Week 4 Group Task --- Analyse The Role of Student in An Innovative Classroom Qi Yang (Carol)

Exploring roles of students in innovative classrooms. Each group analyses an innovative case and identifies roles adopted by students. Each group will then present their case highlighting the role of students and the perceived degree of innovativeness ness of the case.

I have chosen the following case for our group activity:

Website Link：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Fix3Veqww

This video shows a preview of ICT resources from LJ Create used along side hands-on experiments. This video features blended learning that includes eLearning, a mobile science solution called the science cart, virtual experiments including a virtual microscope and a virtual data logger. These resources were demonstrated at the BETT Show 2010 as part of the Building Schools for the Future zone.

1) Analysis on the six dimensions:

 Intended curriculum goals of the innovative practices

As my group member mentioned before, the purpose and objective of using technologies in classrooms should be pre-considered during the preparation part. If the traditional instructive teaching could reach the objective of acquiring knowledge, then the teaching with innovative practices should be conducted on a higher level. In the case, there are plenty ICT-based teaching resources in the online repository for students to access. Thus, it is convenient for students to acquiring the content advanced and prepare well before class.

Pedagogical roles of the teachers

Teachers in the case use ICT tools to conduct presentations, guide students through practical experiments, perform science simulations by automatic tools and upload pre-prepared lessons. They integrate teaching materials with technologies using.

 Nature and sophistication of the ICT used

Because ICT used in the case is quite simply, with no complex ones, they are used sophisticated by both teachers and students. The combination of cart with interactive classroom technologies is well linked.

 Connectedness of the classroom

I think this dimension is illustrated little in the case. However, a shared communication platform could be build to make online discussion more easily.

 Learning outcomes exhibited by learner during learning

With the well built student assessment system in the case, and real-time practical learning, the outcomes are showed directly. The case encourages universities and colleges worldwide must refine their strategies for the smart and sustainable development of their technology infrastructures, eLearning resources and digital content, leveraging the transformational power of ICT to improve learning outcomes and maximize operational efficiencies.

2) Hightlight the role of students:

Students, first of all, should be active participants in their education. By active, this means that students should contribute to self-learning and classroom discussions by not only answering direct questions posed by the teacher, but answers questions posed by their peers. This again, is not all that the student should do. Students should feel free to ask questions, or express their own ideas about a question, not only to their teacher, but also their peers. This allows students to construct their own knowledge about their learning, and apply if to their education. The school in the case provides better opportunity for students to access resources online which contributes their abilities of self-learning, transform learning style from “push” to “pull”.

A student’s role is also to be motivated about their practical learning. This role is also tied to a teacher’s role as well. However, if students are truly interested in learning, it is their job to think. When thinking, students should be able to find some prior experience or knowledge to apply this new learning to. When doing so, they should mentally prepare themselves to learn more about this new concept or idea. Now, this does not always happen, but a student who wants to be actively involved in their education, should think. Experimental practices through technologies provide the chance for students to gain think abilities. They improve their knowledge understanding by participate real activities with the help of device support.

The student must be a task monitor by checking himself/herself in terms of quality work. He or she should be responsible for gathering materials needed for an assignment, when given directions to where resources can be found. He or she should also put back materials when finished. While all students take on different main roles in collaborative learning, all students are still required to take part in the assignment and learning itself. New technologies offer convenient ways for group collaboration, discussion and team work. Students should take full advantages of them.

All in all, the following student learning activities are better showed in the case: Search for information, engage in collaborative tasks with other students, follow task instructions, design and create products, listen and understand presentations. Although it is a courses of science, it can be applied in many other subject courses.

3) Degree of innovativeness of the case:

The innovativeness degree for the case may be “foundational”. Because there are not so many advanced technologies used, all the supportive technologies are common in daily lives. They are easy for teachers and students to use. Innovation is not something new, but something different, using technologies in science courses can be considered as innovative classroom because it does change or improve students’ learning styles.