Field trips and changing pedagogy

The field trip with the history students took place at the end of February and the use of the devices has developed since the trip last year in two key ways using a model developed as part of the changing pedagogy practice.

This model works on a temporal iterative framework using three elements:

A) Resources that are CURATED before an activity
B) Data COLLECTED as part of an activity
C) Learning artefacts CREATED after an activity

(Hopkins, Burden and Bennett, 2015)

This is both the über-model of the use of the devices across the whole of the field-trip but also the micro-model used as the field trip takes place.

1. The use of the device by the tutor

An eBook has been created by the history tutor for the students to use on the field trip - this is beginning to re-imaging the pedagogy and the practice of the field trip and is producing a model for both the university teacher education sector and also the pre-service teachers who are able to take (and adapt) this model into their practice schools.

This eBook is used by those on the field trip as a narrative and activity guide and has been developed partly from artefacts gathered on the previous year's field trip (this showing the interactive development nature of eBooks).

2. The development of this by the students

The students on the field trip reflected on the nature of the book and a number of improvements have been suggested in they ways that they would use the eBook including:

• the wider use of video for explanation of both personal and wider narrative
• the use of short quizzes / tests for the reinforcement of knowledge
• the opportunity for data input directly into the eBook for data collection
• the inclusion of key activities to be completed immediately after each activity

Things we have been doing ...

It has been too long since I last posted and we have been doing a wide range of things with the devices in the first term of the second year of the project.

Undergraduate

The UGs have had 60 devices for the first year of the B.Ed course and these have impacted significantly in the ways that teaching has been talking place in the programme. There has been a strong growth in the use of video and audio artefacts and a development in the flipped learning approach to the classroom. The course has also been experimenting with the use of Nearpod as a collaborative learning activity and in the ways that data can be collected as part of the learning experience.

Post-graduate

The new Doctorate in Education programme is using a private iTunesU course as the main vehicle for materials and resource diseemination and students are being encouraged to use this to share their own reflections and thoughts on the course. Students are also using Apps like GoodReader to annotate and develop reflective feedback on their articles and a blog and Twitter feed as part of developing a community of practice.

Teacher Education Secondary

The second year of the programme has led to three of the courses within the secondary teacher education suite (History, Science and English) becoming more involved in the development of eBooks and in the use of the devices to create e-Books. Students in these courses have been involved in the development of eBooks on coastal environmental biology and on poetry - as well as working within the programmes there has also been links with colleagues from Germany and Norway as part of the wider Erasmus+ project. Students have also been using the devices for the curation of resources as part of their teacher education portfolios.

Teacher Education Primary

The first year of the programme has seen wide spread use of the devices in the university teaching sessions with tutors and students using a range of apps (e.g. Nearpod, Socrative, Plickers) to change the ways in which teaching and learning is taking place in the classrooms and also using a range of apps (esp. in the science sessions) to re-imagine the ways that teaching and learning can take place in primary classrooms. Students have also been using the devices for the curation of resources as part of their science teacher education portfolios.

The changing nature of books

One major development is the growing thoughts on the development of eBooks as part of the course structure with the hope that we will get all courses to develop eBooks for the beginning of the course in September 2015 and that these will be used substantially as parts of the course from that time.

Affordances of the eBook.

We have been thinking in the linked Erasmus project (www.mttep.eu) of the affordance of eBooks and have now developed a model which places these into four key groups.

A. The artefacts that can be included

Alongside print and image the eBook can include video, audio, moving graphic, slideshows, animations etc… this gives the creator of the book much more scope for transmitting information, exploring ideas, demonstrating and offering learning in a variety of ways. 

Once simple example might be in Maths where an animation can show the deconstruction method of subtraction as a small animated movie so the words of the teacher alongside the actions that would be demonstrated can be included into the book. This can then be replayed as often as needed by the learner.

B Way in which the artefacts can be organised

The layout of pBooks is determined by a number of factors including print layout, text option, cost, colour, size - none of these apply to the eBook and so text can be enlarged, changed, designed and moved in a complex manner.

And all of these can be updated and corrected very quickly and simply. Alongside side this is the interactivity of user feedback and co-development for improvement.

C Interactivity

A number of companies are developing interactive widgets for eBooks (Bookry, Bookwidgits and Learningapp are three that we are working with) this include timelines, quizzes, overlays, drag and drop, annotate, feedback, maps, reveal etc…

D Capturing Data

The eBook can capture data and then send this to the teacher - this has potential benefits around marking, assessment and feedback and as books develop the use of data analytics could be used to direct learning - in the way that the Khan Academy has been using and the work of Eric Mazur and others.

We are developing eBooks at this time for the teaching of the primary science course (see above) and the Secondary History course.