learners to access or use information, as well as share it, or work co-operatively with others. 

• Pask (1975) identified key roles of social interactions in developing understanding through discussion (where, in a series of interactions, the focus shifts as understanding builds)
• Vygotsky (1978) highlighted the importance of social integration for ideas and knowledge to become learned
• Lave & Wenger (1991) developed the idea of 'communities of practice', and the role that engagement with specific communities have, as well as the roles of discussions and interactions that take textual forms as well as those happening through spoken forms.
• Twining and McCormick (1999) identified 12 different forms of social interaction in which learners might be involved:

• Instruction: a teacher indicates what learners should do, how they should o it, and what is expected as outcomes

• Explanation and illustration: a teacher explains ideas or concepts, verbally, and may illustrate these with gesture, images or other resources

• Direction - a teacher offers overall ideas of what needs to be done, and what is expected, without giving precise detail

• Demonstration: a teacher provides a demonstration as an example of what happens, or what learners should do

• Discussion: a teacher elicits ideas from learners, picks up on specific points, and encourages other learners to contribute ideas or comments

• Scaffolding: a teacher provides a series of steps, or a number of interim stages or frameworks, to help learners approach an activity in a structured way

• Questioning: a teacher asks questions, and elicits responses from learners, either to closed or open questions

• Speculation: a teacher offers a scenario, together with different ideas about outcomes or implications

• Consolidation: a teacher reviews a previous topic or activity, exploring the extent to which learners appear to have remembered details or grasped concepts

• Summarising: a teacher pulls out key points, messages, or ideas, providing an overview as a summary of a topic or activity

• Initiating and guiding exploration: a teacher introduces a topic or activity, and indicates possible ways to explore, with ideas of how to begin or approaches that might be taken

• Evaluating learners' responses: a teacher provides feedback to learner responses, and indicated features concerned with quality of those responses and how improvements might be brought about

Societal Concerns - Long-term Drivers and Purpose

This aspect includes elements concerned with reasons why certain information is selected or recognised as being more fundamentally interesting or useful than other information; reasons concerning how information is perceived in terms of its longer-term interests and potential usefulness within particular societal, cultural or wider environmental contexts. McFarlane (1997) highlights the importance of meaningful and authentic learning, and the need for learners to consider how their learning relates to situations they regard as real, not only in the immediate but also in the longer term.

• Lipman (1995) describes ways learning might relate to learners' concerns abaout caring, defined through five distinctive elements:

• Appreciative - of caring or being cared for
• Active - involving positive action concerned with caring
• Normative - caring thinking considered as a norm or standard
• Effective - feelings or emotions aroused in relation to caring
• Empathetic - empathy (such as agreement, belief, or understanding) associated with caring

• Moseley et al (2005) described four overarching long-term concerns which thinking might be contextualised by learners:

• Education - relevance to other aspects of or longer-term concerns for further involvement in education, or concerned with education in the wider sense
• Citizenship - implications for ways in which people live, relate, or behave within a wider society
• Work - concerned with the realm of work, either in the present, or potentially for the future
• Recreation - related to outside interests, hobbies, or games, concerned more with recreation than with work

 

p.31 Using a Learning Framework to identify where specific elements of learning are located

By detailing the range of elements of learning within each of the broad aspects, and bringing these together into a single framework, the taxonomic representation produced can be used as a way to record elements of learning where evidence indicates uses, outcomes or impacts when certain digital technologies or resources are used, or when a learning activity takes place.

Learning framework showing hotspots reported by teachers when online resources supporting curriculum-wide needs are used to support learning and teaching (Passey, 2011)