Education is an essential part of being a contributing member of society and navigating one’s personal life. When thinking about school the basics come to mind: social studies, math, english, and science, but there is a myriad of things learned in the classroom that is not explicitly stated in lesson plans. For many people, the time spent in a classroom is the first experience interacting with people outside of immediate family. Students accidentally learn how to navigate social and professional situations. Adding an element of student collaboration to the classroom assists in developing these skills, but can be tricky to successfully implement in a beneficial way.

Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key : Please visit this link for more information regarding how to build a collaborative environment that is beneficial to learning.

The above linked article, written by Rebecca Alber, discusses not only the importance of students working together but how to ensure those students are benefiting from working together. One such technique that I want to highlight is the idea of modelling. Children begin modelling those around them at an early age and in many ways can become a product of their environment. If, as a teacher, you wish to see students engage with each other in a positive way that is conducive to learning – you have to do more than assign group work, you have to demonstrate for them how.

Important things to model for students, summarized:

• Listening: If you wish for students to learn from the insights of other students in the room, they have to know the difference between listening and hearing. This can be shown by actively engaging with students yourself when speaking with them, such as paraphrasing they say back to them to ensure that it was understood correctly.
• Constructive Questioning: When working with others, there will inherently be the presence of differing opinions showing students how to questions these differences in a way that builds on the information will product a more positive outcome. 
• Negotiating: Kids are not always going to agree on the way to approach a topic, teaching students how to respectfully negotiate with each other help ensure that everyone is able to present and defend their position. This will also lead to a project where everyone’s voice is present.

Naturally, there will be issues that arise in group class work but I do believe that modelling the correct behavior when working with others as a standard in your classroom will negate a majority.

The following post is related to content from the article Today’s Kids Are Inundated With Tech. When Does It Help — and Hurt? by Jeffrey R. Young. From a personal standpoint, I completely avoided being in school during the shutdown by pure coincidence. I graduated high school in 2018 and returned to Stockton in the fall semester of 2021 – right as in person classes started back up. Despite this, I still feel as though the effects of the pandemic on education can be felt. In the simplest of ways it was wearing masks to classes for the first two semesters and further it is the sharp increase of technology required to participate in class assignments. Some of the increase in tech can be attributed to the natural development of now five years passing, but it is impossible to deny that the pandemic catapulted reliance on technology.

The article linked above is part of a podcast, EdSurge, and calls upon an interview with Katie Davis. Davis is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington with 20 years of child development research under her belt. More recently that research has found itself focusing on the appropriate use of technology throughout different age groups. Her book detailing this information in depth can be purchased through Amazon here: Technology’s Child by Katie Davis.

Davis refers to the technology features that have adverse real world effects as “dark patterns”. These patterns are things that we can become familiar with and forget to question their role in children’s lives. One such pattern discussed in the interview, and subsequent article relating, is the autoplay feature on YouTube; with constant access to content with minimal effort it can be hard for a child’s mind to draw a line of when enough is enough. Even with adults, people can get sucked into rabbit holes of information and end up realizing they have spent hours consuming content mindlessly (we see this with TikTok often). Routing back to younger age groups, it is harder for them to separate the fifth video in a row from the video they started with creating difficulty around convincing the child to remove themselves from the device(s).

The above image is one that likely feels familiar to anyone looking at it, classrooms like this exist all over Stockton’s campus – students facing a screen while the professor stands behind a screen working a projector – but there are still even more technology reliant set ups; such as computer labs. In many ways this form of using technology can be very useful. For example, being able to present typed instructions takes away the need for legible hand writings and offers the option to increase font size at any given time if the need presents itself. There are also downsides such as the lack of professor to student connection, standing at the front behind a podium there is an inherent disconnect between the two. This duality is the main focus of both Davis’ research and this particular article by Young. Technology is a skill that is necessary to have in today’s world, but there is a balance that must be found to be able to use these resources for good without inflicting harm in the classroom. Students still need to know how to use a pen and pencil, how to write, how to interact face-to-face with other people, and these are things that technology simply cannot do. This is an ever evolving problem that is undoubtedly going to see a lot of regression along with the progress but watching it all unfold as we prepare to enter the classroom ourselves is an exciting and daunting task.

Follow this link for a webinar on AI in education 9/19/2023: AI Webinar