Constructing learning the 'Google' way ..

I could never claim to have been a 'constructivist' when it comes to learning. 'Teach at 'em' was the way I'd been taught, the way I'd been taught to teach, and the way I've always done it. In his book 'Visible Learning'  Hattie talks about the quality of 'direct instruction' as having a high effect size, and so it seems reasonable to assume that I should just keep on 'teaching at 'em' as I've always done.

However I'm always open minded when it comes to anything that might improve the learning of the students in front of me, and my enthusiasm for eLearning has offered some interesting opportunities for improving student engagement and learning

At a recent elearning Seminar I found myself quite excited by a demonstration from a young teacher from Dunedin on how she was using Google Forms to engage her students, so I decided to give this a go.

As a revision and extension task I created 5 questions structured around the SOLO framework. The questions ranged from Uni/Multi-structural, to Extended Abstract. That is, from simple recall, to deeper critical thinking.

I created a Google Form with these questions, and set a link to the form on our Intranet. The class then opened the form in class and, working in silence as if in a test, they individually answered the 5 questions to the best of their ability (the silence thing is important).

Once they had finished, I then took the results and shared them with the class as a spreadsheet.

The boys were put into groups of three, and were then required to set up a Google Doc in which they had to construct a group 'model answer' for the 5 questions. As input they had the collective class responses, and any web or text resources they chose. The Google Doc had to be shared with the other group members, and with me as their teacher.

This is where the test-like completion of the initial responses was important. It meant that it was likely that many of the answers would contain inaccuracies, and so individually and collectively they had to critically analyse this data, looking for errors as well as correct answers.

Several really interesting things happened. They began (without any direct instruction from me) to use the Google Docs tool to 'collaborate' in constructing the correct answers. They worked on this material for one class period, and then completed it that evening. To varying degrees they began to use colour to distinguish each member's contribution. They used the comments function to offer ideas, and question each others' contributions. The comments began to create a dialogue between group members.

Then as we went over their answers as a whole class, boys began to edit their work, correcting as we went.

The level of engagement appeared to be huge. The learning appeared to be huge. Do I have any quantitative data to back up these claims? No. Do I have any qualitative data? Certainly their feedback at the end of the exercise was overwhelmingly positive. Perhaps next time I'll make sure that I have an 'exit survey' prepared in which the class evaluates the exercise.

Fascinating!!!