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T3 - Teaching to Teach with Technology project

21 一月, 2016 - 14:46

In a recent review-article Selfton-Green (2006) has discussed different definitions of formal and informal learning linked to the context of learning. Both trainers and students have rules, strategies and learning patterns that differ according to age. Therefore, it is crucial to identify strategies of using technology that will be appropriate and consistent with the target of the intervention, in order to produce effective teaching strategies and be able to stimulate a real path of “active processing” of information. In this respect, it is known that the use of serious games is particularly appropriate for young people, but the use of new technologies is difficult in formal learning contexts, with mature individuals accustomed to different types of training.

Against this background, the “Teaching to Teach with Technology (T3)” project designed and validated an innovative teacher/trainer program, demonstrating realistic ways of exploiting advanced techniques within the real constraints facing teachers in their work.

In particular, the “Teaching to Teach with Technology (T3)” project promotes the use of advanced learning technology by:

  • university teaching staff in Spain;
  • secondary school teachers in UK;
  • trainers involved in VET in Italy.

The Project started in December 2009 and was organized into work packages. The milestone of the project were: Needs Analysis; Selection of technologies; Methodology and Learning program; Testing, Trials of the Training Programme, production of guide-lines for games use.

Key features of the program included:

  • theoretical classes discussing the features and advantage of the new technologies;
  • practical workshops, in which learners (university teaching staff, teachers and trainers) simulate learning sessions and familiarize with technologies;
  • project work, in which learners prepare learning projects for use in their own classes, implement the project, and evaluate the results;
  • joint assessment of the results by participants in the program.

The final output of the project is a set of freely available tools, designed to encourage the uptake of new learning technologies to employ in universities, schools and professional training.

The principle underlying the definition of learning we have proposed is the classic learning by doing. It’s important to underline that before games can take on a meaningful role in formal or informal education, the education sector and the wider public need to better understand the potential and diversity of such ‘tools’. In fact, Blunt (2007) advocates that pedagogical methods are typically influenced by the available technologies of the period. Due to the pervasiveness and evolution of technology, students often learn differently from how their educators learnt.

Both psychological and educational literature stressed that the real context, which takes place in the educational relationship, plays a key role in the choice of methods and processes that involve the teaching-learning process. The different learning contexts, in fact, need and use different means of transferring knowledge and they need to be calibrated on partners, setting, and real or virtual places.

For these reasons, T3 project defined different steps of exploring games for educators (for more detailes see ). Through the exploration of few steps, the user may initially familiarize with the use of games in education and, then, he can learn to use them in order to increase complexity ranging from a closed mode to an open mode using.

The closed and open system definition aims at representing a training strategy based on instructions, closed systems, or on a more constructivist strategy (open systems). From a technological point of view, the new learning technologies (Miglino, Rega, Nigrelli, 2010) can be distinguished in: closed systems (tools and platforms developed by professionals which deal with a particular subject area and can be used for educational / training purpose), and open systems (tools and platforms that enable teachers to realize learning environments).

The training program proposes three steps (Sica, Nigrelli, Rega, & Miglino, 2011): 1. Try sample curriculum; 2. Create your curriculum; 3. Try it in classroom (Fig. : The training steps of T3 project).

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Figure 6.2 The training steps of T3 project 

A review of the DGBL (digital game-based learning) literature shows that, in general,educators have adopted three approaches for integrating ga mes into the learning process: students build games from scratch; educators and/or developers build educational games from scratch to teach students; integration of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games into the classroom. According to Van Eck (2006), we assume that this approach to DGBL is the most promising in the short term because of its practicality and efficacy and in the long term because of its potential to generate the evidence and support we need to entice game companies to begin developing serious games. This approach involves taking existing games, not necessarily developed as learning games, and using them in the classroom.

The strategies and functions of technology selected were: a. experimenting; b. experiencing soft skills; c. exploring.

a. The “demonstration-experiment” as a teaching strategy is one of the most popular and traditional strategy used by teachers. Perform laboratory experiments is, in fact, the core teaching of many disciplines.

b. “Learning by experience” is a fundamental model and it is referenced in literature pertaining to “the learning organization”. This form of learning has the following characteristics: it is an explicit learning focused on the working environment; it is both individual and collective; it is focused not on knowledge, but on skills, attitudes and expertise; the learner has an active role and consciously learns though collaboration with others and under the guidance of experts in safe environments.

c. “exploring” is an innate human propensity to experience the environments in which they are to act. Many educational practices used to explore this tendency to transfer their skills and knowledge. The adventure games are transpositions in technological environment of this type of educational practice.

In light of these considerations, we considered appropriate to calibrate the choice of technologies to be tested taking into account a combination of factors: learning environments, characteristics of the trainers to be trained and subject matter. The learning process is highly dependent on the direct participation within a specific activity. This implies that very little learning is achieved in the traditional sense of the term.

The different learning contexts, as stressed above, need different means of transferring knowledge and they need to be calibrated on: partners, setting, and real or virtual places. Both trainers and students have also rules, strategies and learning patterns that differ according to age (as cognitive and psycho-social development; eg "digital nativ es" vs. "digital immigrants"). Therefore, it is crucial to identify strategies of using technology that will be appropriate and consistent with the target of the intervention, in order to produce effective teaching strategies and able to stimulate a real path of “active processing” of information.

Figure 6.3 summarizes the process that led to selection of technologies.

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Figure 6.3 Step for selection of technologies 

Figure 6.4 summarizes the work of classification and identification of learning technologies carried out within the T3 project (Miglino, Rega, & Nigrelli, 2010) and it reports some examples of systems and prototypes that can be used as example of the following categories.

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Figure 6.4 Classification scheme of learning technologies (examples in each category) (Miglino, Rega, & Nigrelli, 2010) 

For easier reading of the table , Miglino, Rega, and Nigrelli (2010) deepen the description of the technology by splitting the table into three quadrants.

Quadrant 1. Experimenting (Figure 6.5)

Experiments are the core of many disciplines. The design of an experimental session goes in parallel with the assimilation of a body of theory that explains the general generative mechanisms of a given phenomenon. The correct understanding of the theory should lead to a forecast of empirically observable behaviors.

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Figure 6.5 Experimenting 

This methodology can be applied in different teaching and learning contexts. These software packages fall into the category of closed systems as a focus in the reproduction of a very specific "piece of reality“. In addition, to use virtual labs, teachers and students can create their own artificial models of several phenomena. There are programming suites that allow the development of computer simulations (Miglino, Gigliotta, Ponticorvo, & Nolfi, 2007) and physical machines (e.g. robots), even to those people who don’t have a sounding background in technical computing.

By using such, so-called, open systems, teachers and students can easily reproduce natural , psychological and social events.

Quadrant 2. Experiecing soft skills (Figure 6.6)

In addition to the theoretical and technical education, training agencies are also in charge of transferring to students a set of behavioral skills that are a necessary background to deal with professional communities and society. Examples of such skills (commonly referred to as soft skills) are the ability to manage emergencies, the ability to negotiate, to take decisions collectively, the attitude to understand others’ view points. In general, the teaching of soft skills is primarily linked to experience, where a teacher organizes, supervises and encourages small groups of learners to take part in role playing and simulation. Es. Palma(Gigliotta, Miglino, & Parisi, 2007).

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Figure 6.6 Experiecing soft skills 

Most of these techniques for learning soft skills can be transferred in digital platforms and online technologies. There are many different educational games (serious games) in which the player-learner has a particular role and must pursue a goal assigned by the teacher / trainer. Also for this category, trainers can find games that are dedicated to the transfer of a particular segment of knowledge / skills (closed systems) and platforms that enable teachers and learners to develop and edit their own educational scenarios with specific goals (open systems).

Quadrant 3. Exploring (Figure 6.7)

Basically, learning and exploring can be considered two sides of same coin. Teach and train mean mainly supply schemes (and motivation) to better "tra vel" in the world where people are living.

Many educational and training practices exploit the exploratory instinct of people to transfer knowledge and skills. Perhaps the best known example of this paradigma is represented by the many versions of the educational treasure hunt.

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Figure 6.7 Exploring 

According to T3 results, one of the most promising platform in this sense is EUTOPIA.