Technology and transforming the classroom – are we at the start of a revolution in education?
Posted on 8th Jun 2018 in School News, Technology, Which London School?
Will Williams, Senior and Academic Deputy Head at Pangbourne College, discusses the benefits of implementing technology in classrooms, how to maintain the school’s ethos when doing so, and the challenges faced...
The use of technology in schools has been approached with trepidation by many teachers, viewing it as a potential disruption to the classroom and a complication in their own planning. With technological advancements having a growing influence on every aspect of our lives though, this perception is changing as rapidly as the technology itself.
In 20 years, we’ve gone from chalkboards to the possibility of using virtual reality in the classroom, and we could now be entering a truly revolutionary phase in education.
Whilst the desire is increasing, the implementation is not straightforward, and no parent wants their child to be a guinea pig when it comes to schooling. There are myriad potential solutions for both students and teachers, but the solutions chosen have to be appropriate to the school and its values.
One of the main restrictions of any school is time. A rigorous academic schedule teamed with a packed extra-curricular programme leaves very little room for manoeuvre, and commitment to societies and sports should never come at the expense of academic progress.
Chosen well, there are opportunities to ease workload for staff, enhance formative reporting and monitor behaviour more effectively. For pupils we can help them reflect on and develop their own learning, engaging them with subjects in new and exciting ways.
At Pangbourne, we have been aiming to encourage meta-cognition, whereby students consider more carefully what they do and do not know and take greater control of their own learning. This is an area which can see positive results with the aid of new technologies. By the end of 2016, Ofcom reported that 41 per cent of 5 – 15 year olds own a smartphone, and this increases to over 90 per cent for 16 – 24 year olds. Turning these devices into educational tools is a logical step, and now we can select the best means to do it.
We have found that using apps such as Kahoot!, which creates homework challenges and quizzes for any chosen subject, adds a competitive edge to learning and revision and the assessment is done by the app, freeing up time for the teacher. Kahoot! also offers a progress checker which allows students to compete ‘against themselves’ by testing against their previous results which are logged – this is incredibly beneficial for GCSEs and A-Levels now, given the change to linear exams which require students to pull together knowledge over two years of learning.
Use of video with an interactive element is another area within which we can look to engage students and better utilise the resources at our disposal. The programme Edpuzzle allows teachers to annotate online video and link to relevant content and questions which will be the next step in the lesson.
The content can be something more advanced for students who have assimilated the initial information well, or something on a similar level which allows them to absorb the content in their own time in a different manner. This means teachers can curate various resources to accommodate all levels of learning. With the proven impact of interleaving content from previous learning with the current focus, tech applications are supporting new research into how pupils learn. As with Kahoot!, the results data is available both pupil-by-pupil, and question-by-question, making individual and class assessment possible in a fraction of the time it would normally take.
Encouraging this level of independence provides a perfect platform for a higher education. As students progress through school, encouraging self-reflection on their own learning and development puts students in the best possible situation for sixth form and university stages. This well-rounded approach and independent work ethic corresponds with the values of our particular school, where we encourage strong character development alongside academic progression.
Quite rightly, the main focus in schools is on the development and improvement of pupils, but as teachers this is something we need to constantly address in our own performance. Technology can be hugely influential in this regard because it allows for more targeted teaching and reporting, as well the time-saving aspect previously mentioned.
The diversity of a teacher’s role, particularly in an independent school, where one frequently teaches a full timetable followed by games (before even thinking of lesson planning and marking) means time is precious. The speed and efficiency with which we can now make information available to staff is crucial.
Efficiency in the technology we utilise can firstly allow for consistent planning and prep task setting, but it can also allow a level of feedback to students and parents unlike anything we have had previously.
As with most schools across the country, we use CEM data from the University of Durham for our Key Stage Four and Five students. From this we use the ‘Chances Graph’ produced, which provides predicted grades, but we then do something very few schools do – we share this data with pupils and parents. This provides a narrative which you can engage the pupil with, as they are able to clearly see where they need to progress and how they do that. They can now take ownership of the behaviours which are most crucial to their progress.
The next step once we had access to this data was clear, and that was to make this readily available to both staff and students by using ClassCharts. This means every teacher has access to a ‘card’ for each student which is populated with academic and behavioural information pertinent to that child, which has become to be crucial for tracking development.
The behavioural aspect of this has been particularly important to Pangbourne, because we operate with our seven Flag Values of kindness, selflessness, moral courage, initiative, industry, resilience, and integrity, at the heart of everything we do. With the ClassCharts app we have been able to ‘mark’ children on how they ‘perform’ in these fields which are so key to us, and the ease of access to these has made the vernacular thorough throughout the school.
The range of devices, programmes, apps and initiatives is so vast now that it makes the choices of the school all the more important. We need to engage rather than distract, and the values which a school is built on must remain central, whilst the information and access we provide to our students cannot become overwhelming. The implementation of these initiatives needs to be seen as a positive for students, teachers and parents. We need to raise the academic ante, without sacrificing the pastoral support.