Innovative Pedagogical Practices Using Technology

Chapter 2.4

Innovative Pedagogical Practices Using Technology:

The Curriculum Perspective

Rafi Nachmias

University of Tel-Aviv

Tel-Aviv, Israël

David Mioduser

University of Tel-Aviv

Tel-Aviv, Israël

Alona Forkosh-Baruch

University of Tel-Aviv

Tel-Aviv, Israël

Abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICT) have affected our lives for over half a century. Yet, the school’s curriculum is still perceived as traditional in its structure and implementation. Attempts to assimilate ICT into schools’ curricula are frequently supported by policymakers. However, significant change in content, teaching and learning processes and assessment methods can actually be detected mainly in focal innovative initiatives within schools. This chapter analyzes case studies of innovative IT-supported pedagogical practices from 28 countries. The analysis refers to conditions required for fostering ICT implementation in the curriculum, with regards to new demands for teaching and learning. This suggests analysis of ICT-related curricular issues in separate subject areas, as well as in integrated subject domains. Further, we discuss desired changes in existing curricula, which may lead to innovative ICT implementation within schools.

Keywords: ICT-supported pedagogical practices; curriculum; Second International Technology in Education Study; Innovation; Diffusion

Introduction

Curriculum Rationales

The publication of Tyler's seminal book on "Basic principles of Curriculum and Instruction" (1949) was contemporaneous with the birth of the first electronic digital computers (e.g., ENIAC, in 1946). About six decades later, the context (at all its possible levels - social, cultural, economical, educational, political, technological, etc.) in which we situate our current elaboration on curriculum related issues has changed drastically. Yet, the basic questions raised by Tyler still offer a solid framework for our discussion: What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? What knowledge about the learners' needs, society's needs and subject-areas-based needs helps in defining these educational purposes and how should it do so? What curricular and pedagogical solutions, and learning experiences, should be devised to attain these educational purposes? How can the extent of attainment of the defined educational purposes be evaluated?

Undoubtedly, the rapid and multifaceted development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has played a crucial role in changing the way we learn, work, communicate, create, spend leisure time – inshort: the way we live. Within this new context, the attempt to answer the above questions represents a complex endeavour leading to the design of novel and unique models of curricular solutions (Watson, 2001), based on an updated elaboration on social needs, learner needs, the integration of ICT in all subjects and disciplines, and new pedagogical perspectives.

The definition of educational purposes based on a socialneeds point of view should take into account, among other things, issues such as: the drastic transformations in work and workplaces; the rise of new occupational areas and decay of others; economical weight of ICT-based endeavours; perception of the rising status of ICT-based professions; philosophical, moral and ethical issues arising from ICT’s wide-ranging entry into all venues of life and society and inter-societal processes such as the tension between globalization and local-contextualization.

Educational purposes focusing on the learners' needs should obviously build on the demands – in terms of knowledge and skills- derived from the ICT-saturated environments within which these learners act and live. But less obviously, the definition of learners’ needs requires special attention to the fact that increasingly, learning is no longer confined to the traditional school setting, but takes place in several kinds of settings and from several kinds of resources. In 1949, Tyler claimed that “It is unnecessary for the school to duplicate educational experiences already adequately provided outside school. The school's efforts should be focused particularly upon serious gaps in the present development of students” (p. 8). These words, written at times when the school still enjoyed the status of main educational agency and information provider present a strong challenge to today's school, whose potential contribution to the learners' preparation to function in the knowledge society is perceived as minimal. Learners appear to acquire the knowledge and skills they perceive as essential by informal means, a mode of learning characterized by high personal motivation and non-instructional interaction with ICT tools and knowledge systems. The question is: Will the school be able to identify the current serious gaps in the present development and offer the learners appropriate bridging between their inside and outside school knowledge worlds?

New Curricular Needs

Integration of emerging ICT content,subjects and disciplines into the school curricula leads to new curricular needs. Research supplies comprehensive mapping of the knowledge and skills comprising new disciplines and inter-disciplines, requiring the resolution of specific curricular issues, e.g., definition of multi-layer content, from the conceptual to the practical; thematic re-organization; or novel ways to integrate between ICT content and other disciplines. In addition, new epistemological and knowledge-organizational perspectives that form the basis of hypertext and hypermedia systems (and ultimately the Web) challenge traditional representational templates of the school curricula (e.g., books) and open the scene to new solutions.

Concerning pedagogy and learning experiences, integration of the results of decades of research on learning and on the development of ICT-based instructional environments, allows the formulation of a novel repertoire of pedagogical solutions. Learners have stepped into the centre of the scene (as individuals or groups), and have been supplied with powerful learning tools (e.g., tools for information searching, retrieval or processing; for modelling and exploring natural, social and artificial phenomena; for digital-products creation). The fusion between ICT and learning modalities deriving from current theoretical frameworks (e.g., constructivism, collaborative learning, learning by design, learning by modelling) has already resulted in innovative pedagogical and curricular solutions.

Second International Technology in Education Study – Module 2

Overall, looking for original and appropriate answers to current essential questions is a necessary stage in the process aiming to devise new ICT-based curricular models for the knowledge society. This chapter's main goal is to present these answers which are embedded in a large set of examples of successful ICT implementation across curricular areas and instructional models, from 28 countries. This database of cases of successful implementation of ICT-rich pedagogical practices resulted from an international study conducted by the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) as the Second Information Technology in Education Study, Module 2 (acronym: SITESm2) (for a full report see Kozma, 2003). See also Voogt (2008).

The chapter comprises four main sections: (1) the background, which includes theoretical issues concerning ICT, innovations and the curriculum, (2) a general description of the SITESm2 analysis framework; (3) SITESm2 specific curriculum-related questions and findings from secondary analysis of the data; (d) discussion, conclusions and implications, shedding light on how ICT may facilitate or even encourage different ways for organizing curriculum content, goals, pedagogical solutions and assessment methods.

ICT, Curriculum and Innovation

ICT and educational innovation

In the digital era (i.e. information or knowledge era), in which endless information is available at the push of a button, and learning is ubiquitous, theoretical and empirical aspects have been examined regarding the impact of ICT on educational processes (Becker, 1994; Mioduser & Nachmias, 2002; Pelgrum & Anderson, 1999).

ICT integration in education might affect schools irreversibly, contributing to transformation of teaching and learning processes and outcomes at different levels, e.g., meeting students’ individual needs; providing rich instructional environments; affording the delivery of educational materials in ways that stimulate meaningful learning and motivates students (Abbot, 2001; Norton & Wilburg, 2002). The extent to which this potential is actually being realized needs to be explored, since evidence collected so far is still controversial (Becker, 1998; Marsh, 2004). Several frameworks have been developed and offered, aiming to characterize the ways ICT might promote and support educational change.

According to Means, et al. (1993) technology may support transition from conventional to reform approaches to instruction in several dimensions, e.g., the curriculum, time configuration, teacher and student practices and roles, grouping and collaboration. Kozma (2000) characterizes ICT-based innovations in four main dimensions: curriculum content and goals, student practices, teacher practices, and the ways of ICT use in schools.

At the most general level, an innovation can be regarded as a shift in educational paradigm, which in this case would move to viewing school as a fundamental agent for the preparation of students to function in an information society (Pelgrum, ten Brummelhuis, Collis, Plomp & Janssen Reinen, 1997). This paradigm change does not have to be comprehensive; rather, it can be a first-order innovation, one that involves changing one or more aspects of the school milieu, e.g. a curriculum change in one or more disciplines, change in time or space definitions (i.e., lesson units or location of the teaching-learning process), or novel pedagogic solutions. To conclude, innovation is change that conveys new ideas and an aspiration for improvement of an existing situation or resolution of a problem (Chen, 2006).

The school’s main goal is to supply the skills required to live and work in a world in continuous change (Fisher, 2000). Therefore, ICT, as a driving force behind the creation and evolvement of the information society, plays a vital role in this change, affecting both content (new technology-related concepts and skills included in the curriculum, re-arranging the curriculum) and general skills (e.g., learning how to learn, acquiring generic knowledge-manipulation skills, teamwork skills). At this level, innovations can be defined in operational terms as the wide range of activities and means (e.g., curricular decisions, learning materials, learning configurations, lesson plans, tools and resources) that reflect the school’s educational and philosophical orientation towards lifelong learning.

ICT and Curricular Innovation

The concept of curriculum is as old as education itself, however, the way we theorize and define it has changed over the years, raising considerable controversy as to its meaning and implications. The core definition of curriculum, derived from the Latin term racehorse, refers to an anthology of disciplines or subject matters to be taught and passed on. However, the scope of the term is extremely wide nowadays, ranging from well-defined disciplines with clear taxonomies and methodology, to all planned instruction that the school is responsible for and the whole set of learning experiences supplied to the students (Marsh, 2004).

This breadth of scope is mainly due to the fact that curriculum is one of the pillars of the entire education system. It ranges from objective disciplinary definitions to meanings that entail subjective aspects such as whole learning experiences; from narrow definitions that include analysis by subject matters to complex ones that deal with multidisciplinary projects (Goodson & Marsh, 1996; Marsh, 2004; Marsh & Willis, 2003).

Some definitions refer to phases in the curriculum development and implementation process, leading to different perspectives regarding its nature: planned curriculum, enacted curriculum and experienced curriculum (Marsh & Willis, 2003). Other definitions refer to scope and span, i.e. single-subject curricular focus, thematic focus and school-wide focus (Voogt & Pelgrum, 2003).

In this chapter we will adopt the following premises when we address the concept of curriculum: (a) the notion of curriculum includes theory as well as practice; (b) it refers to both the academic disciplines and their pedagogy; (c) our referential context is that of formal schooling, i.e. education within the school milieu; (d) school learning processes are assumed to be planned and guided, in terms of goals, means and processes, and assessment. From this perspective we approach our discussion of ICT-based innovations at the curricular level.

ICT, when implemented in a school, is perceived as innovative by itself, regardless of the content addressed in its use (e.g., a skill or a concept), its function (e.g., part of a learning task or a communication tool), or its application scope (e.g., school-wide or limited to a discipline within a class). In the SITESm2 study, the following definition was adopted: ICT-supported pedagogical innovations are pedagogical solutions and means supporting a shift from traditional educational paradigms towards emerging pedagogical approaches based on our current understanding of learning, such as fostering learner-centred and constructivist processes, and the acquisition of lifelong learning skills (Pelgrum et al. 1997; Mioduser, Nachmias, Tubin & Forkosh Baruch, 2002). These skills may include the planning of one’s own learning, self-assessment of learning processes and outcomes, making decisions as to whether and when to act as an active or passive learner, adapting to changes in learning settings, applying collaborative skills, or integrating knowledge from different disciplines using different learning strategies for different situations (Knapper & Cropley, 2000).

The new curriculum, reflecting changes in education as a mirror to changes in society at large, includes characteristics such as new goals, restructuring of information resources, infringement of boundaries between traditional disciplines, and gradual closure of the gap between school and its environment, and as a consequence, between the curriculum and real-life situations (Voogt & Pelgrum, 2003).

To conclude, an innovative curriculum is much more than a technical development: it is a qualitative educational shift towards a new paradigm as a result of an ongoing process (Dede, 2000; Mioduser, 2005). Consequently, the innovative curriculum is a never-completed product, including new content, and novel and creative didactic processes and assessment solutions.

As to the character of the process by which innovations are generated and implemented, Rogers (2003) refers to three main types of innovations: continuous innovation reflects a gradual and continuing change or improvement of an existing product, in spite of its usage in the same manner as before; dynamically continuous innovation involves creation of a new product or alternatively a radical change to an existing one, which in turn modifies its diffusion patterns; and discontinuous innovation features a novel and innovative product which brings change to consumers’ acquisition and usage practices. This typology is compatible with the framework we have developed for studying innovative ICT-based pedagogies in Israeli schools participating in SITESm2 (Mioduser, Nachmias, Tubin & Forkosh-Baruch, 2003; Tubin, Mioduser, Nachmias & Forkosh-Baruch, 2003).

Curricular Issues in ICT-Based Innovations: Secondary analysis of SITESm2 cases

Introduction

Educational innovation is usually not a one-shot episode, but rather a complex, multifaceted and evolving process. Therefore, the three-level scale of innovation we defined, in correspondence with Rogers’ classification, for studying innovative ICT-based pedagogies, included assimilation, transition and transformation (Rogers, 2003).At the assimilation level, specific pedagogical conditions go through qualitative change, but the school curriculum as a whole (e.g., content and goals), the instructional means (e.g., textbooks), the learning environment (e.g., classrooms, labs), and the learning organization (e.g., timetable) remain unchanged. At the transition level, ICT supports the incorporation, within the school’s everyday functioning, of new content, didactic solutions, and organizational solutions alongside the traditional ones. At the transformation level, substantive and fundamental changes take place in the school system as a whole. Traditional processes still exist, but the school identity is mainly defined by the rationale and goals of new approaches and lines of operation; student and teacher roles are enriched with new dimensions; new contents are introduced into the curriculum; new teaching methods are developed and implemented; and, for particular activities, the traditional time and space configurations are transformed (Mioduser et al., 2003).

Method of Analysis

The need for further systematic analysis of ICT-based pedagogical innovations led us to develop the following analysis schema (for a detailed description see Mioduser et al., 2003). The schema’s dimensions are located within a grid defined by two axes. The horizontal axis represents the levels of innovation, from minor modification of the school’s schedule as a result of ICT assimilation, to comprehensive transformations of pedagogical practices and learning processes. The vertical axis details domains of innovation, focusing on four main components of the school’s milieu: time/space configurations, students, teachers, and the curriculum. Three of the four components were divided into sub-components, constituting altogether nine sub-components. Table 1 illustrates these domains and sub-domains and describes the indicators for each level within each domain.

Table 1

Levels and domains of pedagogical innovation using ICT

Domains

Physical space

Digital space

Main roles

With students

With teachers

(Table 1 is a modification of an earlier schema published in Mioduser et al., 2003)