Pedagogy before choice of technology

With so many digital tools available, it is easy to be led by the features of a particular piece of technology. This leads to a fragmented approach to technology integration, where technology is selected and changed quickly, based on trends.

The way to avoided a fragmented, trend-led approach to tech integration is to start with the desired outcomes. These will be based in pedagogy. Pedagogy can be explained as our philosophy of teaching.

In her book, 'From EdTech to PedTech', Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith points out that there is no one correct pedagogy. Our philosophy of teaching will be shaped by on our personality, experience, strengths, world views, subject specialisms an the setting in which we work. English or Humanities teachers might spend a lot of time developing children's oracy skills, whereas Maths teachers might spend more time developing children's ability to work methodically and follow procedures. Teachers in schools with access to local history might value research skills highly, teachers in schools with strong and diverse local communities might promote collaboration, debate and acceptance of different points of view.

Common pedagogies

This is not to say that there are no universal, valued aspects of teaching pedagogy. Some of these universally valued aims might include:

• High academic standards and achievement

• Inclusion

• Developing curiosity and interests

• Meaningful outcomes

• Independence

• Agency and ownership

• Collaboration

• Participation

• Accuracy of measurement

• Assessment for learning

• Adaptive teaching

• Design and opportunities for creativity

• Digital and A.I. literacy

Professor Barak Rosenshine explained ten well-referenced 'Principles of Instruction'. These are well explored by Tom Sherrington, in his books including 'The Learning Rainforest' and 'Rosenshine's Principles in Action'. Rosenshine's principles identified the instructional principles that the most effective teachers do in their lessons. These are:

• Beginning a lessons with a review of previous learning

• Presenting new material in small steps with student practice after each step

• Asking a large number of questions and checking for understanding

• Providing models of worked out problems

• Guiding students in their practice

• Checking the responses of all students for understanding

• Obtaining a high success rate

• Providing scaffolds for difficult tasks

• Requiring and monitoring independent practice

• Engaging students in a monthly review

Other commonly held pedagogies might come from Vygotsky's 'Zone of Proximal development', where we teach children according to what they can do with guidance and support, or Piaget's stages of development theory, which recognise the way that children of different age groups experience, process and use information in their own expression.

Facilitating pedagogy through use of technology

Establishing the aims of a school, department or year group and choosing aspects of pedagogy to focus on will lead to strategic and impactful choice of technology. It will mean that whatever other technologies become available, schools will be secure in the platforms that they have chosen, which accomplish their pedagogical goals.

The table below matches pedagogical views with possible solutions base don use of technology:

Pedagogical view Facilitated by

Academic excellence Examples shared through Google Classroom

Instructional teacher videos

Meaningful outcomes Children using Google vids to create work for an audience, Google Sites to contribute to websites

Accurate measurement Use of data collection equipment (cameras in sport, Lego Spike Prime data

loggers, Sparkvue data loggers, Sphero robot data collection)

Participation Different types of participation through polling, word clouds etc. though platforms including Quizizz and Padlet

Questioning Regular questioning and analysis of answers using Quizizz, Kahoot etc.

Obtaining high success rate Use of platforms such as Canva that give children success in creating high-quality work

Through thinking in terms of pedagogy, I have become confident in choosing educational technology, seeing the results in the classroom. Investment in time spend discussing shared and individual pedagogies is time well-spent, at department, year group level and whole school level, ultimately leading to teachers who are secure in using the technology available and value the place of technology in their lessons.