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21.4: What is engaged learning with technology tools?

  • Page ID
    87600
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    Well, it’s really important that the focus is on the learning goals, this idea of time-on-task, and that the technology is not distracting from the learning goals which it can easily do and a lot of software does.

    The software is really motivating the students with different types of scaffolds to get them interested and invested in the learning goals.

    One of the most important pieces is this idea of having an active learner. They’re not passive and just consuming knowledge. But, they’re productive, that they’re innovative, inquiring, hypothesizing, and using those higher-order thinking skills. They are not doing it isolated, rather they’re doing it in a very collaborative way through co-use and co-construction.

    When we look at time-on-task, we know that technology should be helping students focus on the learning goals. It should allow opportunities for students to learn with less distractions.

    Co-use and joint engagement compared to individual use. When we consider co-use, we want students to build a collaborative and shared understanding around content. They should be working together.

    If you have a one-to-one classroom, I highly recommend that you take away a few devices occasionally and make it one-to-two or one-to-three, so that students can collaborate and work together, because it’s much more difficult to build a shared understanding when they’re isolated with their devices.

    Another benefit of co-use is there’s just more opportunity to inquire and co-analyze and just kind of check for understanding together. Again, when it’s individual use, we just don’t see those opportunities arise as much because all the students are working in their own isolated piece of software.


    Reflections

    • Do you notice co-use or joint engagement in different ways? Either students working collaboratively with devices or they’re choosing apps and software that is collaborative for students, so they can work on it together?
    • How are the teachers monitoring and checking in with the students?
    • Are they modeling how to navigate the tool, and comprehend the content with the tool?

     


    21.4: What is engaged learning with technology tools? is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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