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Getting Started

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The psychological insight of mediation as mutual investment ties to a couple themes that Don Tapscott talks about at the Interactive Culture page of Growing Up Digital.  Teachers, acting as facilitators/lesson designers and guides on the learning journey, must take into consideration students independence (theme 1), assertiveness and self-reliance, the last two being Impressions of N-Gen Personality.  They not only want to know how something works, but how to work it (theme 7).  Tapscott says, "It is important for children to understand the assumptions inherent in software and to feel empowered to change those assumptions."  The teacher-as-guide can help students understand by positioning them in such a way to predict, question or hypothesize, keeping in mind that students may not readily accept guidance due to independence.   

 

Tapscott also touches on the changing role of the teacher.

As the digital media penetrates the classroom environment and is embraced by N-Gen students, what is the new role of teacher?  Since the new media is drastically changing the learning milieu, so must the teachers change their roles and become more adapted to the new system of learning.

 

Tapscott continues by describing some of the work happening in the Emerging Technologies Program in Ontario where, "The learning model is that everyone relies on their own resources, and on everyone else, sharing their expertise."  In this way, both students and teacher are mutually invested.

 

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Liberating uses of technology including visuals, simulations or interactivity support student construction of knowledge.  By modelling exploration of a visual or simulation or having them explore and guiding as they do, the teacher can help the student to understand concepts and/or the relationships between them.  Without the support of the visual, students, particularly those who are visual learners may struggle or take longer understand.  By using technology in liberating ways, it has the potential to support visual literacy using visual text to make meaning.  Burns' (2006) "A Thousand Words, Promoting Teachers' Visual Literacy Skills," Lambert's (2005) "Visual Learning: Using Images to Focus Attention, Evoke Emotions and Enrich Learning," and Farmer's (2007) "I See, I Do: Persuasive Messages and Visual Literacy" (all from Topic 1) explored different facets of visual literacy (and are available through ProQuest).  Combining knowledge of information literacy with the four insights of mediation leads to even more powerful teaching and learning.

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 Topic 1  

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 Donham (2007) reviews four standards of authentic instruction:

"Higher-order thinking: Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are processes residing at the higher order of complexity 

 

Deep knowledge: Students focus on central ideas of a topic with enough thoroughness to explore connections and relationships and produce relatively complex understandings. 

Substantive conversation: Students engage in extended conversational exchanges with the teacher, the teacherlibrarian, and their peers about subject matter, which builds an imporved and shared understanding of ideas."

 

Minds-on vs hands-on uses of technology involve higher-order thinking.  Students construct knowledge and understanding of concepts and their interrelationships through conversation and guidance from the teacher.  The teacher can model the disposition of curiosity by thinking aloud in order to positon the student to ask their own questions.   

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Carol Kuhlthau was referenced in Topic 1: Developing Information Literacies.  "The Information Search Process" is available at her website.  In it is a section entitled "zone of intervention for information services and systems" where she reviews Vygotsky's zone of proximal development as Subramaniam did:

"...an area or zone in which intervention would be most helpful to a learner.  The zone of proximal development is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined by problem solving under professional guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.  This concept provides a way of understanding intervention in the constructive process of another person."

 

Whether mediating students in the zone or proximal development while integrating computer technology, or in an information search process within the zone of intervention in information seeking (so that "an information user can do with advice and assistance what he or she cannot do alone or can do only with difficulty"), both have the teacher acting as a guide and both help the student achieve something that was not possible otherwise. 

 

Kuhlthau, C.  The Information Search Process.  Retrieved October 18, 2007 from http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kuhlthau/information_search_process.htm. 

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Topic 2

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In "Identifying key research issues" (Topic 2) it reiterates a common theme related to the integration of technology:

 

"Learning with technology should not be about the technology itself but about the learning that can be facilitated through it.  Technology should provide an instructional method or learning environment that would not be possible through a non-technology method.  We believe that technology can best be studied as an integrated area fo curriculum.  We also believe that technology has a particular capacity to foster higher cognitive functions" (p. 19). 

 

While on the one hand, this reference connects to the person-centred vision for the integration of computer technology in teaching and learning that Subramaniam makes reference, it does not go further into the role of teacher not only to facilitate but also to guide when technology is integrated meaningfully into classrooms.

 

Knezek, G., Christensen, R., Bell, L. & Bull, G.  (2006).  "Identifying key research issues."  Learning and leading with technology, 33(8), 18-23. 

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