I make lots of mistakes when teaching, though I think most of them are small ones and easily rectified.

A very big one, though, that I might have made this year was having my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class students use their laptops for just about everything.

There has been a lot of public concern expressed recently about the amount of screen time students have in the classroom.  This obviously didn’t begin to become a issue until the height of the COVID pandemic when millions of students needed to have laptops for distance learning.

It was clear to me as soon as we returned to face-to-face instruction that using laptops as a major tool for instruction with English Language Learners was the wrong way to go – there’s plenty of research on the importance of handwriting in language learning, and we want to maximize the use of our many peer tutors.  So, in the classroom, the only time my students have used laptops has been to create weekly slideshows that they present “speed-dating” style.  However, as I explained in the post titled The Role Of Tech IN My ELL Classroom? Not Much, But That’s Not The Whole Story, using tech for language learning in students’ homes is truly invaluable.

But I thought that laptops could work well in my IB Theory of Knowledge classes – they are much closer to what college level classes look like, students are junior or seniors, and are generally quite motivated.  And, boy oh boy, would having materials online reduce my workload so much – no more having to make copies in the teacher workroom.  Plus, grading on Google Classroom is sooooooo much easier and quicker!

So, for the past few years, that’s how I’ve structured the classes – next-to-no tech in my ELL courses, and 100% tech in my TOK ones.  And they’ve all gone relatively well – students in all of the classes always gave me and the courses themselves the highest marks in anonymous evaluations, my ELL students generally did very well in assessments, and my TOK students who were IB Diploma candidates did fine in the IB-evaluated assessments.

But, then, right about mid-year during this school year, I began to have second thoughts about what I was doing in my Theory of Knowledge classes.

The quality of work being done by about sixty-or-seventy percent of students – who I would characterize as the most motivated and engaged – was excellent (most of them were IB Diploma candidates).  None of them were doing any (or, if they were, very little) of copying and pasting text online to the many slideshows we did; from what I could tell, few of them were spending much time on non-class related websites on their open Chromebooks; and most of their talking in class appeared to be about joint assignments they were doing.

All that was the kind of atmosphere I saw in almost my entire TOK class pre-COVID, when most text was on paper, and, instead of slideshows, students were constantly working together to create posters for class presentations.

This year, however, it appeared to me that thirty-or-forty percent of my class (practically none of whom were IB Diploma candidates) seemed considerably less engaged – doing a lot of copy-and-pasting, spending a lot of time on non-class-related websites, and definitely not using most of their time talking about assignments.

That doesn’t mean that I believe thirty or forty percent of my students weren’t learning at least the basics of the material or concepts in the curriculum – through participating in the almost constant rotating presentations and the required personal reflections on them, I’m convinced that most have learned the ideas on the surface level, at least.

I’m not sure if this potential problem has been present every year since we came back from distance learning, and I’ve just begun noticing it.  Or, perhaps, it wasn’t an issue when we first returned because students were so happy to be back and it’s just become worse recently.

My observations this year remind me of the experiment I did many years ago where one year I taught two ELL U.S. History classes covering the same content  – but one class was taught entirely in the computer lab and the other in my classroom using no tech at all.  The results of content assessments (which, admittedly, were pretty surface level ones) were similar.  However, when students completed surveys on how engaged they felt in the class and how much it made them want to learn more about history, the students in the non-tech class were dramatically more positive (see Results From My Year-Long U.S. History Tech Experiment).

I wonder if tech generally works for the students who my friend and co-author Katie Hull calls almost “teacher-proof” – they are going to work towards success no matter what – and leaves others who tend to experience more challenges (I want to emphasize that intelligence is NOT one of them) behind?

After I started writing this post, I did a simple anonymous survey with my TOK students on this topic.  Here’s the question I asked and the results:

 

I find it very interesting that 61% of students (which is about the percentage I had estimated who have been very engaged in the class) said that they felt like they learned more using tech than they would have without it.

In looking at the accompanying student comments, it’s obvious I should have worded the question better since many students talked about the value of doing research online.  It would certainly be possible to still create those opportunities, but do a lot less writing and reading online than we’re doing now in class.

Here are some student comments:

I think I learned more using technology this year because technology like ChatGPT, sources online, google documents/slides, computer, and etc had help me develop my academic skills and help me learn to create ideas and help me become a better learner.

Personally, I am capable of learning in any way. I think that technology makes things more entertaining but I’m still capable of learning with simply some paper. With technology, we can learn with things like Kahoot, Quizzizz, etc. However, with a book or some reading on paper, I am still capable of learning.

I like that most of my classes do physical work on paper than used on technology because I am more of a visual learner than looking at it and assuming that I can do it. Additionally, having my eyes on the screen all day especially for school work hurts my head and eyes.

I think no matter how the work is given ( paper or online) most people would learn the same amount. In my opinion, since its more modern to use technology now, I think it is more pleasing and more efficient to provide work online.

I personally feel like I work slower if I were to, lets say, not have a chromebook to type with compared to me writing. I have an easier and less straining experience typing than I do writing with pen or pencil. Its also makes the process of writing quicker than if I were to do it with paper and pencil.

I think that paper forces people to do the work, now I’m also saying that tech does help people learn more easier but I also feel like it’s more relaxed and let loose than paper because all you have to do is wait and then get a electrical device do the work instead of forcing actual thought into the piece of paper that you’re working on.

In my opinion, I like to investigate each topic in more depth and many times what we use the most is technology. I really feel very grateful for the topics in this class. I think I have learned a lot more about each topic. This class helped me a lot.

I think it’s on the student to focus and learn in class and whether or not teachers use tech, doesn’t matter. If a class were to only use tech, there would be some students who don’t focus during class and will play games on whatever websites they can find. On the other hand, a class that uses no tech will lead students to find different methods of goofing off and messing around when they should be focused. It’s the students job to stay on task and focus during class, whether they have tech or not, students will always find a way to goof off and mess around in class.

I think it would have been more engaging if it was on paper. We spend most of our time on technology so in class engaged with other students in class could make me learn more since I feel like I would remember the topic or lesson more.

I think this question depends on who you ask. If you are old like Mr.Ferlazzo maybe paper but if your younger technology would be best for you.

 

If I was going to be teaching next year (as regular readers know, I’m “hanging up my spikes” next month), I think I might try to do something similar to what I did with my ELL US History class – perhaps teach some of my classes like I’ve done mostly using Chromebooks, and one teaching it like I used to – with considerably less tech.  And then create some kind of common assessments to see the results.

I’m not beating myself up about this since I still believe that most students learned a lot, and practically all them really liked the class.

But I do wonder how much better it could have been……