Digital Perspectives

Transcription

1 Developmentally Informing Curricula and Teaching: Digital Perspectives PENNY A. BISHOP TARRANT INSTITUTE FOR INNOVATIVE EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT 2 ND ANNUAL YOUTH NEX CONFERENCE: IN BETWEEN: MIDDLE SCHOOLS AS CENTERS FOR POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA OCTOBER 18, 2012

2 The Question: How can we incorporate the developmental transitions of early adolescence into curricula and teaching to best suit student needs?

3 Developmental Transitions Traditional Stage Theorists e.g. Erikson Kohlberg Holistic Perspectives e.g. James Stevenson Recursive and Contingent e.g. Lesko Vagle

4 Eccles on the Importance of Fit some of the motivational problems seen at early adolescence may be a consequence of the negative changes in the school environment rather than characteristics of the developmental period per se. (Eccles, 2012, p.13)

5 What Constitutes Fit for Young Adolescents in the 21 st Century? The growing gap between students in-school and out-of-school lives (Buckingham, 2007) Digital Natives (Prensky, 2001, 2010) Net Generation (Oblinger, 2008)

6 Middle Schoolers and Technology 11- to 14-year-olds: 230% more time on non-school computer use than 8 to 10-year-olds (Largest share of this time = social networking sites) 80% of middle schoolers - ipod or MP3 player 69% of middle schoolers - cell phones 69% of middle schoolers - handheld video game players 27% of middle schoolers - personal laptops (Rideout et al., 2010)

7 The Net Generation and Learning Connect with graphics before text Use constant trial and error Rise to challenging quests Process information quickly Expect relevance in their learning (Deubel, 2006; Prensky, 2010)

8 Early Adolescence and Contemporary Technologies Young Adolescent Needs Belonging/Affiliation Competence/Mastery Autonomy/Responsibility Technology Context Social networking Online collaboration tools Immediate and autonomous access to information Interaction with worldwide audience Oversight of expensive hardware

9 Belonging and Online Collaboration Young Adolescent Needs Belonging/ Affiliation Technology Tools and Context Online collaboration Social networking Student Perspective Yesterday our language arts teacher we were doing something with the books that we re reading right now. And he shares this document with everyone and it s also up on the projector and we can see what he s typing and it s also on our screens so we can also share our ideas with that same document at the same time. The same document is shared to everyone so everything that someone is typing is also showing up on your document.

10 Competence and Autonomous Access Young Adolescent Needs Technology Tools and Context Student Perspective Competence /Mastery Immediate and autonomous access to information (LMS) has been helpful because if I m sick and miss a day, I can just go on there and the assignment will be right there with all the directions. So I m completely caught up even if I do miss a day.

11 Autonomy and Authentic Audience Young Adolescent Needs Autonomy/ Responsibility Technology Tools and Context Interaction with authentic, worldwide audience Oversight of expensive hardware Student Perspective The teachers trust us to do the right thing and trust us to be responsible with the laptops but, like, also with the fact that thousands of people might listen to what we say or write. And we can choose the best way for us to learn and how we show them we ve learned, like through Glogster or, um, imovie or a podcast

12 Students as Partners Autonomy/ Responsibility Belonging/ Affiliation Competence/ Mastery

13 What s Next? Time to Adoption: 2 to 3 Years Digital Identity Game-Based Learning Learning Analytics Personal Learning Environments Time to Adoption: 1 Year or Less Cloud Computing Collaborative Environments Mobiles and Apps Tablet Computing Time to Adoption: 4 to 5 Years Augmented Reality Natural User Interfaces Semantic Applications Tools for Assessing 21st Century Skills

14 Developmentally Informing Curriculum and Teaching... should extend the extraordinary expansion of technological power available to students in the rest of their lives. is less about designing engaging activities for students and more about unleashing the learning potential of students and their technologies.

15 References Buckingham, D. (2007). Beyond technology: Children s learning in the age of digital culture. Malden, MA: Polity. Deubel, P. (2006). Game on! T.H.E. Journal. Retrieved on 01 October, 2011 from Eccles, J.S. (2012). Supporting America s children and adolescents. Macalester International, (29), 1-23 Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2011 K-12 edition. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium. Oblinger, D., & Oblinger, J. (2008). Educating the net generation. NY: Educause. Prensky (2001, 2010). Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants: Part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6. Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds. Menlo Park: CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Schlechty, P. C. (2001). Shaking up the schoolhouse: How to support and sustain educational innovation. New York, NY: Jossey-Bass.