‘The best app is the teacher’ Introducing classroom scripts in technology‐enhanced education

Abstract

A quasi-experimental study was set up in secondary education to study the role of teachers while implementing tablet devices in science education. Three different classroom scripts that guided students and teachers' actions during the intervention on two social planes (group and classroom level) are compared. The main goal was to investigate which classroom script leads to the best results regarding progress in domain-specific knowledge and inquiry skills. Besides student achievement, students' experiences towards the role of the teacher and students' perceptions towards learning with tablets within the three conditions were investigated. In the first condition, the classroom script included learning activities that were balanced between the group and the classroom level. In the second condition, the learning activities occurred predominantly on the group level. The third condition entailed the classroom script as the control condition in which the learning activities were situated only on the classroom level, with the tablet used in a traditional way or as ‘book behind glass’. Results show that students perform better on domain-specific knowledge in the conditions where the teacher intervened on the classroom level. Regarding the acquisition of inquiry skills, students performed best in the condition where the learning activities were balanced between the group and the classroom level. Moreover, students who perceived more structure achieved better. These results indicate that the role of the teacher cannot be ignored in technology-enhanced learning. Moreover, these results seem to suggest that one of the best apps remains the teacher

From a student perspective, what constitutes a good (or less good) use of ICT in teaching?

“…Here, the teacher's role in regulating and structuring the work and the importance of giving support are emphasised. Similar conclusions are drawn by Montreux et al (2017) in their study of the implementation of tablet devices to promote student-centred learning in science education in secondary schools in Flanders. They show that students who make use of the structures offered by teachers score better on tests and that teachers are acknowledged for their interventions and support.…”

A Critical Literature Review of Perceptions of Tablets for Learning in Primary and Secondary Schools

“…Finally, Tay (2016) did not find any significant change in perceptions over 2 years of use. Concerning students' age, younger students are more positive than older students (e.g., Ferguson 2017;Montrieux et al 2017;Soffer and Yaron 2017). For gender effects, once again results are inconsistent.…”

“…Lin et al (2012) compared two modalities of collaborative concept mapping (collaborative work with one tablet for all versus one tablet per student). Finally, Montrieux et al (2017) compared three modalities of use (as a digital book, as a research tool for guided inquiry tasks, or as a research tool for unguided inquiry tasks).…”

Zooming in on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Community College Classrooms: Experiments with a Pedagogy of Place in Anthropology Courses

“…As we altered our classes during the pandemic, we explored online teaching modalities that would successfully engage students in their own education, such as flipped classrooms (McCrea 2016); participatory learning through student smartphones, webcams, and/or tablets that assist students in visualizing interactive concepts as the teacher and/or classmates explain key concepts (Montrieux, Raes, and Schellens 2017;Zou and Lambert 2017); project-based learning (Beck 2008;Sulisworo and Santyasa 2018); and cognitive scaffolding (Doo, Bonk, and Heo 2020), among others.…”