Reflections on TPACK in Distance Learning How do you make sense now of your perception of the delicate balance between technology, pedagogy, and content as you try to practice TPACK?
I think it's very fitting to address the complex interplay of Content, Pedagogy, and Technology within the sudden, radically different distance learning context. My perception of this interplay has certainly been enhanced due to the current Covid-19 crisis. Knowing the TPACK model has helped me to navigate the sudden changes with a bit more success than I would have otherwise had. It's difficult to know which area to start discussing, since they are so interdependent. Let's just start with Pedagogy. Knowing best practices in this new context is difficult. What I am using is my knowledge of my third grade students' abilities and interests, as well as their parents' abilities and interests. I know my students struggle to maintain concentration for extended periods on tasks that are not motivating, or too difficult to understand and complete independently. The recommendation for third grade is that children should not be doing lessons for more that 2-3 hours a day. My weekly plan consists of tasks that I hope the students will find interesting, that don't take too long, and that they can perform without much adult support, if any. This is a hard time for parents. Many are still working and do not have the regular school day to help them do it. There are parents who can help more than others. I provide all my plans in Spanish and English in case they are able to support their children at home. Much about what is good pedagogy in distance learning is still be figured out by all of us. Luckily, as far as Content goes, there are a wide variety of resources that support our core content standards and yet fit the bill for distance learning. I have been able to link our core reading curriculum and its digital resources into my lesson plans. Students can access the stories and either read them or have them be read to them. I'm avoiding the more difficult and some might say boring grammar lessons. They seem impractical to try to teach in this context. I'm focusing on the core themes and asking students to respond the readings with what I hope are engaging writing prompts. It has been wonderful to have several digital learning programs that are self paced and that provide immediate feedback and rewards. Specifically I'm thinking of Lexia and Freckle Reading. Kids respond really well to these kinds of learning platforms and are able to maintain concentration for more extended periods. It is also great to have access to Epic, which is an online resource for quality, interesting reading material. It has thousands of titles. There are many reading levels, and there are also books in Spanish for my newcomer student. For science, I have simply been asking them to watch Mystery Science mini-lessons, and take short quizzes afterward on Google Forms. The videos are very interesting for the kids! I feel bad they don't have more "hands on" experiences. I DID do an outdoor photo scavenger hunt project, as part of my action research, that went really well at first, but with the fears growing about the virus we have stopped it. P.E. has the YouTube channel called GoNoodle if kids want to move around. Our art teacher has recorded art lessons on YouTube which we share out with the kids. In math, I have been recording and sharing out lessons, too! Thank goodness these classes have given me a head start on using the video recording and Zoom technology knowledge to be able to do this. Which brings us to the third TPACK element: Technology. Zoom has been vital, of course, to maintain any semblance of a classroom of kids. We use it to meet twice a week. In our Zoom meetings we socialize. We go over the previous days' math homework. We do fun stuff like travel on Google Earth to Paris. I also use Zoom to record my lessons because I figured out how to use my iPad as a doc camera there, and share videos and whiteboards. I bet I could also record these lessons directly on YouTube, but since I learned to do it on Zoom, I'm sticking with that, for now. Without Google Classroom, none of this could be happening the way it is. It's our platform to share out the weekly lesson plans with all of the necessary links to videos, resources, and lessons. Let's call it my ICARE. Class Dojo has been an amazing tool to communicate with families and share our learning and art with each other. Without this technology, I hate to think about how much more limited learning would be during these times!!!! So, if we use our imaginations we can see how these three areas overlap in this strange context. I've already written too much, so I'll let anyone who might still be reading this respond to that in comments. I just wanted to close with one funny frustration in TPACK ala Distance Learning. As many of you may already know, running a class in Zoom is disorientating and frustrating at times. To add to the normal frustrations, I have had an additional one. My son and I are at my dad's house in Kansas right now to give him a hand. (Talk about DISTANCE learning.) My son decided to cook pizza the other day during my class. As you can guess, the smoke alarms went off. Disaster. My dad also has a parrot. Guess what? It learned to sing like a smoke alarm. Now the parrot interrupts class. Whew.
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AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
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