Good Teaching AND Technology

My colleagues know that I like to run a paperless classroom.  From time to time they like to have a little fun with me by asking how I will manage if some sort of paper is required for use in my class.  Comments like, “What will your students do if they have to write something on paper?” or “I didn’t know your kids knew how to use paper!” can often be heard during PLC’s or when chatting in the hall.  While I take this in the funny way it is intended, I want to use this as a springboard for a larger discussion.  My big question for this blog post is this. What is good teaching and where does technology fit into this equation?


Let’s be clear from the outset, there have been great teachers and not so great teachers from the beginning of time.  It doesn’t matter what tools are being used to teach and learn (chalkboards, overhead projectors, Chromebooks, or Prometheans).  Good teachers know what is important.  They plan their work using best practices and strategies for engaging students, and then they build relationships with those students offering feedback and support while fostering safe but rigorous classrooms. Let that sink in--especially if you have taught with or next to me before.  I know that great teaching happens even when technology is not present.
Now let’s flip that coin.  A classroom dependent solely on technology with a teacher in charge who does not understand how students learn and does not engage students is a terrible classroom. It does not matter if you can build a website, create a hyperdoc, or shoot awesome screencasts if you do not know how to engage students in learning, manage your classroom, and offer meaningful feedback. Technology cannot do what a good teacher knows how to do.  Technology is a tool in the teacher’s arsenal of tools. For the new teachers, you need to learn from the best of what your fellow teachers have to offer--yes, even the ones who seem to shy away from technology in their classroom.  You don’t teach for 10, 15, or 20+ years without learning a thing or two along the way.  Sit at the feet of these teachers.  Visit their classrooms.  Pick their brains. It has been my experience that they are more than willing to share their experience with you.
Now for you veteran teachers, stop being afraid of technology.  There is a great reason to learn to incorporate technology into your classroom.  The bottom line for great teachers has always been student success.  Our students live in a world of technology.  When they go home, they use a smartphone, computer, tablet, or something that allows them to communicate, collaborate, and create. They see their parents, family, and friends all using technology as well.  When they leave our classrooms, they will head off into a workforce that assumes and expects them to know technology and how to use it effectively.  There is no class for teaching 21st century skills with technology.  This must be incorporated into the fabric of every classroom so that students learn how technology can assist them in learning and creating.  This will be part of that life-long learner stuff we preach! Knock on the door of one of your tech savvy teachers and ask them to show you the ropes. I assure you that they love to share what they know with you as well.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about some best practices for teaching and how technology can and should integrate into teaching and learning.  The basis for these next few paragraphs can be attributed to some discussion and training from the Louisiana Computer Using Educators (LACUE) Leadership Summit in Baton Rouge, La in June of 2018. The keynote speaker for the summit was Weston Kieschnick, author of Bold School.  Kieschnick’s book is based on the idea that old school best practices should be married with technology (blended learning) to create Bold School. According to Kieschnick at the summit, teachers follow these steps to effectively create a lesson or unit for student learning: Outcomes, Strategies, Tools, Planning, Relevance and Rigor. 


OUTCOMES
Steven Covey, in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, labeled habit #2 “Begin with the End in Mind”.  This is the essence of our discussion on outcomes.  Teachers must know what the big takeaway is for students before they ever start thinking about teaching or planning.  Start by choosing which content standard or skill is to be learned by students during your unit or lesson.  If you cannot answer this question first, you will never effectively create a plan and will never be able to assess whether or not students achieved the outcome.  Dr. Tammy Seneca, Technology Coordinator from West Baton Rouge Parish Schools, mentioned this in her breakout session at the same summit.  She referred to the idea of backwards design in creating effective lessons.  Backwards Design is a practice that says start with the outcomes (even making the assessment first) so that you can be sure everything you plan and do in class is designed to meet those outcomes. 

**Technology Note**
You will notice that I have yet to mention technology here.  That is because this stage can be done without any technology at all. The most effective teachers have always started with this step. Now, this does not mean there aren’t tools that can be utilized at this stage by teachers--especially if this is a collaborative PLC process.  Here are some suggestions for technology tools for teacher collaboration at this stage:
Google Drive (Team Drive) to store and share all documents for planning
Google Docs - allows you to work collaboratively so that all eyes are on the plan and contributing.
Google Hangouts - Allows you to meet even when you aren’t in the same room to share ideas.

STRATEGIES
It is easier here to talk about what strategies are than what they are not.  According to Kieschnick, most teachers cannot name more than 3 or 4 actual teaching strategies--along with how hey are used and why they should be used.  Let that sink in.  Most educators cannot name, much less effectively use, the strategies proven to work in the learning process. Once the outcome has been decided, teachers should discuss and choose the strategies that will be utilized to teach the information and that are best suited for students to acquire and utilize that lesson or unit. Here is a link to a list of strategies I found online.

**Technology Note**
Once again, there is now technology required at this stage of the process.  This does not mean technology cannot enhance this stage of the process however. I would recommend utilizing a shared Google Sheet with a list of strategies and their descriptions to help you decide which strategies would work best for the outcome chosen.  I might also have a column in my spreadsheet here that allows my team or a teacher to leave feedback on the times this strategy was utilized detailing its effectiveness and any changes that need to be made.

TOOLS
It is here that your discussion may turn to technology--but maybe not.  As teachers, we have many tools at our disposal (notebooks, labs, textbooks, worksheets, etc.).  At this stage, the teacher(s) should decide which of these tools would be useful in achieving the desired outcomes.  It is here that you may decide that Nearpod or PowerPoint or Blogger is the tool you need to accomplish your task.  Notice, tools is not at the top of the list.  No teacher should ever start their instructional process by choosing a tool and then figuring out how they can design all of their teaching and learning around the tool.  That is just bad teaching.

**Technology Note**
Once again, the tools you choose may not be technology related, but let me interject here that I believe they should be.  I have found that just about anything that can be done on paper can be done with a Chromebook or laptop--and for those of you who are now throwing things at the screen, I realize that some learn best by taking notes on paper with handwriting.  I am in no way saying here that students should not have a choice when it comes to how they write down notes.  These are tools you will use for delivering and assessing the lessons.  Some of these tools will be for student creation of projects to show their learning.  Anytime a student wants to have a notebook out taking notes during these processes is perfectly fine.  Here is where you, the teacher, must become familiar with the tools that are available, what they are best suited for, and how to incorporate them into your lessons. 

Some examples:
Nearpod - allows for teacher controle of slideshows (PowerPoint/Google Slides) on student screens and for embedded questions for quick assessment of learning.
EdPuzzle - allows for delivering video content with embedded teacher questioning and audio notes.
Google Forms - collect feedback and assessment data on student learning.

For a more comprehensive list, visit our resources at www.walledtech.com

PLANNING
It is a this point in the process that you should turn your attention to exactly what will happen in your class each day during the unit.  These would be your lesson plans.  One point that Kieschnick made about planning that I thought was very important is that if you do not put it in the plan, you will not use it.  It is here that you must be deliberate in adding the technology tools into your lesson plan so that you are sure to use that tool in an appropriate way and for the chosen activity. I would also like to add that there must be some time added into the planning process to assess student learning and make the necessary adjustments to the plan.  Far to often we get caught up in turning in the next lesson plan and then getting ready for the next week without going back and assessing how the plan is working so far and adjusting it to meet our students’ needs.

**Technology Note**
The same tools used in the early stages are great here as well.  Google Docs for collaboration on the plan can allow teachers to easily update the plan while communicating these changes with all involved.  Google Hangouts can allow for meetings about the planning when teachers are not able to meet face to face.

RELEVANCE & RIGOR
In this final step, teachers must ensure that the lessons they are providing are both relevant (meaningful to students with some real world application) and rigorous (difficult enough to challenge students to grow). It is here that frameworks like Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge will be referred to. I have heard it said and agree that it is the student who should be leaving work out at the end of the school day, not the teacher.  If we are planning and putting in the work on relevant and rigorous activities designed to achieve predetermined outcomes before we see our students, then we should become facilitators in our class to guide them through the difficulty of their learning task.

**Technology Note**
Technology can be used to elevate the relevance and rigor of most learning.  Imagine a student having to take what was learned about the Roman Empire to create a Google Site that has multiple pages in which students display what they have learned about Rome’s geography, culture, government, etc.  This site can have embedded videos created by the student, blog posts on related topics, images or posters, maps, and links to scholarly work with student annotations.  The possibilities with technology are limitless.