- LB1028 CIP Weller, Martin. Metaphors of ed tech. Athabasca University, 2022. 200p bibl ISBN 9781771993500 pbk, $24.99; ISBN 9781771993524 ebook, contact publisher for price.
The author, professor of educational technology in the Institute of Educational Technology at the UK Open University, developed an entertaining book on the role of metaphor in educational technology. He posits that metaphors in the relatively new field of ed tech shapes how ed tech is deployed and allows for creative planning. A journalistic metaphor founded Caulfield’s SIFT (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace) model for exploring the truth in online information. A castle metaphor describes the development of large enterprises that dominate the ed tech landscape. A rewilding metaphor for the internet promotes continual innovations. A digital mudlarking metaphor describes how ed tech practitioners gather artifacts exposed by the last tide of ed tech. The author compares blockchain to alchemy, MOOCs to newspapers, digital scholarship to liminal spaces, educators to DJs, and the Coronavirus Online Pivot to Jaws. He also explores the influences of digital resilience, learner agency, rhizomatic learning, and the asynchronous lecture on current learning and teaching. Weller counsels that one should treat ed tech implementation as a research project, question metaphors, focus on achievable goals within a year, address sustainability and reproducibility, and give learners and educators agency.
2. LB1028 MARC Baker, Nicholas M. Virtual K-8 teaching: handbook for building productive teacher-student relationships. Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. 158p bibl index ISBN 9781475871098, $90.00; ISBN 9781475871104 pbk, $28.00; ISBN 9781475871111 ebook, contact publisher for price.
The author, a 3-year teacher in a brick-and mortar school, a 20-year virtual educator, and a recent graduate of a virtual doctoral program, recognizes that over one million K-12 students are enrolled in virtual academies, many states are requiring school districts to offer at least one virtual course, and that there has been little research on K-12 virtual instruction. His research includes case studies of educators teaching in virtual classrooms in a professional development (PD) group and their observations on increasing student engagement, decreasing the transactional distance between the learner and teacher, strengthening teacher presence and the student sense of belonging, building an educational community, and learning from the life stories of individual learners. Student engagement is considered from behavioral, cognitive, and emotional perspectives and nurtured through student-teacher relationships. The PD group suggests the use of individual breakout virtual rooms, saying hello to individuals on the screen, and lots of time for group interactions to reduce transactional distance. Teacher presence may be enhanced through the use of the chat function, assuring that the learners feel safe in the educational community, and learning from student triumphs and from those who didn’t succeed.
3. Q181 MARC Wong, Ovid K. The game changer: the next generation science educators today. Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.
Dr. Wong, Science Educator, Benedictine University, provides a historical review of national science initiatives since Sputnik in 1957 to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in 2013. He examines qualitative and quantitative investigations of science education challenges in the context of education general issues and goals. He describes how examining the science literacy measures in the National Assessment of Education Progress, the Program for International Student Assessment, and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, may lead to curricular change. Recognizing that the NGSS is a major game changer in science education, even with possible re-interpretations by local and state curriculum developers, he discusses the influences of social-emotional learning, teacher-centered and student-centered philosophies, and the contemporary landscape of science. From the foundation of major science discoveries and technologies in the last 500 years, Dr. Wong examines the major divisions in science in schools. He concludes with ideas on curriculum development for science education – the importance of starting with what the learner knows, defining learning outcomes, reliance on conceptual learning and teaching, experience to practice these concepts, and the appropriate uses of technology as a tool for learning and teaching. (reviewed 090823)
4. LB3061 CIP Domina, Thurston. Schooled and sorted: how educational categories create inequality, by Thurston Domina, Andrew M. Penner, and Emily K. Penner. ISBN 9780871540003
Professor Domina (UNC, Chapel Hill) and Professors Penners (UC, Irvine) discuss how schools enact inequality through the uses of categorizations by school placements, performances on state tests, grade levels, language learning, technical skills or college bound curriculum, after-school activities, and social categories. Recognizing the sorting power within US schooling for individual social development, communal identity formations, the separation into societal classes by educational attainment in specific educational settings, conformity and the suppression of differences while shaping collective norms and values, the authors offer other national models that support private educational providers, charter schools, categorical mutability, and choice-based school reforms. They overview how US society has contested the boundaries of citizenship through schooling for women, students of color, English language learners, undocumented students and families, and diversely skills students. The grammar of schooling – how courses and curriculum are developed, grades and tracking, the definitions of merit, the business structure, the logic of education – are seen as categories of inequity that have lifelong impacts. They conclude with ten guidelines for making schooling more equitable, believing that better schools will “more compassionately balance the goals of efficiency, self-actualization, and solidarity.” (reviewed 101123).
5. LB1028 Feldman, Allan. Dialogic collaborative action research in science education: collaborative conversations for improving science teaching and learning, by Allan Feldman et al. Routledge, 2023.
The authors, internationally diverse members of a Dialogic Collaborative Action Research (D-CAR) group, go beyond action research to discuss how D-CAR might be used to explore wicked problems in science education by creating, implementing, and engaging learning communities. They find that D-CAR “differs from conventional forms of active research by putting the importance of conversation and dialogue among the group’s members in the forefront”. Recommendations on resolving two types of wicked problems – one related to science, technology, or engineering issues and the other type being the problems science teachers face in schools – via D-CAR are based on the authors’ experiences in K-12 schools and efforts to go beyond normal teaching practices. They encourage the use of student voice in research, the Compliment-Connect-Comment-Question and Thoughts, Lingering Questions, and Epiphanies methods to expand student engagement, and facilitators and critical friends to bring outside perspectives to the group. The text concludes with advice on extending the D-CAR’s conversation for professional, personal, and political purposes, case studies on D-CAR applications in several nations, and the hope that D-CAR will be used by science teachers, science teacher educators, and others throughout the world. reviewed 11/20/23
writings by David Stoloff starting Feb 2011 