Didactics of Smart Pedagogy: Smart Pedagogy for Technology Enhanced Learning

496 Pages·2019·10.11 MB·English

by  Linda Daniela

Linda Daniela Editor
Didactics
of Smart
Pedagogy
Smart Pedagogy for Technology
Enhanced Learning
Didactics of Smart Pedagogy
Linda Daniela
Editor
Didactics of Smart Pedagogy
Smart Pedagogy for Technology
Enhanced Learning
Editor
Linda Daniela
Faculty of Education, Psychology, and Art
University of Latvia
Riga, Latvia
ISBN 978-3-030-01550-3 ISBN 978-3-030-01551-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01551-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962401
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Foreword
Society is currently facing various challenges arising from the technology and the
different digital solutions which open up new opportunities; to make them meaning-
ful, however, certain competences are also needed. Education can ensure the acqui-
sition of these competences, but in order to be successful in that, educational
sciences need to transform, as it is clear that technological advancement is current
and not simply a future event.
The technology-enhanced learning (TEL) process is one of today’s topicalities,
where technology and digital solutions can be used for a variety of purposes to radi-
cally change the learning environment. However, educators are not always ready for
these challenges. On the one hand are the possibilities created by technology; on the
other, however, are the regularities of human development, which include the condi-
tions of physical development and the conditions of metacognitive development that
are essential for a human to be able to analyse information, to make responsible
decisions and to innovate. This points to the need to update the role of pedagogy so
that changes can take place in the education process. The opportunities created by
technology should be used to support individuals in the process of knowledge build-
ing through technology as a support for acquiring new competences and as a tool for
developing new knowledge while bearing in mind the risks that technology can
create and preparing future generations to mitigate these risks.
The idea of smart pedagogy introduced in this book is innovative and absolutely
necessary for further development, since pedagogy is a driving wheel for learning to
take place. The role of smart pedagogy in the context of the technology-enhanced
learning process is clearly demonstrated, and the basic principles that are essential
in the transformation of education are defined. The text defines the topical compe-
tencies needed by educators, indicates future research directions and defines the
concept of smart pedagogy.
Professor Linda Daniela together with colleagues has taken on the mission to
develop the concept of smart pedagogy. In this book, alongside the ideas developed
on smart pedagogy and smart learning, research results on technology-enhanced
learning at different levels of education are summarised, from preschool to tertiary
education. However, there is an urgent need for further development of these ideas,
v
vi Foreword
as technological progress is becoming faster day by day, and humans need to be
prepared not only as competent users of technologies but as developers of innova-
tions, too. The summarised research results shed light on the positive outcomes of
the technology-enhanced learning process and suggest the future directions in
which research needs to be developed.
For meaningful use of the technology-enhanced learning environment, the devel-
opment of smart pedagogical approaches is an absolute necessity, as they can
answer some of the questions raised by educators: How to support learning through
technologies? How to increase students’ interest in learning if it is acknowledged
that metacognition is influenced by technologies? How to use technological possi-
bilities to support students with special needs in their learning process? How to
support learning in the transformed educational space? How to ensure cybersecu-
rity? These are challenges which must be met, and future generations should also be
prepared to meet these challenges.
Riga, Latvia Ina Druviete
Preface
Why Smart Pedagogy?
With technological progress, technologies and digital solutions increasingly enter-
ing the educational environment, the attitude to technology can be characterised as
fear and fascination, where there are a number of people who believe that technolo-
gies create chaos in education, where students are not fully engaged in the learning
process and do not take responsibility for their knowledge building because they are
fully engaged with technologies which provide the possibility of reaching informa-
tion immediately. There are statements, for example, that the use of technologies
makes people lazy. Technologies are blamed for a great many of the problems we
are facing or will face in the near future: for example, technologies will take over all
the jobs; technologies reduce the ability and desire to learn; the use of technologies
reduces attention span; and so on. On the other hand, there is the effect of fascina-
tion, where technologies are assumed to be the tools which will solve all possible
problems; they will make the learning process interesting; students will become
motivated; they will ensure rapid knowledge growth and will support the sustain-
able development and the wellbeing of the society.
Like many fairy tales where the happy ending is always coming, the same is true
for technological progress. It must be admitted, though, that particular effort is
needed to ensure that everyone knows how to interact with technologies to learn and
to develop innovative solutions which will support wellbeing and sustainable devel-
opment. For education, this effort means learning how to use the technologies
meaningfully. Technologies by themselves cannot develop innovations and cannot
take decisions if they are not developed by humans (at least for the time being). This
highlights that there should be a transformed learning process which beyond the
time and space frame to support future generations in developing the competences
needed for living and working in a technology-rich environment.
It may be thought that these immeasurable possibilities of access to knowledge
and to learning content, where the human has the possibility to learn at his own pace
and learn what is needed at any moment, diminish the role of pedagogy; in reality,
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viii Preface
though, the reverse is true. The role of pedagogy becomes more important because
there is an urgent need to find ways to teach and to support learning in the trans-
formed learning environment. To support these changes, it must be acknowledged
that pedagogy should change to become smart pedagogy, which has three clear
dimensions:
1. Human developmental regularities, which include the conditions for the devel-
opment of cognitive processes, the conditions for sensory development and the
conditions for socio-emotional development
2. The taxonomy of the educational process, which includes the goals to be achieved
and the regularities of the learning process necessary to achieve these goals
3. Technological progress, which entails the need for changes in teachers’ peda-
gogical competence, one of the most important components of this competence
being predictive analytical competence
Smart pedagogy can support educators in finding the answers on how to support
learning in the transformed educational process, how to incorporate technologies
into learning to support the development of metacognition, how to support knowl-
edge building, how to support the development of digital competences and so on.
All of this indicates the necessity to ground the new direction of pedagogy, which in
this book is defined as smart pedagogy, to ensure smart use of different digital
technologies.
In the first chapter of the book, the concept of smart pedagogy is defined, and the
need for a new pedagogical direction using a technology-enhanced learning process
is outlined. The subsequent 22 chapters detail the actual competencies needed by
educators and give future directions for concept development and research. Further
publications will follow in the future.
Organisation of the Book
The book is organised into two parts where the first part is devoted to the develop-
ment of the concept of smart pedagogy with 10 chapters and the second part is
devoted to researches on technology-enhanced learning (TEL) process with 13
chapters. A brief description of each of the chapters follows.
Concept Development of Smart Pedagogy
Chapter 1 defines the idea of smart pedagogy for technology-enhanced learning,
and the author explains why the term “smart” has been chosen to define the peda-
gogical aspects of TEL. In addition, a conceptual model of the educational process
in which smart pedagogy is the driving force of technology-enhanced learning is
Preface ix
developed. There is outlined the necessity for predictive analytical competence,
which is emerging for TEL.
Chapter 2 characterises smart pedagogy (smart teaching and smart learning) in
the context of the fast-changing digital world. As part of the theoretical framework
of the text, authors refer to elements of the concept of network society by Manuel
Castells, liquid modernity by Zygmunt Bauman and mobilities paradigm by John
Urry.
Chapter 3 introduces with reality of a major paradigm shift, in the form of the
fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, that requires a rapid response through
Information 4.0. New technologies and infrastructures enable learning to be person-
alised to each individual learner. Technological objects metamorphose from tools or
environments into personified agents that help teachers evaluate the potential and
progress of each learner and might eventually decide for them.
Chapter 4 seeks to update views on didactic practices in the rapidly changing
field of education and addresses the timely problem of paradigm transition when
shifts in deliberate education have been imposed upon by at least three factors:
increased access to digital technologies in the learners’ everyday life and teaching-
learning, reform of educational content towards the acquisition of competencies
valid for the twenty-first-century social developments and, in response to these,
appropriate changes in teachers’ professional competence to maintain a learner’s
learning-centred didactics with learners.
Chapter 5 makes readers aware of cognitive development of children in different
age groups in order to offer teaching methods and tasks that can be well-perceived
by students and that foster the development of their cognitive abilities. This chapter
provides a brief overview of cognitive development of children at different school
ages, including development of executive functions and cognitive abilities, and
gives examples of how information technology tools can be effectively used for dif-
ferent age groups.
Chapter 6 focuses on the role of incentives in the new educational environments,
which are flooded by cutting-edge technology, and the value of the gamification in
learning process. Students with different learning styles, interests, motivations and
cultural background coexist in classrooms, and the multisensory approach sup-
ported by technology seems to serve the principles of differentiated instruction,
providing teachers with the opportunity to adapt the process to the needs of each
child.
Chapter 7 examines the nature of smart pedagogies and their intersection with
mobile pedagogies. Authors unpack notions of innovation and disruption. Then they
discuss smart mobile learning activities for school students identified from a sys-
tematic literature review, together with the pedagogical principles underpinning
them. They argue to encourage smart pedagogies; teacher educators should support
teachers to implement “feasible disruptions”. Consequently, implications for teacher
education are explored.
Chapter 8 attempts to analyse how art didactics and creative technologies define
a framework of active critical tasks, triggering students’ thought and artistic cre-
ation. Particular emphasis is placed on the process which is not theory but mostly
x Preface
activity. They reflect, compensate, avoid prescriptions and become hardened against
the aims of predetermined agendas. Aesthetic education shapes technique. Students,
with the help of software programmes, create and are cut off from chain reactions
that are in line with dominant cultural standards.
Chapter 9 discusses a plethora of practical suggestions which could be consid-
ered to make pedagogy smarter, more active and attractive to students while simul-
taneously being efficient and obtaining results. Authors argue that pedagogy should
not be centred only on unique and exclusive resources but ensure an articulated
relationship with other resources.
Chapter 10 provides an overview of the place and role of learning platforms in
the pedagogical process, defines the differences between learning platforms and
learning management systems and offers a toolkit for evaluating learning
platforms.
Research on Technology-Enhanced Learning Process
Chapter 11 explores the application of a new method to assess the emergence and
evolution of collective cognitive responsibility (CCR) based on peer valuation of
impactful builders in an undergraduate course. This study suggests that peer valua-
tion of students’ contributions could be one way to approximate students’ engage-
ment in CCR and potentially empower less committed participants to become
impactful builders and collaborators.
Chapter 12 presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis aiming to understand
the dimensions that make it possible to set up a smart teacher training within the
small school context. The quantitative analysis and qualitative study were carried
out to investigate the elements in the educational path that promote innovation, sus-
tainability and replicability.
Chapter 13 aims at exploring principles of teaching and learning in the context of
smart technologies. The chapter addresses the basic question: In what ways are
children empowered by the use of smart digital technologies?
Chapter 14 gives an insight into the study’s aim to explore the impact on kinder-
garten children’s mathematical competence after the implementation of a software
application for comparison, classification, one-to-one correspondence and counting
with tablet computers. The results of the study support a positive correlation between
children’s early numeracy competence and the integration of tablet computers in
teaching and learning numbers.
Chapter 15 proposes the combination of gamification with game technologies in
order to produce smart learning environments. Within that scenario one may employ
the developmental flexibility of game engines in order to achieve high-level content
delivery offered by video-game environments. This chapter presents how common
problems may be resolved via the development of media-rich smart learning envi-
ronments with the use of proprietary multimedia development environments that do
not require advanced programming experience.