Paper Presentations of Technology in Education

by Huda A.Halim

10^th October 2019 – Eight institutional papers and more than 80 parallel papers have been presented during these 2 days. We have chosen to attend 2 of the sessions which included the issue of implying technology in 21^st century learning. The first paper is about the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) theory, continued by the presentation of Novice Teacher’s Readiness on implementing 21^st Century Learning. The sessions started at 2 and ended at 4.

1^st session

1.     TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledege) theory

WHAT is TPACK?

The term TPACK stands for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, which refers to a theory expended by Mishra and Koehler (2009). It is a theory that compares 2 frameworks about the interaction between technology, pedagogy, and content, to see how all these 3 elements related to each other.

WHY TPACK?

TPACK was created to solve few problems when the Ministry of Education started to imply the importance of implementing 21^st century learning in classroom. Teaching and learning process in 21^st century has a completely different foundation compared to the former system. For example, in the future, the more advanced technology will replace some human jobs. In order to curb this, students need to possess skills that technology does not have, and that is a teacher’s job to prepare students with the necessary skills to challenge the 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution). TPACK focus on observing the teaching and learning process, which has to be more learner, centred, so that students able to develop soft skills. In addition, in our recent context, teachers are having problem in lacking of knowledge and experience to teach 21^st century skills with technology. Thus, this theory was created to see the correlation between the 3 elements.

HOW DOES TPACK affect the teaching practice?

Personally, I think the 3 elements (technology, pedagogy and content) are very much related to each other. According to the presenter, a new framework called 4CIV has been established to investigate the develop students social skills, thinking skills, and life/career skills.

Social skills -    Communication and collaboration

Thinking Skills – critical thinking skills and creativity

Life/career skills – values and ethics

Based on my understanding on the presentation, I think that if the teacher possesses the 3 elements (technology, pedagogy, content), they will most likely know how to use 21^st century learning. This is because, looking at the first element, which is pedagogy, teacher who are able to find the best teaching method would surely acquire students’ understanding. Next, with the aid of technology, the teacher would be able to produce great teaching aids that suits students’ level of learning. For example, the teacher could create a game, interesting worksheet, or find the materials online. Lastly, by understanding the third element, which is content, the teacher would be able to comprehend the students need.

            One of the example given by the presenter of using technology to create teaching materials is DST (Digital Story Telling) tools, in which helps teacher to create an online story using the animation application. This would be a great help for the teacher.

In conclusion, when the students have acquired soft skills, they are able to become more innovative and creative. This would help them to think out of the box in contributing ideas that are not only limited to textbook and classroom alone.

2^nd session

Novice Teacher’s Readiness on Implementing 21^st Century Learning

               In the second session, the presentation is quite simple compared to the previous one. This is because the topic is general, and it is common.

DEFINITION OF NOVICE TEACHER

·        Teacher with less than 5 years of teaching experience.

DEFINITION OF 21^ST CENTURY LEARNING

·        According to the presenter, 21^st century learning means that the learning is student centred, which focused mainly on communication skills, collaboration skills, critical thinking, and moral values.

WHAT IS 21^ST CENTURY EDUCATION DEMANDS?

21^st century learning Is way different than the previous system. There are few demands which could be burden to teachers, but also beneficial to students learning progress. First, teacher needs to be skilled in pedagogy. In other words, teacher needs to know the right method to convey the lesson to students. According to the presenter, most experienced teacher would have known the way to get students to understand the lesson, which means they already have their way of teaching. However, novice teacher who are lacking in experience need to start digging on the pedagogy, while trying to catch up with the syllabus at the same time. Next, teacher also needs to understand students’ progress and love them. I personally think that this cannot be done in Malaysia’s context. This is because, in our typical secondary school. We have up to 30 students in a class. How do teacher pay attention to all students personally? Teacher barely have the students to pay attention, thus, how can he/she monitor students individually?

               The presenter also stated that most novice teacher are culturally shocked by the reality of being in school. They tend to expect that it would be the same as their practicum experience. However, they were shocked to see that things are not as organised/relaxed as the practicum period. The currently changed curriculum also one of the factor that keeps novice teacher from performing their best.  

WHY does this happened?

The lack of technology also contribute to novice teacher’s act. They are without doubt, technology expert. However, when they are posted to the rural area with very limited access to technology, they will be helpless. Next, moderate knowledge in teaching also affect novice teacher’s readiness on implementing 21^st century learning. This is mostly related to the content of teaching. the novice teacher needs more time to adjust themselves to the content and to do so, they need to learn from their experience. Trying to adjust the aids and students’ level of proficiency would be a big challenge for them (even when they have access to technology). Lastly, lack of material that can be used in 21^st century learning would be another problem to the novice teachers. 21^st century learning required a lot of use of technology in classroom. Thus, if the teacher are lacking of the material (or unable to create one) how is he/she going to have an effective lesson?

SOLUTION

The presenter come out with a solution to this problem. He highlighted the 3 aspects which consist of cognitive, behavioral and affective. He conducted a study which he used these 3 aspects as variables, and he found out that there are strong correlative between these 3 aspect, especially cognitive and behavior.

He concluded that the readiness of novice teacher in implementing 21^st century learning has a big impact on the lesson. If the teacher were ready and occupied with these 3 aspects (cognitive, behaviour and affective), then their lesson would be a success.

               However, the presenter also said that there are few problems, which have not been solved, and these problems greatly affect novice teachers’ readiness in implementing 21^st century learning.

1-     School system – depending on the school he/she work at. It also depends on the school environment and demands in implementing 21^st century learning

2-     The syllabus – the current syllabus mostly occupied with the demands to incorporate 21^st century learning and in the future, there are possibility it will keep on advancing

3-     Facility – The school in which the novice teacher attend might not have enough facility to implement 21^st century learning

In conclusion, from both sessions that I have attended, I gained a lot of new information, and it opens my eyes to see how important 21^st century learning to be implemented in classroom. Other than that, both sessions also made me aware of the possible challenges that I might encounter in the future as an educator.