Paradigm Regained Article by Cronj´e

Now we are talking about the paradigm again, but it is more focus on the paradigm debate in our instructional/educational/learning technology field--the LS-ISD debate happened in Educational Technology, 2004.

The debate was originated from the discrepancy of ontological and epistemological assumptions of how human acquire knowledge, which eventually resulted in the two distinct research methodologies of understanding and designing integrating technology in teaching and learning. Although sharing the same history in the discipline, researchers who advocate two different paradigms (i.e., objectivism and constructivism) locating themselves in two departments (i.e., Ed-psy and C&I), labeling themselves in two professions (i.e., learning scientist and instructional designer) and publishing their works in different journals for a long time.

Do teaching and learning really could be separated in this absolute way in the real world? Is any of the paradigm superior than the other? Is there any possibility for a "learning event" to include both objectivism and constructivism components. 

I think the questions I raised in the previous paragraph interests many researchers in our field. Cronj´e propose a matrix model, which demonstrate the different degrees of integrations of two paradigms. He argued that instead of analyzing a learning event in "polar extremes on a continuum from externally mediated reality to internal mediated reality" (p.388) or triangular relationship purposed by other researcher, a "two dimensional, four quadrants model" could help researchers and practitioners to understand the relationship between the two paradigms.

I was confused when I read the article.

First, I was thinking of the hierarchy of a paradigm and its influences to the curriculum, teaching and learning. I know it could be a mutual relationship between the forming of the paradigm and the influences of paradigm brought to the classroom practice. Researchers of one paradigm must have different world views and assumptions, at the same time, observe the phenomenon in the field, then form their theory. From another end, the practitioners may be influenced by the fashion brought by the researcher, then change their philosophies and behavior toward curriculum, teaching, and learning. How the practitioners have multiple world views when they are teaching or designing curriculum? Is it possible to believe certain paradigm in some of the elements in a learning event and believe another in other elements. It seems like a chicken-egg-and omelet paradox.

Second, I was questioning about the extreme dichotomy of "objectivism" and "constructivism." It is too simple and arbitrary for me, especially the combination of "cognitivism and behaviorism into a single entry"(p.393) and put the constructivism in another end. Even though Cronj´e design the matrix model to explain the relationship, I still think there are too many possibilities in regards of different paradigms in the middle. For example: I'm interested in the "immersion" quadrant defined by the author, which should be low in objectivism and low in constructivism. Two examples provided by the author (the driver learn he need to alert other drivers before changing lane, and the toddler learn what is bee after he/she got sting) are not very convincing. If I were a constructivist, I would argue that in these two conditions of learning, learners could actually construct their knowledge in their mind. Although the time and the act of knowledge construction may be minimal, the influence made by this construction maybe huge, it really depends on how learners see this learning process.

Finally, I am not really convinced by the descriptions of two case studies which served as roles to modify the matrix model. Those two studies seems weak, and the research process are not transparent for the readers.

Mini Proposal Part I (draft)

IPad technology integration in K-12 school: A case study of teachers’ experiences, beliefs and their use of iPad in teaching process

Introduction:

        Since Apple released its iPad tablet in late January 2010, numerous school districts had purchased iPad as a tool of facilitating teaching and learning. For example: a suburban high school of Minnesota, Gibbon Fairfax Winthrop High School, planned to purchase 320 iPad for all its faculty and students (Collette, 2010). The Tower school, an independent school in Marblehead, MA, launched a 1:1 iPad program for students in grade 3 through grade 8 (Taborn, 2011). However, among these innovative technology initiatives, little research has been conducted in emphasis of teachers’ beliefs and prior experiences in technology and decision-making process of use iPad in the classroom. To fill this gap, I am looking for phenomenological understandings of how teachers utilize iPad in the classroom, particularly in K-12 school setting. This study aims to explore the essence of teachers’ individual experiences of technology and how their beliefs may or may not influence their use of iPad in the classroom. A theoretical framework of technology integration (R.A.T.) will be adopted to help me analyze the usage of iPad in the technology integrating process of K-12 teachers.

Conceptual Framework:

        The role of teachers’ beliefs and experiences in technology integration. Teachers’ belief systems, as Pajares’ (1992) notion in his review, is a “messy construct” (p. 307). Teachers’ educational beliefs may be related to “confidence to affect students’ performance,” “the nature of knowledge,” “causes of teachers’ or students’ performance,” “perceptions of self and feelings of self-worth,” and “confidence to perform specific task” (p. 316). In addition, teachers’ beliefs may strongly be influenced by their early experiences. Once belief systems form, they may influence teachers’ final judgments and actions, and be resistant to change (Pajares, 1992). Because technology integration may never occurred in teachers’ life when they were students, adopting new technologies for instruction often challenges teachers’ beliefs. Based on the theoretical foundation of teachers belief built by Pajares (1992), Ertmer (2005) proposed three strategies for promoting change in teachers’ beliefs about technology integration: “(a) personal experience, (b) vicarious experience, and (c) social-cultural influences” (p.32). She especially valued the power of “vicarious experience” for shaping teachers’ beliefs. By observing other colleagues’ successful experiences, teachers may acquire more confidence and motivation in generating similar behaviors. Building professional communities and social networks are examples for the social-cultural influence of changing teachers’ belief (Ertmer, 2005).

        Assessing technology integration: The RAT framework. In assessing how teachers integrate technology into their teaching and learning, Hughes, Thomas and Scharber (2008) proposed the RAT--Replacement, Amplification and Transformation—Framework.  Three categories of teachers’ technology use in the classroom were defined: (a) Technology as Replacement; (b) Technology as Amplification; and (c) Technology as Transformation. The Technology as Replacement refers to using technology as a replacement of existing instructional tools and no pedagogical changes had been made in the technology integration process. The Technology as Amplification refers to using technology as an amplification of current teaching practice and student learning. More efficiency and productivity were effects found in the teaching and learning process.  The Technology as Transformation refers to using technology for transforming teaching methods, students’ learning and the actual subject matter. Technology plays the role of changing the instruction, the learning process and/or the content fundamentally different.

Research questions:

        To achieve the goal of investigating how teachers’ beliefs and experience may or may not influence their use of iPad and the way they use the iPad in K-12 context of the United States , the purpose of this study is to promote phenomenological understandings of: 

1.     How do teachers’ experiences and beliefs of technology and technology integration influence their use of technology in the classroom?

2.     What are teachers’ beliefs of using iPad in the classroom?

3.     How do teachers use iPad as a technology tool in the classroom in terms of Replacement, Amplification and Transformation?

References:

Collette, C. (2010, April 14). Minnesota school replacing textbook with iPad. Tampa Bay Fl News. Retrieve from http://www.wtsp.com/news

Ertmer, P. A. (2005). Teacher pedagogical beliefs: The final frontier in our quest for technology integration? Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(4), 25-39.

Hughes, J., Thomas, R. & Scharber, C. (2006). Assessing Technology Integration: The RAT – Replacement, Amplification, and Transformation Framework. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2006 (pp. 1616-1620). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/22293.

Pajares, M. (1992). Teachers' beliefs and educational research: cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307-332.

Taborn, T. W (2011, August 3). Tower School’s 1:1 program brings the iPad 2 to the elementary classroom. THE Journal. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com

A lit review of issues of 21st century skills, technology and learning

This is probably one of the best report I've ever read in regards of technology integration in recent years. It is short, but it brought up some critical issues that always tangled in my mind: How do people expect their our next generation students do and learn from technology? How do we evaluate the influence of technology integration in teaching and learning? How do we train our preservice and in-service teachers to integrate technology? How the digital divide? 

The report began with a special angle: "the 21st century skills" students need to have. Then they discuss how the integration of technology can be fitted in facilitating students developing these skills. Moreover, the researchers brought up some major themes and trends in relation to these skills and what are still silent yet important issues in the ICT reforms in recent years. Finally, the researchers summarized the findings of teacher education in related to tech integration.

The researchers stressed on following issues that I'm particularly interested with:

• The notion of "digital natives" and "digital immigrants"dichotomy: we can't assume that all of our students are "digital natives." The use of technology does not equal to the competence of applying technology in critical skills.
• The "digital divides" not only include gaps between different generations, but also gaps between different genders, socio-economic status and geographic locations.
• The critical 21st century skills and the effect of technology integration can not be assessed by existing standardized tests, which usually emphasize evaluating personal achievements and the end  outcome, but neglect collaborated achievements and the process. Hence, I think it is not possible to  find a "macro-scale" results of the influence of technology. Instead, what we are looking for are longitudinal studies which presented more qualitative detail. 
• The lacking of research about technology integration in teacher education other than mathematics and the science areas. This finding also match my observations in these years. I'm looking for more studies of how technology being used in language and social study fields, especially in k-12 classroom settings, not teacher preparation programs.
• I especially appreciate the interim report analyzing educational technology policies all over the states and worlds. I found that Taiwan actually began earlier in comparison of the areas the report presented and I will consistently observe how the policies being changed or accomplished in the future.

A longitudinal case study of change process in technology integration

Overview of the Study

        This case study aims to discuss from the perspectives of change agents the enabling factors in the technology integration change process in a multi-section science pedagogy course.  Using a six-year longitudinal (1997-2003) study, Hsu and Sharma purposefully selected seven participants, who were considered to the change agents of technology integration in a required course, Teaching Sciences in the Elementary School (SCIED 408), of a teacher preparation program at a comprehensive, research university.  The participants included two faculty members, who ran the course and associate grant projects in the program, a course coordinator and liaison between the course and local elementary schools, two graduate students, and two other course instructors who entered the program during a later period.  Although the first author supervised the program, she was not involved in the change process and only played the role of sampling, data collection and analysis.  The role of the second author is not stated in the study.

      To answer the research question, the researchers conducted a two-round interview (2001 and 2003).  Participants’ publications, presentation papers, grant proposals, syllabi, and the class Internet resources were also collected as main documents.  The data was first transcribed and coded with a list of 24 codes for the time and the roles of people, then coded with themes, cause/explanations, people’s relationships, or other emerging constructs and generated a list of pattern codes.  The researchers continued to integrate their data into a framework and concluded that the formation of shared leadership, learning community and supported educational systems are three enabling change factors in the technology integration process. A traditional structure of academic studies is written and organized in this paper: introduction, theoretical framework for inquiry, methodology, findings and discussion, and implications and conclusions.

Critique

        As described in the preceding paragraph, the coding strategies and process are clearly stated in the study.  A supporting diagram of themes, tables of the time frames of technology integration process and the roles played by the participants in this process are also provided in either the findings section or the appendix. The themes and patterns generated through the coding process also connected closely to the theoretical framework, the systems theory, which is adopted by the authors in this research.  According to Patton (2002), the focus of systems theory is to understand “real-world complexities, viewing things as whole entities embedded in context and still larger wholes” (p.120).  The perspective of systems theory honors “holistic thinking,” and the different parts of a system not only interconnected but also interdependent. “Change in one part lead to change among all parts and the system itself” (p.120).  Therefore, the authors endeavor to understand the change process and identify enabling factors in this system (i.e, the teacher education program) by applying a qualitative paradigm should be adequate.  The authors further explained their rationale of utilizing systems theory in this research:  to explore and understand the complex changes of innovation of technology integration in a system, they decided to conduct a six-year longitudinal case study and believed it would be an appropriate design and perfectly connected to the systems theory.  Moreover, the authors indicated the short of empirical study related to technology integration in the literature that shaped their motivation for the research. 

        To illustrate their findings, three emerging themes (i.e., shared leadership, learning community, and educational system) were discussed in both the theoretical framework and findings and discussion sections.  The researchers presented both the results of interview and document analysis from their participants and interweaved them with associate supporting evidence from literature.  Under individual themes, the authors described how the participants talked about their perceptions and roleplaying in the change progress; they also helped the researchers understand their relationships with other participants in the system.  A significant amount of direct quotation from the participants was found throughout the three emerging themes.  Peshkin (1993) categorized outcomes from qualitative research into four main types: description, interpretation, verification and evaluation.  He argued that qualitative researchers should make their research move beyond descriptions, because “pure, straight description is a chimera; accounts that attempt such a standard are sterile and boring” (p.24).  Based on the analysis provided by Peshkin (1993), the authors here not only presented their research process in thick and thorough description, but also sought to interpret their results by developing new concepts, elaborating existing concepts, clarifying and understanding the complexity of the context, and providing insights that change participants’ behavior, refine existing knowledge (p.24).  As a reader, by following the authors’ description and interpretation in this article, I can easily understand participants’ perceptions and how they play roles in technology integration in this system; furthermore, the themes and the framework generated by the authors also allow me to apply them in the current context I am situated in.

        To ensure the trustworthiness of the study, the authors employed member check with the participants, source triangulation with acquiring multi-data sources, theory triangulation with revisiting systems theory in other literature, and analyst triangulation with a peer debriefing process.  A reflective journal kept by the first researcher was also mentioned in the research, which provided more evidence of credibility.  No discrepant or negative cases were reported in this research, which would be a possible validity threat for some readers. 

        Interestingly, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, the role of the second author became mysterious and was not explained throughout of the whole article, which may arouse concerns of authorship.

        Hsu and Sharma made their argument in the conclusion of the research. They stated the “continuing commitment of a transformational leadership team sustains the change,” and argued that “[t]hus educational reformers should adopt a similar leadership style” (p.224).  Generally, the interpretation and the purpose of naturalistic inquiry are not designed to generalize data in a specific context to general population.  Instead, the researchers sought to understand if their findings were transferrable to other similar contexts, or let generalization happened in mind of “the consumer of the research” who can “decide what aspect of the case apply in new context” (Cronbach, 1975).  To me, the statement that all educational reformers should have a certain style of leadership is over-generalized and arbitrary because their findings may be applied for similar contexts of technology integration in higher education, but may not extend to others. 

        Overall, the authors wrote this paper with impersonal, passive-voice language and a clear, organized structure. The researchers’ intervention when conducting research seems to be minimized.  Although the first author served as a supervisor in the program, no further description of the relationship between the researchers and the participants and how the researchers managed the potential risk and bias were identified.

Conclusion

       To sum up, the article presented a vivid picture of how change agents played their roles in the numerous technology initiatives of a teacher preparation program in higher education context through thick and detailed description.  Three emergent themes are also identified in the change process and closely connected to the theoretical framework (i.e., systems theory) adopted in this paper.  The paper could be more rigorous when considering the validity and generalizability issue stressed in this review.  Future researchers may consider adopting the framework generated from this research, and move forward to learners’ perspectives to understand how learning occurs in the change of technology integration.

References

Cronbach, L. J (1975). Beyond the two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 30, 116-127.

Hsu, P. –S., & Sharma, P. (2008). A case study of enabling factors in the technology integration change process. Educational Technology & Society, 11(4), 213-228.

Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3^rd. ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Peshkin, A. (1993). The goodness of qualitative research. Educational Researcher. 22(2). 23-29.