Lesson Study Template

PART I: BASIC INFORMATION

Lesson Topic: Information and Communication Technologies impact on society. Discipline or Field: Technology and Education Authors: Len Bogner, Evan Sveum, Kevin Olson and Pete Schlosser Lesson Site: UW-Stout Course Name: TCS-103 Communication and Information Technology Course Description: The Lesson Study was executed in section 1 of the TCS 103 Communication and
Information Technology course. This is a 3-credit course held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8:00am to 9:00am in a multi-media classroom. TCS-103 is a General Education course listed under the Technology category. Students at UW-Stout are required to take a 2 credit Technology General Education course. TCS-103 is required for majors in Information Technology Management, Technology Education and Marketing and Business Education. This Lesson Study took place in the first week of the course and fell under the course objective of describing technology and its impact on individuals and the global society.

Summary: The group came up with two learning goals for the course that fits into the larger objective of
describing technology and its impact on individuals and the global society. First, expose the students to current topics in technology and how they relate to Information and Communication Technologies and second make the student aware of how Information and Communication Technologies affect us as individuals and as a global society. The team decided to use the laptop technology provided by the university in the Lesson Study.

PART II: THE LESSON

Learning Goals: -Expose the students to current topics in technology and how they relate to Information and Communication
Technologies. -Make the student aware of how Information and Communication Technologies affect us as individuals and as a global society. The goals relate back to the course objective of describing technology and its impact on individuals and the global society.

Lesson Design:
The research lesson designed by the team is as follows: Set up to the Lesson Study is to have students use their laptops to find an article about how information and communication technologies have changed us in the class prior to the study. The students were to place their article and their source, in the drop box in Learn@UWStout, thus giving the instructor a chance to review them before the next class. Introduction to the class and the activity (3 minutes)
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Ask about problems finding articles or submitting them. Breaking the students up into groups of 3 based on their major to discuss their articles. Out of the group pick one article to share with the class as a whole. Activity Break into group and discuss (10 minutes) Have the groups present and discuss to the class (4 groups at 8 minutes each, 32 minutes total) Follow up each presentation with three questions. How does that relate to Information and Communication Technologies? How does that technology impact you as individuals? How does that technology impact everyone else in the room and in society? * Have a reflection piece. Summary (5 minutes) Information and Communication Technologies are doing more then changing the way we communicate. Topic for next class Ethics in using technology *Added after the revision step.

Rationale:
The first objective in the course is to describe technology and its impact on individuals and the global society. So in the first week of the course the instructor spends time talking about the big picture of technology, and we define what technology is. The instructor then breaks technology down in to field and then defines what Information and Communication Technologies are. In the past the students were assigned a chapter in the text to read, and a PowerPoint lecture followed but the group felt that there was a better way to illustrate this objective. We felt that we should be using the laptop technology in the class as a way to illustrate the use of Information and Communication Technologies. The team felt that by having the students use their laptops to find an article about technology and its affects on individuals and the global society, they were applying a use of the technology, which is another objective of the course. Based on what articles they submitted we felt that it would give us an understanding of how the student interpreted the assignment. As we had the students break up into groups a member of the Lesson Study group would observe them an make notes on the interactions. Then as the groups presented to the class as a whole it was hoped that through the presentation and the discussion questions that followed, evidence of learning would make itself visible.

Related Files: N/A

PART III: THE STUDY

Introduction:
Challenges and problems the group decided to investigate: -The students not reading the text and coming to class unprepared -Making sure that they understand that the laptop provided to them was to be used as a tool to help with their educational experience and not just a toy to store their music files -Having the student understand that technology has changed the way people live -Having the student understand how all technology was interrelated The group used a best practice approach in creating the research lesson. We finalized the lesson goals and created the research lesson that address the issues and problems discussed and we used techniques that we felt have been successful in past courses. We wanted to provide some hands-on activity with the laptop and
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supporting technology. And use discussion as a way to relate the students ideas and thoughts to their peers and provide reflection on the topic.

Approach:
The observers focused on several items throughout the Lesson Study. Because UW-Stout is a laptop campus they were observing how the students were using their laptops during the course. As the students broke into groups one observer took each group. They were listening for evidence of understanding the goals set out in the research lesson. What articles did they pick? Could they relate them to Information and Communications Technologies? Did they understand the affects that it has on individuals and the global society? At the same time they were observing their groups they were to take time to look around the classroom and note what they could observe from the other groups. As their group presented to the class they were to listen for the consistency in what was said in the group versus what was presented to the class. Then when their group was not presenting they were to observe the class as a whole and record their actions and words.

Findings:
The Lesson Study team came together to analyze the data (notes) collected during the research lesson. The group started by discussing their general thoughts on how the class went. Some of the themes included: -That the research lesson goals were met (because of the verbs used) -Problems with technology caused student confusion and research problems -Slow start to the class but the class warmed up and discussion did occur The team then took time to review their notes looking for specific evidence of student learning. Evidence collected included: -The articles used by the groups -The conversation moved around the room, from an individual to a group to the classroom -The students heard and commented on other articles -The discussion that follow the instructors question about the $100 laptop project from MIT -The discussion that follow after group threes article about Instant Messenger -Debate from the students about jobs leaving the USA -Level of conversation -That the conversation feed off of itself and was self-sustaining -Conversation was almost a debate at times

Conclusions:
Members of the Lesson Study team all agreed that they felt that the student learning goals were met. There was discussion about the verbs used in the goals. Exposure and awareness are not very measurable words. However, this was a 100 level introduction course and the learning goals were part of a larger course objective. The team, after revisiting the subject, believed that the verbs were appropriate. So the evidence of student learning, in the very limited scope of expose and awareness to the subject, was supported. Some of the teams members were going to develop similar activities for other courses that they taught. They felt that using this activity repeatedly in a course could be an effective instrument in showing the students how to use the laptops for research in answering questions and a way to introduce new subjects. Ideas for improvement of the Lesson Study and the research plan included: -Putting the learning goals up for the students to see -Adding a reflective piece to add to the evidence of learning -Having a plan B for when the technology fails -Make it a two-class activity giving students more time to read group members articles -Repeat the activity in the class every two to three weeks

References:
Jonassen, D.H. (2000) Operationalizing Mental Models: Strategies for Assessing Mental Models to Support
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Meaningful Learning and Design-Supportive Learning Environments. Retrieved from http://www.ittheory.com/jonassen2.htm on 12/8/04 Lesson Study Research Group, Columbia University, (2004) Retrieved 11/25/04 from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/index.html Lewis, C. (2000, April). Lesson Study: The core of Japanese professional development. Address to the Special Interest Group on Research in Mathematics Education, New Orleans, LA. Senge, Peter M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, New York: Currency Doubleday

Related Files/Study:
This Lesson Study had one more aspect to it. As part of a separate study which was looking at the Mental Models held by Instructors of Technology on Teaching and Learning the researcher was looking to see if Lesson Study could serve as an instrument of discovery. During steps three and five of the Lesson Study the instructors involved were asked to diagram their ideas on that effects teaching and learning. This second study found that by participating in the Lesson Study team the instructors changed, however slightly, their ideas on teaching and learning.

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