Below is a series of essays that complied together address distributed cognition and various terms such as effects with/of technology, monitoring, translation and offloading. As well, an analysis of the technologies within the classroom that contribute to the student’s learning and teacher’s teaching.
The implementation of technology is present now more than ever before. Classes are centered around this technology and for most classrooms, it is rare to find no incorporation of technology. Between both my time at Cleveland Heights-University Heights High School (CHUH) and Hathaway Brown, the presence of technology was rich in every lesson observed. Although included in different ways, it was a large focus of each class because of how it could enhance the student’s ability to learn. Distributed cognition is an idea that most individuals would claim they know the meaning of, but fail to grasp the full context of these words. Martin (2012) defines it as “it asserts that intelligence is not the sole province of the individual mind, but is distributed across multiple systems, both human and artificial” (89). While Morgan et. al (2005), concluded distributed cognition as “..a way to understand how people interact with their environment and how they can be enabled by the environment to undertake highly complex tasks that would usually be beyond the abilities of the unassisted individual” (127). Distributed cognition is the notion that an individual’s cognition is not exclusively dependent on the individual but is two dimensional. The individual’s cognition is dependent on their interactions with others and interactions with technology. Without distributed cognition, many of the developments we are witnessing in the present age would not have been possible. Through interactions with others, the distribution component emerges clearly as the collaboration aspects are evident. Allowing your individual cognition to grow through collaboration with others is a powerful technique. Additionally, interactions with technology are tremendously powerful. Technology is a tool that we, as humans, are constantly depending on. Ranging from the simple pencil and paper that have been essential tools since we entered school, to the more prevalent obvious technology such as SmartBoards, laptops, and calculators that are plentiful in classrooms today.
At CHUH, every lesson required the students to utilize their school-supplied Chromebooks to access not only the class website and an online calculator but websites that allow deep engagement with the material. For instance, one lesson deeply incorporated the usage of the website GraphingStories.com. GraphingStories.com provided videos that allowed the students to be transported to different situations with information for them to graph. These situations would not have been attainable if it wasn’t for the use of technology. Having the students view these videos and then generate graphs off of them, initiates their thinking. Engaging their thinking augments the student’s thinking helping them commit the visualizations to memory and thus moving forward their visualization ability is part of their cognition and can be utilized down the road (Salomon & Perkins, 2005). The guided graphing of a visual situation is a technology that is meant to be withdrawn. Thus, GraphingStories.com is an effect of technology (Salomon & Perkins, 2005). Through the incorporation of this website, the students connect real-world experiences to the content in class. From repeated use in class, the students begin to see the patterns form within the situations. Hence, when the videos are removed the student can still make the connections in their own experiences. As well, this deepens the understanding of the content as they reason through a problem and determine if their answer has merit based on their knowledge of patterns. This knowledge is acquired through the use and engagement of the technology. Using technology to access the website is an example of translation, which is a crucial aspect that educators should become fluent in. Translation, is how the teacher translates the information to the students to best suit the learning of the content. For example, at CHUH, having the students view videos to demonstrate situations provided the students with the best approach to comprehend the information, compared to reading words on a page that tries to convey a situation.
In Martin (2012), he discusses the concept, offloading. Offloading, in its most basic form, removes some information the students are required to know thus opening up space for them to engage with more challenging material without being impeded by information that doesn’t apply to the learning objective. If a student has trouble remembering multiplication factors, that challenge can be offloaded to a calculator, allowing the student to gain the knowledge of the current lesson. Offloading, if done correctly, can allow for deeper interaction with the content, however, if done incorrectly it can eliminate students from gaining vital knowledge. Through my observations, I have witnessed both forms of offloading. At Hathaway Brown, the students were allowed to offload the formulas for calculating sphere and cylinder areas. This required the students to focus on the objective which was being able to identify and apply these formulas in the context of a question given. Instead of spending their time memorizing a formula, that they may soon forget, they engaged with areas within the complex story problems that demanded them to extend their thinking regarding the components of the formula. However, while at CHUH, I observed a lesson where the students were encouraged to use an online website called desmos.com. This website offers numerous advantages in the classroom setting since it can generate graphs from data collections and compute rigorous calculations. Yet, the students’ usage of desmos.com was careless and it offloaded the necessary content knowledge from the student to the computation power of the software. This is an effect with technology. Effects with technology, according to Salomon & Perkins (2015), are cognitive technologies that while being used extend the cognitive ability of the students yet when the technology is removed the cognitive competence is negatively affected. Hence, the students develop a cognitive ability that is only present alongside the technology and without that certain technology assisting them throughout their education, they will be worse off. Therefore, the technology impedes the students from developing indispensable content knowledge that will be necessary moving forward into future classrooms.
Monitoring is a technique that educators use that can alter the progress of a classroom. Educators are required to monitor the progress of their students, so they are aware if they are being effective teachers. They need to be conscious of whether or not the methods they are using to articulate the information to their students is beneficial. A lesson I viewed at Hathaway Brown had the students connect with their iPads to the online eBook of their textbook, as well as record their work to the problems on a document to which the teacher had access. Since the students were working in groups, this permitted my cooperating teacher to meander around the class and engage with the students. Not only did my cooperating teacher actively monitor them in real-time by going around, and promoting mathematical discussion with abundant feedback but she also had access to their thinking following the class. Since the technology the students were working with was shared with the teacher immediately, my cooperating teacher could analyze the thoughts of her students and see where the gaps of knowledge were. Consequently, the technology being utilized in class augments the teacher’s capabilities to monitor the students in a more effective way prior to this technology. Additionally, the instantaneous aspect of the shared notes allows the students to receive increased feedback that can extend their thinking regarding the topic. Thus, she could edit her teaching process for the next class to which she would be distributing the same content. Similarly, monitoring was prevalent at CHUH. The usage of tools for the World Cafe lesson consisted of paper, markers and online calculators. Even though these tools are not typically thought of as technology they are still categorized as technologies since they extend the learner’s thinking. During this World Cafe lesson, the students were required to travel around the room in groups to stations where there would be a problem. At each station, there was a large sheet of paper and the group would have 5 minutes per station before rotating again. Upon arrival at a station, each group would have to assess the former group’s work and correct or continue their work to complete the problem. The monitoring of the class is incorporated by the tools selected by the teacher. Because each group was assigned a different colored marker, the teacher could easily, and formatively assess each group’s work and corrections based on their colored work. This use of technology allowed the teacher to assess how each group was understanding the material presented and help the teacher adjust her teachings to assist the students.
Throughout all of this analysis, the overarching question of these series of essays has been “Does technology make us smarter?” Compiling my own understanding of distributed cognition and the associated terms, informative articles, and classroom practices, my conclusion would be yes, technology does make us smarter. Distributed cognition tells us that we as individuals cannot do everything on our own so we have to rely on other means to fully increase our cognitive ability. Although with some occurrences technology may be detrimental to the advancement of student’s cognition, the benefits are far greater than any cons. Additionally, implementing technology within classroom practices only further prepares the students for the realities of the world they are going to enter. The most important feature to technology making us smarter is the notion that the technology is properly augmenting the student’s thinking and teacher’s teaching to develop long-lasting cognitive growth. Since I believe that technology makes us smarter, logic dictates that as technology becomes more advanced, the abilities of our students could be augmented even further, allowing for greater learnings and achievements that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
Bibliography
Martin, L. (2012). Connection, Translation, Off-Loading, and Monitoring: A Framework for Characterizing the Pedagogical Functions of Educational Technologies. Technology, Knowledge & Learning, 17(3), 87-107.
Morgan, M., Brickell, G., Harper, B. (2008). Applying distributed cognition theory to the redesign of the ‘Copy and Paste’ function in order to promote appropriate learning outcomes. Computers & Education, 50(1), 125-147.
Salomon, G. & Perkins, D. (2005) Do Technologies Make Us Smarter? Intellectual Amplification With, Of and Through Technology
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