"Augmenting" Reality: Using SAMR to Help Evolve Teacher Practice with References and Technology

Assignment 2: Collaborate with a Teacher and Evolve their Practice

Library use is important to making sure that information is delivered to students and students have the opportunity to find materials that work for them. However, adjusting a teacher’s practice on how they approach reference services can be difficult for a number of reasons. Teachers can be used to doing things certain ways, have a specific way of using reference materials, or be too busy to consider the reference services at all. In order to help improve my colleagues’ interaction with the references, and technology, at my school, I hope to meet them where they are at and demonstrate that simple adjustments can be useful for their students and their practice. While both the Concerns-Based Approach and the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Models (SAMR) have their validity, I connected more to the concrete nature of the SAMR and I could easily see myself putting it into practice. I also appreciated SAMR’s approach to incorporating technology into the teacher’s practice. Overall, the main focus of this technical essay is to influence my colleagues to approach reference services and texts from where they are skills-wise and pedagogically and help them learn how to incorporate them in a new way. In order to do this, one must reflect on where they currently are with reference usage. Two teachers’, Mr. Aloysious and Mrs. Sharon, classrooms and lessons will be examined in order to improve their interaction with reference services and technology.  

Mr. Aloysious – High School Social Studies Teacher

Mr. Aloysious is a veteran teacher currently teaching his 28 students about WWI in Social Studies 11 (according to the 2005 curricular documents). Mr. Aloysious wants his students to study some of the major battles that Canada participated in during WWI. This teacher is conducting an eighty minute class where he will complete the lesson attached and students will summarize their findings in a table (also attached). After the table is completed, the class will discuss their findings in order for all students to have the same information in their tables. Mr. Aloysious generally has students use their textbook and his power point lectures to complete the table.

Mr. Aloysious Social Studies 11 WWI Battles Lesson

WWI Battles Student Chart - Mr. Aloysious Lesson

Right now, Mr. Aloysious is on the “Substitution” phase of the SAMR Model. The way that notes are delivered is through technology and power point, but there is nothing novel that students cannot find in their textbooks. Secondly, students are working on a worksheet that they will submit at the end of class. As a veteran teacher it may be difficult for him to change his pedagogy and method of teaching. But, with help from a Teacher Librarian Mr. Aloysious could move to the “Augmentation” or even “Modification” stage by adapting this lesson to incorporate online databases or encyclopedias like Canadian Encyclopedia. It could take more class time, but having students explore Canadian Encyclopedia (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/) or an online resource like the Canadian War Museum website (http://www.warmuseum.ca/) and then create podcasts highlighting the information they have found or role playing interviewing soldiers from those battles would transform the resources from rote copy and paste to a way that the information is transformed and technology is incorporated into their representation of the information. This lesson could be changed to something that students work on continuously over the WWI unit so that they create interviews that eventually include information from the unit and demonstrate many different curricular outcomes. The goal for Mr. Aloysious is to help him move from the “transformation” stage to the “enhancement” stage (Hilton, 69). Ideally, Mr. Aloysious would have access to a Chromebook cart for students to use, so that technology integration would be smooth and not forced. However, we must acknowledge that access to technology is not always possible. In this circumstance, students could be encouraged to bring their own device.

Mr. Aloysious, the TL, and students could consider using:

•          Gale Canada In Context https://www.gale.com/c/canada-in-context
•          Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/
•       World Book Timelines https://www.worldbookonline.com/wbtimelines/home?gr=Welcome+S+J+Willis+Educational+Centre%21
•          Websites, specifically The Canadian War Museum http://www.warmuseum.ca/
•           Audacity or Garage Band - use this software to have students record podcasts

Mrs. Sharon – High School English Teacher

In her English 10 class of 24 students Mrs. Sharon is teaching a unit on informational texts. At this point in the unit, students are examining advertisements. Mrs. Sharon is progressive in her teaching style. She has only been teaching for five years and she is good at incorporating technology into her teaching practice because she has used technology all of her life. Currently, her classroom has a set of Chromebooks and her students blog their assignments regularly. At this point in the unit Mrs. Sharon is exploring advertisements and will summarize her unit by having students create their own advertisements that will be shared on their blog.

Mrs. Sharon English 10 Advertisement Lesson

Analyzing Advertisements Student Handout

According to the SAMR Model, Mrs. Sharon is achieving a good balance of technology and reference materials. She incorporates technology easily into her lessons and has students regularly accomplishing, “Common classroom tasks… through the use of computer technology” (SAMR Model). Currently, Mrs. Sharon is hovering around the “Augmentation” and “Modification” area of the SAMR Model. In order to elevate her practice, it would be helpful to have Mrs. Sharon adjust her practice and this particular unit to incorporate technology so that students are moving beyond just posting regularly to a blog, but rather using the blog as a platform to present information to audiences beyond their classroom. Perhaps students could seek out products in their community that require a new type of advertisement and create videos, print/digital advertisements, or even a focus group that could help the local entrepreneurs sell their product. In order to elevate her practice and the students’ use of reference services and technology students could use Web 2.0 tools (Riedling, 119) and other technology such as:

•          CBC Archives – to view and listen to old advertisements http://www.cbc.ca/archives/
•           EBSCO – to view and research effective marketing skills http://search.ebscohost.com/
•           Video recording software – to record their new advertisements (smart phones)
•           Social Media – view different current advertisements on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram where much of the current advertising occurs. If appropriate, students could go further and promote the products on social media accounts and see how much traction they could get on social media promoting a product for free or nearly free.

Conclusion

The first thing that needs to be addressed with influencing a colleagues’ behaviour, and subsequently, their practice related to reference materials and technology, comes from the basis of a good relationship and the reassurance that you do not see anything wrong with what they are currently doing in the classroom. The biggest thing I would want to avoid when I am collaborating with a colleague is to offend them. However, you need to work to enlighten them to an idea or area they may not have been aware of and make the transition and impact of the new resource or practice as seamless and least time-consuming as possible. If people are under the impression that it will take a long time, they will not commit to it. Overall, if they incorporate one new aspect and change their practice slightly to make something more interesting and relatable for students, then we, as Teacher Librarians, have helped. In Hilton's article some good questions to have teachers and TLs ask when trying to move between steps in SMAR are outlined below. With the two teachers and two lessons described, there are many different ways that things can be adjusted, but given the amount of time we usually have to collaborate and the prevalence of technology in our students’ hands and classrooms, we need to think about how we can change things slightly so that teachers will return to collaborate with us again. 

Puentedura's Questions from Hilton's Case Study Article (http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2013/10/25/SAMRAContextualizedIntroduction.pdf)

References

Asselin, M., Branch, J., & Oberg, D., (Eds). Achieving information literacy: Standards for

            school library programs in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian School Library Association

            & The Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada.

Canadian Libraries Association. Leading learning: Standards of practice for school library

            learning commons in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Libraries Association.

Hilton, Jason Theodore. (2016) A Case Study of the Application of SAMR and TPACK for

            Reflection on Technology Integration into Two Social Studies Classrooms, The Social

            Studies, 107(2), 68-73.

Puentedura, Ruben. SAMR: A Contextualized Introduction 2013.

            http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/000112. html

Riedling, Ann, Reference skills for the school library media specialist: Tools and tips,

            (Third Edition). Linworth.

“SAMR Model - Technology Is Learning.” Technology is Learning,

            sites.google.com/a/msad60.org/technology-is-learning/samr-model.