VIEWS & OPINION


Intelligent textbooks - the enabler of


personalised learning? Comment by KARIN BJERDE, Head of Strategic Growth at Kognity


I’ve discussed with 400+ schools around the world how they use technology in the classroom. Most equate technology with hardware, and only after they’ve invested in, for example VR headsets, do they discuss how to incorporate it in the classroom. I believe it is far more relevant to flip the approach - determine what outcomes do you want, and then implement technology to empower this. Designed and used correctly, technology is not a threat to the classroom or


teacher - rather, it should allow teachers to focus on teaching, and students to learn. In my opinion, one of the most powerful pedagogical outcomes of technology is enhanced personalised learning. While personalised learning has long been a benchmark of quality teaching, it has often been challenging to effectively implement. This is not the fault of teachers - the expectations placed on them with growing class sizes, individual student needs, and significantly increased admin are simply too high. However, Kognity’s intelligent textbooks for GCSE have been designed with these exact issues in mind, and with a pedagogical approach to enable personalised learning.


Personalised Student Learning From a student perspective, intelligent textbooks can help create independent learners. In-class direct teaching does not always suit every child, and it’s hard to find an instructional pace which suits all students. Today’s students consume knowledge through diverse channels such as YouTube (1bn learning-related videos are watched per day). With intelligent textbooks, the interactive GCSE content (videos, animations, 3D graphs, etc.) allows students to learn theory outside the classroom in a more engaged way, at their own pace. The automated feedback intelligent textbooks provide students on their individual knowledge gaps allows them to utilise their study time effectively. Further, as Kognity’s intelligent textbooks also contain an integrated practice centre, students can continue their exam prep outside the classroom in the manner that suits them. In short - personalised learning gives students more ownership over their learning and self-assessment.


Empowering teachers I believe that technology also allows for higher levels of personalisation for teachers in a time of larger UK class sizes. While teachers have a wide skill set, adapting the teaching to support the needs and knowledge levels of 30 different students is not only difficult, it’s time consuming. Add this to an already admin-heavy task list, and it’s no wonder so many teachers significantly struggle with workload. Intelligent textbooks automatically help teachers identify the level


of understanding for each part of the syllabus, for both individual students as well as the entire class. Thereby, teachers can pinpoint exact areas where support is needed and tailor the teaching to those topics. Further, intelligent textbooks can significantly reduce the administrative burden on teachers. Through automatically corrected assignments and individual student statistics, they are able to provide a more scalable personalised learning experience, therefore reducing workload and hopefully helping to reduce the very real and prevalent issue of teacher burnout. In short - intelligent textbooks help both students and teachers with personalised learning, both inside and outside the classroom.


January 2019


Is it time to rethink computing in our


schools? Comment by DAVID WELLS, Head of Initial Teacher Education at the Cass School of Education and Communities, University of East London


It has been six years since Information and Communication Technology (ICT) was disapplied in our schools as a national curriculum subject, following the infamous “dull and boring” speech by our then Secretary of State for Education. Subsequently, for the past four years, the computing national curriculum has been in existence from Key Stage 1 to 4, as the


‘new and improved’ ICT replacement. Touted as the panacea to our withering national technological skills shortage, this curriculum shift received considerable backing and investment from both Government and leading industry figureheads. Yet arguably, children’s engagement in the subject and the consequent uptake at GCSE is not where it perhaps should be. So why is this? Why are children ‘switched off’? What is needed to encourage greater engagement in a discipline that should be viewed as exciting, fun and creative by our young people? I would argue that a ‘pedagogic shift’ would be an ideal starting


point to ‘switch on’ our pupils to computing. Subject knowledge development in teachers has been the preferred model to support change from ICT to Computing. However, what is the use in developing computing subject knowledge without adequately developing computing subject pedagogy? Computing is different to ICT, but is that seen in the pedagogical choices adopted in the subject? Too often, the answer is arguably no. Lessons frequently focus on lengthy demonstration approaches to teaching and learning that we regularly saw in ICT. Lessons are still commonly focusing on the training of skills in a particular programming package (sound familiar?). This might lead to experts in ‘Scratch’ but misses the broader concepts, learning and contextualisation required for pupils to really engage. I acknowledge the inspirational practice out there, but maybe too many computing lessons are seen as “dull and boring” in the same way that their ICT ancestors were. We need to shift from historical ‘training’ approaches in Computing to exploration, problem solving and resilience building that encompass the awe and wonder of the subject. We need to (re)inject the fun and vibrancy. We need to dispel the myth that computing is a boring, “boys only” subject. We need to demystify the perception that Computing is ‘too hard’. I believe, this would go some way to encouraging a longevity of interest from children. It would also go some way to offering creativity and challenge through pedagogy, that computing deserves in our classrooms. So what else could ‘switch on’ our pupils? We could adopt


project based approaches that allow for problems to be solved, in authentic, real life contexts that our pupils ‘get’. We properly consider the value and excitement of ‘unplugged’ and ‘away from computers’ approaches and also rousing (but accessible) technologies such as augmented reality. We stop injecting false barriers to studying computer science, such as high level maths understanding. We develop creative pedagogy with new teacher recruits through their education and training programmes. We rethink how we establish and embed effective computing in our primary schools. We make computer science attractive by considering and developing new qualifications such as game development and design. If we want computing to be a success then there are still clear problems to be solved.


www.education-today.co.uk 25


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