Horizon Report Trends in Education (2017)

Introduction

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” This quote from Benjamin Franklin is one of my favorite quotes. It inspires and encourages me while also reminding me what the ultimate goal of being a teacher is: to involve students in their own learning. It’s so easy to get caught up in the standards of a class and making sure you’ve “taught” it all instead of focusing on really promoting student learning. The Horizon Report discusses six trends that can really help teachers involve students in their learning and help them be successful in school and life. Below, you will see how specifically, three of those trends currently or in the future will influence how I present and teach math to my high school students.

Advancing Cultures of Innovation and Deeper Learning Approaches

Both the advancing cultures of innovation trend and the deeper learning approaches trend are concentrated on building critical thinking skills in relation to the real world. Examples of this in action are collaboration, project-based learning, problem-solving, and creativity. These two trends I believe are really important in a high school math class setting. Critical thinking is an extremely important part of understanding math. With that said, I try to incorporate critical thinking into my math classes in a variety of ways. One example of this is by having students complete discovery lessons. Since there is a lot of rules and formulas in math, students tend to want to memorize them and not actually understand them. Having them complete discovery activities allows the students to solve problems and work through scenarios that allow them to write the rule themselves. This also puts their learning in their own hands instead of having me up at the board just telling them the rule and them copying it down. Another way this trend influences my teaching is in the creativity aspect. I used to think it was hard to incorporate creativity into a math class as it’s mostly numbers. However, through projects I’ve given my students, it’s allowed them to really bring their own creativity into their understanding. From having to find examples in the real world of shapes for Geometry and take selfies with them to having them write a trigonometry storybook and draw out their story with it. This gives students the opportunity to take what they’ve learned in my classroom and creatively apply it on their own.

Growing Focus on Measuring Learning

Within the growing focus on measuring learning section of the Horizon report, the statement about there being an overemphasis on state and standardized tests that take away from the instructional time really hit home for me. One of the math courses I teach is Algebra 1 which in the state I teach in, has a state test at the end of the year. If I’m being honest, this state test does add a lot more pressure to the class. Throughout the year there is this battle of trying to cover all the standards before the state test while also trying to go at a decent pace that focuses on the student’s understanding of the concepts. With this being a freshmen course, a lot of times it’s difficult to start where we are supposed to because of the lack of information they have retained from middle school. I always find myself having to reteach material that according to the standards, they should already know how to do. This tends to add a lot more stress to the planning.

All of these thoughts influence my plans on how I teach and present the math material to my students. With every day being so significant in a class that has a state test, it’s important for me to measure my students’ learning in a way that is beneficial for both them and me. I want to be able to see what knowledge them come to me with, how they’re retaining the material I teach them overtime, and overall to monitor their progress. A way I’ve been able to do that this year is through two programs my school has started using. The first one is called Algebra Nation. Within Algebra Nation, there is something called the “On Ramp” which allows students to answer questions that place them where they are at within the curriculum. From there, they are able to watch video lessons and answer questions to move up through all of the material. This has been a huge help specifically in my class that I teach that has students who struggle with math. It’s a way that they can all learn at their own pace and gives me a way to measure their learning at the same time. A second program my school has been using is Mastery Connect. This program has a question bank that makes questions very similar to state and standardized tests. I can choose multiple standards to give them and test them on. After they take a test I’ve made on it, they are placed into one of three levels on each standard assessed. The three levels are needs remediation, near mastery, and mastery. This allows both the student and myself to see what standards they grasp fully and what standards we need to discuss more. Both of these programs have influenced the way I monitor and measure student progress this year and is also allowing the student to monitor themselves as well.

Rise of STEAM Learning

The rise of STEAM learning trend definitely is important within my content area since mathematics is a part of the name (STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). I find STEAM learning to be such a great way for students to learn within in my content aread, however I find it hard to do within my classroom right now. The school I teach at is not a 1:1 school, but as of next year all students wil have their own chromebooks. I believe that once students all have their own form of technology to use within my class, it’ll make it a lot easier to incorporate STEAM learning strategies. Through reading this report though, it is reminding me of ways I could promote this type of learning without using technology when my students don’t have access to it. That is through the integration of visual arts. I have students draw out representations of math problems that we do, but to have them take it a step further and visually create something of their own to represent a topic they have learned in my class seems like a great thing to try in the future.

Conclusion

In the end, I think all six trends are great ways to influence my classroom in a positive way and I hope I’m able to incorporate the four I discussed above in even more ways than already listed. I didn’t specifically discuss the influence of two trends above as they aren’t able to influence my teaching as much right now or in the near future. Those trends are the redesigning learning spaces trend and the coding as literacy trend. There are small ways I redesign my students’ learning space, but with my classroom being so small and only having access to students’ desks, there is only so much I can do as of now. We have them in rows some days, in groups/stations other days, and sometimes we even make a circle with them. However, I wouldn’t relate those being what the report described as “mobile, flexible, varied, and connected.” In the future though, I would love for my classroom to move that way. The coding as literacy trend I didn’t specifically discuss either because as stated above, my students don’t have much access to technology yet. After we go 1:1 next year, in the years to come maybe that will be one trend I will be able to try within my classroom.

All in all, these trends relate to the quote I started this post with. They all are ways to help involve students in their own learning and understanding. I strive to continue to incorporate ways to do this within my own classroom using the trends discussed above.

References

Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., and Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). 

MC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Mission and Vision

In our world today, technology is seen everywhere. It’s seen in our homes, at our work, and it’s showing up more and more in our schools. Today’s young generation of students has not grown up in a time without technology being a part of it. Not only has technology always been around, but it’s been an important part of their lives since they’ve been here. This alone is reason enough to show how important and impactful technology can be to help our students learn and succeed at their highest capability.

As Roblyer states, educational and instructional technology isn’t just the devices or equipment that is used in the classroom. Some people think that educational technology is all about pulling out a device to use within a lesson and checking that checkbox off, but not making the technology use effective and meaningful. Though these devices are great tools to use, it should be more about how they are being used in the classroom. As teachers, we need to be sure to use technology to help our students become productive members of society and to help enhance their 21st-century skills. The goal shouldn’t be to check a box off but to use the technology to enhance and transform their learning and allow them to take control and ownership over their own learning. As the Framework for 21st Century Learning states, “to be effective in the 21st century, citizens and workers must be able to create, evaluate, and effectively utilize information, media, and technology.”

In order to do this effectively, as Roblyer says, “teachers need system-wide support.” This means everyone involved from the school to the state needs to be committed to using technology as a way to support the teaching and learning of students. With the correct support, it will give teachers the opportunity to use technology in meaningful ways to help their students. Roblyer also explains there are two perspectives on effective instruction, direct instruction, and inquiry-based learning. The direct instruction perspective is based on the objectivist theories while inquiry-based learning perspective is based on the constructivist theories. The objectivist theories are based on students needing individual learning and practice in order to learn the material in an efficient way. Whereas the constructivist theories are based on promoting collaboration between students and having students explore and discover as they learn. Teachers should balance both the direct instruction and the inquiry-based learning within their classroom in order to help all students to learn in varying ways.

There is far too much inconsistency in the classrooms today and educational technology is a tool that can help. From checking off the use of technology just to say it's been used, to teaching to solely prepare for a test, to lack of engagement from our students. It's our job as teachers to not only prepare students for tests, but to prepare them for life. It's our job to teach them in a way they will learn and in a way that engages them. Students need to be able to learn to work individually and be able to succeed that way, but it’s also important for students to explore and discover together what they’re learning about. If there is a balance of both, the learning will go much further. The same goes for technology use in the classroom. Their needs to be a balance of how it is being used. As it can be seen in the Technology Integration Matrix, there are five characteristics of the learning environment: active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal-directed. The matrix also lists five levels of technology integration: entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation. If teachers and schools were to focus on educational technology use to allow students to be active in their learning, to collaborate with one another, to be constructive, to be authentic and to be goal-directed, then that is how we will transform the classroom. This is how we will transform our students. This is how we will transform their learning. And by doing that, it will, in turn, help them transform the world.

References

Framework for 21st Century Learning. (2016, January). Retrieved January 19, 2018, from http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework

Roblyer, M. D. (2016). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (7th ed.). Massachusetts: Pearson.

The Technology Integration Matrix. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix/