Developing critical thinking using the SAMR model

Diana Wilkes
One of the things that I’ve been facilitating in the schools has been the SAMR model. It was created by Dr Puentedura and it involves shifting the teachers skills and ability from using ICTs, to enhance the learning through substitution and augmentation, to transforming the learning in their classrooms by modifying and redesigning the tasks. It’s a really important framework that the teachers can use to help them identify the level that the tools they are using are at, and make sure that they’re making the smartest choices that they can make for the learning of their students.

Lyn Gordon
We had not heard of the SAMR model before our professional development. Our teachers were using ICT as a substitution only.

Mandy Bason
I initially thought blended e-learning was things like getting a digital camera, taking photos around the class and putting them up on the wall. Or having the computers sitting there and getting the kids to play a game. That’s the extent of really what I thought blended e-learning, well e-learning in the classroom would look like.

Diana Wilkes
So in working in the different schools, what I was coming to understand was that a lot of the teachers weren’t aware of the SAMR model, and they really needed a framework from which to work from. And what the SAMR model did was it really heightened their awareness around the potential for technologies to support their critical thinking.

Ngaire Takerei
Professional learning that we’ve had, and particularly putting it against the SAMR model, has just really given it a framework, an umbrella. It gives me as a teacher a guideline, or, you know, a road map of where to go to and how to navigate new learning experiences for the children.

Mandy Bason
We reflected on the practice that we were doing currently in the classroom, and it was really interesting because a lot of the things that we were doing, we were at the very basic, bottom end of the scale, the substitution and the augmentation stages.

Diana Wilkes
There’s always a time and a place for using technology as a substitution tool but it’s really important for the teachers to recognise the potential of digital technologies to move the students to being more critical thinkers, and creators of content, and working in a collaborative space together.

Ngaire Takerei
By using the Google presentations where they are all able to contribute, where they can feedback to each other, they can comment to each others work, I can comment on their work, they can work from it at home, they can work at different times, which they liked, that made it different to just being a glorified Powerpoint or keynote.

Student
Our teacher comments on our projects so that we know what we can work on to make it better.

Diana Wilkes
During some of our sessions together the teachers were asked to explore some different web tools and some iPad applications in the context of a session, for example, on engaging reluctant writers. In that session teachers would explore some different tools like Little Bird Tales, Story Bird, blogs, and then once they’d had an opportunity to learn what the tool could be used for, they would then embark in a dialogue with their colleagues around where they felt that tool fell on the SAMR model. S

o they were able to determine the difference between enhancing learning and transforming learning, and we had some really good conversations because some of the tools can fall in multiple levels of the model depending on how it’s used.

So a discussion that I remember was around blogging and how if the students were using the blog just as a place to, like as repository for their learning that was merely an augmentation tool. However, if they used it to communicate, and bridge the gap between the home and the school, and to share out with the world, and build in a feedback loop, that was really a redefinition tool. So that was all learning that came from the workshops that we did together.

Student
We’ve been using the Kid Blog quite a lot in our writing.

Student
Like things that we’ve done and then we have to write a brainstorm about them. Like, once people comment on what we’ve written and not stuff like this now, they can comment and we can go on and see if they’ve, like, what they’ve thought about it and what they’ve written about it. And if they think it’s like good they can, yeah.

Diana Wilkes
Across the three terms the teachers inquiries changed from selecting substitution tools to using tools like blogging, or Little Bird Tales that were moving them up to the modification and redefinition levels of the model, and it’s had quite profound impact on the teachers e-capability and on their confidence in using the tools in their classroom.

Mandy Bason
When I do my planning, my long term planning, I think of how I’m going to get the kids to integrate the programmes, like Little Bird Tales, or Educreations, or whatever the tool is I plan for that, even in my daily, weekly planning with for example maths. Instead of just worksheets and activities, I get them to show their learning through Educreations, show me how you know the number pairs to ten, explain it, and then we’ve got it, and we can share it at home, which is just great because the parents love seeing their learning online.

Student
Technology has helped my learning because I’ve learnt a lot more and it’s a lot more fun because we get to watch movies for writing, and then make different endings, or explain what’s happening, or how the character is feeling.

Lyn Gordon
Long term for Brookby School, we really, really want to make sure that we scaffold our staff to embed e-learning into their classroom practice. For teachers to have that critical thinking about the actual purpose of what they’re using it for.

Mandy Bason
Now after the learning that we’ve had around the SAMR model, I see that blended e-learning is integrated into everything you do. It’s not an additional part that you do separately as ICT. It’s another way for the children to show their learning and to share their learning.