The Law of Increasing Returns

When talking about the first term having an ‘authentic Classroom 2.0′ environment for our Project Based Learning initiative, there are 2 main areas that I focus upon.

The first, is the hardware/software environment - the physical facets that allow students interact with in order to ‘deliver’ their solutions and the second is the relationship that is re-engineered between teacher and learner that is emerging - a social obvservation and it’s impact.

To focus on the social, you have to consider the prior-relationships between teacher and student that have been forged out of the school ’system’, the explicit rules and implicit culture that has developed . For students this is a two year exposure but for teacher, it is often decades of applied practice and meta cognition. The teacher, being the authority, dominates the student to one degree or another. So while some teachers do form positive relationships with students, this may not be the case when considering the ‘whole school’ experience that the student has over time.

Schools are of course far more ‘liberal’ than a few decades ago, and most have abandoned a heavy handed authoritarian culture, but never the less, unlike a University student or kids and teachers have an uneasy tenure for at least 4 years. Some teachers have an almost un-shiftable method of delivery (which over the last decade has mandated that students use some ‘ICT’ in their learning) and some are more progressive and to some degree are open to the idea that Web2.0 does offer some great new avenues to explore. But the exploration of these requires some degree of professional development.

Historically, PD is delivered in school in a very formal manner. A pupil free day perhaps, or attending a course for a day. Always a short sharp exposure, at the end of which the teacher is left to their own devices. Teachers who are intrinsically motivated to learn about something new - be that tech or non tech - usually do so regardless of the school allocated opportunity.

So delivering change of methodology by the teacher is prone to ‘crookness’. Teachers often see PD as an ‘event in time’. If this ‘event’ requires them to find additional time during their day, then often they don’t take up the opportunity, as they are already busy with class preparation, delivery, 5 period days, extra-curricula activity etc.,

When do teachers make changes to their teaching? - when the syllabus changes and mandates it. If they don’t change, then they cannot do their job effectively. This requires updates to exisiting resources, changes to the documented program/unit of work. It is a formal and accountable process. There is no avoiding it, the syllabus changes, so the teacher needs to change their delivery.

In Australia, our syllabus’ seem to add more and more content. At a time when educators are advocating ‘just in time learning’, a key premise of Project Based Learning, our syllabus’ are still centered around ‘just in case’ learning.

For a school, or teacher to seriously consider developing a Classroom 2.0 teaching and learning strategy then they need to be aware of two major issues that cannot be ignored, nor underestimated.

1) The nature of the teacher and student working relationship completely new and extraordinary. Both are going to be uneasy about this and unsure of boundaries.

2) The law of increasing returns in terms of the growth of technology use has not been explained or discussed with teachers or students. The alarming reality of how often they will need to ‘update’ their thinking, skills and methods. The speed at which this happens now is alarming to say the least.

At the end of 2007 I gave a short PD lecture to staff about the idea of students being ‘participants’ in the read/write web, and that ICT is more than a powerpoint, publisher leaflet or word doco. Most of what I said then has underlying long term truth, but the examples I cited have by and large been superseded. Superseded either as a result of yet more Web2.0 ‘beta’ applications, or that the EduBogger faithful, have found even more ways and methods to deliver even more innovation. Case in point … I saw a Twitter post about Derek Robertson using Nintendo DS in primary school. Immediately I could think of ways we might use that as a vector for learning.

Kurzweil describes ‘This is the nature of exponential growth. Although technology grows in the exponential domain, we humans live in a linear world. So technological trends are not noticed as small levels of technological power are doubled. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a technology explodes into view. For example, when the Internet went from 20,000 to 80,000 nodes over a two year period during the 1980s, this progress remained hidden from the general public. A decade later, when it went from 20 million to 80 million nodes in the same amount of time, the impact was rather conspicuous. (the law of accelerated growth)

So while I am an advocate of Classroom 2.0 - and I can see the learning that is happening in our project - there have been some major social barriers to overcome. Students are more used to change on demand. Conditioning by the system often makes new demands, and they respond to them. Teachers are not used to this SHIFT, the environment has changed, but the syllabus hasn’t. They are not used to having thier ‘curriculum’, methods of delivery and skills challenged. PD is, as Kurzweil suggests, a linear growth, done at a speed and level that they measure by their previous exposure and experiences. This is a major challenge to the new Classroom 2.0 relationship.

The danger looming on my horizon is that the students, who are to one degree of another ‘digitally native’ number 160, the staff a mere 16. The collective ’skills’ that students aquire in learning how to use Web2.0 far outstrip the teacher’s ability to synthasise them.

Initially students expect to be spoon fed information and given explicit tasks. This comes from out embedded ‘just in case’ learning system. The teacher expects to hand out this knowledge at a measured pace, using tools and techniques they have practiced for years. In PBL neither of the expectations are going to be viable. The teacher has to step back and become a facilitator and ‘on demand’ resource … answering questions and giving direction from 160 points of view. The student needs to take more responsibility for their learning, something which they are ill prepared. Their time has always been managed for them, and the outcomes are explict and clear. They are not used to working with others - and often people they don’t have any empathy with. They have no idea how to read a rubric and then decide what approach is going to yield the best results and they certainly are not used to defending their ideas and research.

In simple terms, if a teacher has used ICT to pose a question, and the student answers it by looking up the ‘fact’ in Wikipedia, and now this is no longer viable, then Houston, we have a problem.

Whether attempting a PBL environment, or simply adopting more Web2.0 methods of learning and delivery, the social change is going to be massive in the early days.

What I am now seeing, is that the students have adapted better to the SHIFT than teachers in terms of hardware/software use. However they need the guidance of teachers to point them to use the right tools for the task at hand. This is problematic, as teachers have limited exposure or PD to draw upon to suggest how to do this. Blogs being used, when a Wiki would be better - but how to design an effective Wiki structure. Emailing documents in a group, when Zoho or Google Docs would do it better … and the major issue, how to give 1 to 1 feedback when students are rapidly using more and more Web2.0 tools. Observation is only one assessment strategy, students need far more personalised feedback - as we have a wider range of ‘delivery’ mechanisms being employed by students.

We are also having to consider how to evaluate new products - how good is a podcast? - how effective is the design being realised in Teen Second Life? - how do we measure who is doing the work in a group? - how can we encourage effort, what value is creativity etc.,

There are massive considerations for a school or teacher who wishes to engage in Classroom 2.0. To me the social SHIFT is far more problematic than the infrastructure needs. The challenge is how to give teachers effective, continuous support in order to allow them to add value to the student. We have to ask questions that they can’t Google, and move away from generalised, simplistic ICT use in schools.

As a school, we have delivered the environment, the PBL model and students are loving it … but as we look to 6 months time, the law of acceleration says that teachers need to have access to ‘on demand’ PD. This is the US, I believe is addressed by having an Educational Technologist on hand … but at our school, we have 3 ICT teachers, so need to mentor and develop the ‘on demand’ skills for a the rest of the staff. We need to empower them at a speed and level that has not been attempted. Giving up a habit of a lifetime is never easy, and not everyone is personally interested in IT, but when in a Classroom 2.0 environment, it comes with the territory - if you want to be seen by the students as someone who can add value at a 1 to 1 level.

This then I see as the second wave of challenge. How to add value to teachers to empower them to drive students further.