Observing behaviour in school

Mr Russell, Scottish Education Secretary, is on the record as saying that he wants to drive forward a culture change in Scottish education to ensure new technologies can be embedded into learning. He was particularly interested in ipads and androids at the time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-18081005

A more recent article in the Huffington Post by Sarah Wike Loyola pours scorn on traditional methods of teaching. "Historically, the teacher has been the omniscient presence in just about every classroom in the world. They were the only ones who possessed the all-mighty knowledge which was passed on to their yearning students." She goes over the oft repeated criticism that pupils cram facts into their short term memories to pass the exam and then quickly forget.

Ms Loyola continues: "Okay class, let's review. For thousands of years, there have generally only been two sources of knowledge in a classroom: 1) the teacher; and 2) the text book."  She suggests these sources of knowledge are going to decline in a few years because a more powerful tool for learning has arrived: the internet. Teachers will soon become facilitators -  `guides on the side`. "The hard truth is that the tech-savvy students of today do not want to be lectured to about facts they can instantly find with the click of a button on their smart phones."

All of this is supposed to lead to students who can address the big global questions like: "What is the greatest challenge facing our planet and how can we solve it?" They do this by researching the internet, thinking critically and using their creativity - which does seem a bit of a stretch.

Ms Loyola finishes off by saying: "For teachers, the hardest part is letting go of control in their classrooms."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-wike-loyola/the-most-powerful-tool-in_b_6012136.html

The Sutton Trust has recently produced a report: `What Makes Great Teaching` which casts some doubt on the views expressed by Ms Loyola. The Trust reviewed over 200 pieces of research to identify the elements of teaching with the strongest evidence of improving attainment.

The two factors with the strongest evidence of improving pupil attainment were

"teachers` content knowledge, including their ability to understand how students think about a subject and identify common misconceptions."

"quality of instruction, which includes using strategies like effective questioning and the use of assessment."

Common practices which were not supported by evidence include:

"allowing learners to discover key ideas by themselves."

http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/great-teaching/

Ms Loyola is also confused about the role of memory in learning. According to cognitive scientist, Daniel T Willingham, `memory is the residue of thought` and we actually can remember more than we realise. Implying that acquiring knowledge is a waste of time and pupils have no inner life worth enriching, is highly suspect.

http://www.aft.org//sites/default/files/periodicals/willingham_0.pdf

There is an even darker side to the imposition of technology into the classroom and that is that pupil activity can be monitored and recorded like never before. I believe it is that aspect of technology which Mr Russell and his like are really excited about. See an example below:

　
http://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/Assets/BOSS/BOSS-Webinar-Handout-10-2013.pdf