Badge 14: Micro Teaching #1 – Vygotsky and Web 2.0

Lesson objectives:

1. Introduction to the basic ideas of Vygotsky’s perspective on cognitive development

2. Establishing a link between Vygotsky’s ideas and Web 2.0

3. Defining Web 2.0

4. Recognizing the need for incorporation of Web 2.0 tools in education

5. Identifying challenges in pedagogical use of Web 2.0 tools

Synopsis of the lesson:

The lesson was conducted online through Adobe Connect. The content delivery was done with the help of a PowerPoint presentation that was shared with the students.

Vygotsky’s ideas on the development of human cognition have gained considerable attention in the field of Educational Psychology. He believed that human beings learn how to think through their social interactions with other members of the community. That is, higher order thinking in human beings is a product of social interaction. Furthermore, these interactions are situated within cultural settings which offer each of us with specific cultural tools (e.g. computers and the Internet) and psychological tools (e.g. language). That is, culture enables us to think in a particular way and perhaps limits us in thinking in other ways. Vygotsky’s views on learning and development fall within the purview of socio-cultural theory.

Vygotsky theorized that at any given point of time our knowledge can be classified into three areas: things that we know, things that we do not know, and things that we have the potential to know with the external social support. According to Vygotsky, the things that we can learn with the help of others are within the zone of proximal development.

Growing acceptance of Vygotsky’s ideas within the field of Education has led to many educators taking the initiative to set up collaborative learning environments in class. With the Internet gradually becoming an integral part of mainstream education, it is necessary to review how Vygotsky’s ideas can be relevant to us today. Educators today have the opportunity to enhance collaboration with the help of technological tools collectively referred to as Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 is characterized by availability of tools that can help people collaborate, interact, and share information with each other.

Educators are encouraged to use Web 2.0 tools for the following reasons:

1. Students are already familiar with and motivate to use the Web 2.0 tools in their daily lives; thus, it offers a way for educators to engage learners using a medium they already have an affinity for.

2. When students of this generation will enter the job market they will be expected to be familiar with these tools.

3. Web 2.0 makes it possible for learners to creating something that is useful for them in the immediate present; this can help them understand the significance of transfer of knowledge, a skill they will be required to possess in the future.

4. Web 2.0 tools allow multiple ways for learners to engage with each other and the teacher. As the world becomes more and more globalized, at their future work places they may be expected to work with others not only in the same physical location but also with colleagues located in other places and sometimes in different time-zones.

Even though there is growing interest among educators in imbibing Web 2.0 practices in the educational process, there are challenges that have to be dealt with if we hope to see these tools being used meaningfully in the future. Some of these challenges are as follows:

1. Teachers use Web 2.0 tools but do not engage in Web 2.0 practices.

2. The goals of the current educational system are in stark contrast to Web 2.0 practices.

3. Web 2.0 practices conceive of knowledge as dynamic and collective, whereas, education systems are structured in a way that encourages the view that knowledge is something that is acquired individually.

4. Web 2.0 tools are being used to accomplish educational goals which do not take into account that the integration of the Internet in education changes the previously established norms in multiple ways.

Click on the link below to see the presentation:

Powerpoint_narmada

Activities:

Right at the start of the lesson, I asked everyone to indicate if they were aware of Vygotsky’s theory in order to gauge the extent of familiarity my peers had with his ideas. This gave me an idea of how much background information to offer them about Vygotsky.

For this lesson, I planned two kinds of assessments: formative and summative.

The formative assessments involved asking students to share their thoughts on specific topic related questions. Considerable thought was given to the placement of the questions within the presentation. The goal was to get students thinking about the next logical step before actually presenting them with factual information. This was done in the following manner:

Right after ending the section on how Vygotsky’s ideas have popularized the practice of creating collaborative environments for learning, I asked them 3 questions:

1. What are some of the technological tools that can assist in building collaborative learning environments?

2. Have you used any of them as a student/teacher?

3. If yes, what was the experience like?

The objective was to guide them into thinking about Web 2.0 tools (the second half of the presentation) without presenting them with the information that followed next. After defining Web 2.0 (Video clip: Tim O’Reilly) and providing examples of tools associated with Web 2.0, I asked the students to identify elements they found common across these tools.

Then I moved on to what the literature had to say about common characteristics of Web 2.0 and some of the reasons cited in the literature to highlight the need to use them in education. After this, I wanted them to think about the use of Web 2.0 tools from the perspective of an educator, so I asked them the following questions:

1. What factors should be considered by a teacher when choosing a tool?

2. What is the educator’s role in technology enhanced collaborative learning environments?

3. Are there factors which could pose challenges to the use of web 2.0 tools in education?

I ended the lesson with some of the challenges that the related literature has identified with respect to the use of Web 2.0 tools in education.

After the lesson was over, summative assessment was conducted by asking the students to respond to a poll designed to assess their evaluation of the lesson. The poll questions were aimed at assessing teaching effectiveness. The following questions were asked and there were three response options (Yes, No, Not sure):

Was the sequence of the lesson logical?

Were the activities relevant to the topic?

Did the lesson raise thought provoking points?

Was the instructor’s narrative clear and understandable?

Did the instructor facilitate the online learning session effectively?

Things I learned…

This was my first time teaching with Adobe Connect. I feel that working with the tool as an instructor helped me understand some of the features the application has to offer. For example, I realized that I did not need everyone to look at the video on the Weblink individually, instead, I could have clicked on it myself and everyone could have viewed the clip together. This might have saved time.

Also, I had not used the Notes feature for the discussion based activities; in retrospect, using Notes might have helped people organize their thoughts more easily and enabled me to keep a documented record as opposed keeping track of what was being discussed manually.

Additionally, it would have been easier for people to discuss one topic in the break out session as opposed to three topics simultaneously. The questions I had them discuss were complex in nature and perhaps expecting them to talk about all three issues (factors affecting choice of tool, educator role in Web 2.0, and challenges to their use) within simultaneously was not a fair expectation.

Things that went well…

I got disconnected in the middle of my session. However, the flow of the lesson did not seem to have been affected based on the feedback from my peers. In fact, one of them mentioned that I was able to pick exactly where I had left off.

My peers seemed to have liked the formative assessment activities that they engaged in. They found the questions meaningful and relevant to the topic.

The connection drawn between Vygotsky and Web 2.0 had sparked a lot of interest as reflected in the feedback. I am really glad about this as this was one of my main learning objectives: to make them see connections across ideas in two distinct fields.

I did get a comment from one of my peers saying she felt that the course evaluation poll at the end was unnecessary; however, I thought it was valuable to me as an instructor as it gave me immediate feedback. All of the responses to the course evaluation questions were positive indicating that they felt the lesson was well-organized, the activities were relevant, the narrative was easy to follow, the facilitation was effective and the content made them think deeply.

Resources used:

Here is the list of sources I had utilized for creating my lesson presented in APA style –

Aharony, N. (2009). Web 2.0 use by librarians. Library and Information Science Research, 31(1), 29-37. Here is the link to the pdf version: pdf4

Bhatt, K. [Kamla Bhatt]. (2007, May 21). Tim O’Reilly on What is Web 2.0?. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQibri7gpLM

Dohn, N. B. (2009). Web 2.0: Inherent tensions and evident challenges for education. International Journal of Computer-supported Collaborative Learning, 4(3), 343-363. Here is the link to the pdf version: pdf1

Miller, P. (2006). Introducing the library 2.0 gang [Recorded telephone conference, Talking with Talis series]. Retrieved April 20, 2007, http://www.talk.talis.com/archives/2006/02/introducing_the.html

Stephens, M. (2006). Chapter 1: Exploring web 2.0 and libraries. Library Technology Reports, 42(4), 8-14. Here is the link to the pdf version: pdf 3

Woolfolk, A. (2013). Cognitive development. In Educational Psychology (pp. 28-67). Prentice Hall.

 

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