Wicked Problem Project: Part B - Application of TPACK

The Intersection of Technology and Pedagogy

The use of student response system clickers for warm-ups can have potential added-value to classroom learning.  According to the research article “Teaching with Student Response Systems in Elementary and Secondary Education Settings: A Survey Study,” there are several reasons that clickers could be constructive activities for warm-ups.  This includes “assigning tasks to gauge student’s understanding of subject matter content, posing diagnostic questions to elicit student thinking, and using feedback from the CPS to make changes in your instruction” (Penuel, Boscardin, Masyn, & Crawford, pg 329).

These studies imply the pedagogical value that can be produced from using the technology at the beginning of the class.  While previously warm-ups were used as “busy time” to allow me to take attendance and check homework, I now have a technology that allows me to monitor student thinking and progress as I perform administrative tasks.  As a result, this technology will give me the ability to start class each day identifying whether students have mastered a prior concept or not.  The immediate results can provide a quick indicator about whether I need to restructure a portion of that day’s lesson to cement student understanding.

At the same time, students are receiving valuable learning by using clickers during their warm-ups.  Once I begin classroom discussion, students now have ownership about the answer that they selected.  This discussion might take place with an elbow-partner or as a whole-class discussion, but students now have accountability about their student thinking.  As a result, more thoughtful mathematics discussion could be produced.

The Intersection of Technology and Content

When it comes to content, student response systems would be considered a method for delivering the desired material.  While the student response systems do not “teach” the content, the delivery of the questions, and more importantly the collection of student responses, directly supports student learning of the content.  The SMART Response XE clickers that I am using allow students to be exposed to content in a variety of ways.  The questions must be projected on the board, but students can respond to the content through multiple choice answers or through typing short response answers, depending upon what type of question the teacher provides.  As a result, students in my mathematics classroom can solve a large spectrum of mathematical questions compared to the warm-ups they completed previously.  This includes complex concepts such as simplifying exponents and radicals to writing linear equations.

The Intersection of Pedagogy and Content

This particular technology allows for a powerful merge of pedagogy and content.  Based on the pedagogical choices made by myself as the teacher, the content can be exposed and taught to the student in a variety of ways.  For instance, I could decide to use the clickers as a way of having students practice answering multiple choice questions about their content.  This could be used to measure how students are performing when being asked multiple choice problems about the content, particularly as an indicator about student success on standardized tests.  This type of delivery of questions could allow me as the teacher to discuss with students test-taking strategies and how reasonable certain answers that were selected would be in the context of the problem.

At the same time, I could decide to use the clickers as a way of presenting open-ended questions about the content being learned or previewed.  This portion of the lesson could be a time that I could take advantage of asking about student’s prior-knowledge for the particular concept being taught that day.  It would allow for immediate feedback and potential change to how thorough I need to present particular portions of the lesson.  For example, if the prior knowledge indicates most of the students all remember the rules of integers, I could spend less time reviewing that concept with the whole class and instead could focus on specific students who needed review about that content.  However, if the entire class had low scores for that portion of the warm-up, it would be an indicator that I need to spend a little bit of time with the class reviewing integers before expecting them to understand how to solve an equation.

If this time is not used for previewing material, I could also use this time of the warm-up to have open-ended questions that require high-order thinking about material learned the prior day.  The clickers allow for students to type short-responses, even mathematical functions, similar to a graphing calculator.  Therefore, this could be an excellent time to stretch student thinking and really allow students to analyze their learning.  This would pedagogically allow me to identify students who could use further challenges in the course.  It is a method of making sure each student reaches their full potential.

Overall, the use of these clickers during warm-ups can have some powerful pedagogical indicators about the content.  This time of the lesson would really be a quick way that I could assess student learning, whether using the time for multiple choice practice, review of prior knowledge, or to stretch student thinking.  In my opinion, a good mix of the different pedagogical strategies could really enhance a lesson, dependent upon what content is being taught that day.  Is prior knowledge of integers essential for the lesson?  If so, then focus on reviewing prior knowledge for that day’s warm-up.  Is a test coming soon where test-taking strategies could be discussed?  If so, then focus on multiple-choice problems.  The freedom to mix up the types of questions being used to learn the content could allow for powerful learning in the classroom.