4.1 Results of Teachers’ TPACK Enactment in the Remote Schools
4.1.1 Eve’s TPACK Enactment
Born native to the rural county, Taitung, in Taiwan, Eve has devoted herself to teaching in her hometown for 15 years. She was modest and self-demanding in her teaching that she always thought she could have taught better. Although she held a rather conservative attitude toward technology, she acknowledged the values and benefits of mobile technology integration. Her school was an experimental school that offered mixed-age English classes, and each mixed-grade was divided into three levels.
There were 3 fourth graders and 4 third graders in the class the researcher observed (elementary level in the intermediate grade). The students had an English class every day, with Monday to Thursday staying in their homeroom classroom and Friday in a technology-assisted classroom with iPad instruction.
47
Student Survey
The results of student survey revealed learners’ perceptions toward teacher’
TPACK enactment. Seven elementary fourth graders provided valid responses. The mean scores and standard deviations for each question were shown in Table 4-1. The degrees of Eve’ TPACK enactment perceived by the students ranged from 3.71 (Item 10) to 6.14 (Item 7). Overall, students liked the way Eve taught English with the iPad (Item 1: M = 5.57, SD = 1.62). Item 7 ranked the highest with the second least standard deviation (M = 6.14, SD = 1.46), indicating that students strongly agreed that the tablet-based teaching stimulated their imagination. Although Item 10 received the lowest rating, it revealed the fact that mobile technology brought both interest and temptation to students that they might be distracted merely for having fun sometimes.
There were also qualitative data exhibiting students’ reasons and thoughts about why they chose certain answer to each question. Both positive and negative statements were made. Students thought technology integration was interesting and fun since they can use iPads for various purposes, for example, watching YouTube [TCK], playing different kinds of games (e.g., Kahoot!) [TPK, TPACK], and reading (e.g., Kids A-Z) [TCK]. One student even mentioned “The ways teacher Eve teaches with iPads make us know the importance of English (W-7; Survey).” However, another student (W-5) liked iPad and was interested in “playing” with it, but regarded using iPads for learning English as boring. It seemed that he was more obsessed with the device itself rather than with how Eve incorporated iPads with the content.
(1) Curious
“We can learn many things.” (W-1, W-5; Survey)
“Teacher Eve uses different ways to teach English with iPads.” (W-7; Survey)
“It makes me want to learn more about other related knowledge.” (2,
W-6; Survey)48
(2) Interesting
“It’s fun.” (W-1, W-4, W-6; Survey)
“It’s interesting.” (W-5, W-6; Survey)
“We can play Kahoot! to review what we learned.” (W-2, W-4, W-6, W-7;
Survey)
“We can use iPads to learn reading.” (W-1, W-4; Survey)
(3) Attentive“If I’m not focused, I will be scolded by teacher Eve.” (W-4; Survey)
“I’m too focused to realize it’s already break time.” (W-6; Survey)
*“I’m sometime distracted because I want to use the iPad to watch YouTube.”
(W-1, W-3; Survey)
Table 4-1
Results of Student Survey on Eve’s TPACK Enactment
(N = 7)
M SD
1. Like in general 5.57 1.62
2. Curious 3.86 1.35
3. Interesting 5.43 2.29
4. Distracted (reverse) 4.86 2.85
5. Innovative 4.29 2.75
6. Boring (reverse) 5.71 2.36
7. Imaginative 6.14 1.46
8. Attentive 4.71 2.63
9. Interested 5.29 2.06
10. Absent-minded (reverse) 3.71 2.56
Student Interview
Among the seven students, five were invited to a focus group semi-structured interview. They all had personal mobile devices (some shared one with their family members), but only used them for playing games at their free time. In regular English
49
classes, students learned vocabulary and sentences, playing games such as finding words the teacher said on the wall. In tablet-based English classes, situated in a technology-enhanced classroom, iPads were used to pursue diverse goals. For example,
Kahoot! and Quizizz served the functions of practicing, reviewing, and testing [TPK,
TPACK]. Eve taught reading with Reading A-Z either with the whole class via interactive whiteboard or made students read with their iPads individually [TPACK].Students were fond of reading books to collect points so as to decorate their robot avatars. In addition, there were other classes such as Information and Math using iPads for assessment. The tablets were placed in their homeroom classroom. If granted permission, students would use iPads to play games, watch YouTube, or do math on Junyi Academy (均一教育平台).
“We use iPads to record ... answer Kahoot! and the compass (Quizizz)” (W-1; Interview)
“We use the robot (Reading A-Z) to read what teacher Eve assigned ... use
stars to exchange things for the robot ... clothes, skin, color, rocket ... I originally wanted to buy one at 800 points[stars], but I haven’t saved it yet.”
(W-4; Interview)
Lesson Planning
Lesson plan revealed teachers’ TPACK enactment process of designing, implementing, and evaluating. Eve’s lesson plans (see Table 4-2) revealed a structural order with 2W3P (i.e., warm-up, presentation, practice, production, and wrap-up) throughout the whole unit [PK], which was consistent with her high self-assessed PK in the first interview. Technologies served the functions of presenting the learning texts or providing opportunities for students to practice and assessing learning outcomes. For example, she used interactive whiteboard to display E-book and reading app Kids A-Z [TCK]. She used Quizizz and Kahoot! Jumble to review, exercise, and test target content
50
[TCK, TPK]. Although Eve’s reflection showed that she considered adding more assessment apps such as Quizizz and Quizlet to increase practice and impression, she worried about using the iPads would make students unsettled. It would be difficult to control learning time and maintain classroom management. It appeared that Eve inclined to incorporate assessment tools all together in one class so as not to confuse the learning points. She explained when students were informed of the infusion of iPads, they seemed to be restless, and only to wait for the use of iPads. It was time-consuming and laborious to bring their attention back to the regular learning content without iPads.
Table 4-2
Summary of Eve’s Lesson Plan
Goals: Students are able to listen, speak, read, and write the target vocabulary & sentence patterns.
Students are able to understand classroom language: Pick up your ___. & Put down your ___.
Class Teaching Procedure Reflection
1 Warm-up: E-book song: What’s this?
Presentation: introduce target vocabulary &
make word cards (e.g. bag, marker) Practice: listen & show, match, frontline support Production: write the words for 3 times
Wrap-up: line up and say the words
Maybe I can change the exit game from saying the vocabulary to me into making Quizlet word card in order to avoid disorder when students waited in lines.
2 Warm-up: E-book song: What’s this?
Presentation 1: review vocabulary (e.g., eraser) Practice 1: sing together, find the words, hands up Pick up / Put down your ruler.
Presentation 2: sentence pattern: What’s this/that?
It’s a/an _____.
Practice 2: listen & show, listen & write Production: Kahoot!
Wrap-up: worksheet
With the drills of practice 1, students are familiar with the sentence pattern.
Kahoot! seems to be too easy for them.
Maybe it can be replaced with other apps such as reading sentence patterns in Quizizz to challenge them.
(continued)
51 3 Warm-up: review U4 & U5 vocabulary
Presentation 1: phonics practice Practice 1: listen & write, writing relay Presentation 2: sentence pattern: Yes, it is.
No, it’s not.
Practice 2: listen, look & say Production: A: Is this your ___?
B: Yes, it is. / No, it’s not.
Wrap-up: assignment (workbook)
Maybe I can review the vocabulary of U4 and U5 with Quizlet or Quizizz in warm-up, but it might be a risk. It is difficult to calm students down when you immediately start a class with iPads. They may play with the iPad and ask for playing more.
4 Warm-up: vocabulary quiz
Presentation: E-book song: What’s this? (TPR) Practice: review A: Is this your ___?
B: Yes, it is. / No, it’s not.
Production: (1) make sentence pattern cards (2) listen & put up cards
(3) put the object in a right position
Students tend to confuse “Yes, it is.” and
“No, it’s not,” maybe I can add exercises of reorganizing sentence pattern with Kahoot! Jumble. Besides oral practice, it would be better to increase word recognition. (Extra time for doing another Kahoot! Jumble on punctuation.) 5 Warm-up: review E-book song & dialogues
Presentation 1: phonics (/v/ vest, /w/ watch) Practice 1: make word cards, listen & show Presentation 2: E-book story
Practice 2: Q&A (Who are they? Where are they?) Production: story role-play
Wrap-up: assignment
Before group discussion (Q&A), it may be better to have a comprehension check with Quizizz immediately after reading the story. With Quizizz, students are like reading the dialogues indirectly for the second time. As a result, it may help them concentrate and deepen their impression of the details during group discussion.
6 Warm-up: review E-book song & Kahoot! Jumble Presentation: Kids A-Z (Carlos Goes to School) read & listen, say & write Practice: worksheet, listen & say & record Production: Quizizz
Wrap-up: review “I get my _____.”
Since there are many additional vocabulary in “Carlos Goes to School”, I think students should use Quizlet card to increase their impression of those words. They may be more confident and focused on the next activity.
Classroom Observation
The onsite observation revealed how teachers put their lesson plans into real practice. The researcher entered the second and last classes. The two classes had similar teaching procedure, but the content of target vocabulary and sentence pattern piled up
52
from easy to complex with purposeful repetition [PCK]. The E-book song “What’s this?”
was played every class to reinforce students’ impression. Different focuses were put, from vocabulary (Class 2) to sentence patterns (Class 6). Eve demonstrated classroom management skills by asking students to put the iPads away on the floor when they were not in use to prevent chaos [PK]. Apps were integrated into classes at diverse timings for particular reasons [TPK]. Kahoot! Jumble was utilized to measure spelling and reorganize a sentence. Although Kahoot! and Quizizz functioned as assessments,
Quizizz took advantage in showing individual progress and performance on the screen.
Eve chose Kahoot! in the second class and reserved Quizizz for the last because exercise time was less than she had expected and third graders were not familiar enough with
Quizizz [Student]. Before playing any app, students were asked to check Wi-Fi
connection [TK]. This actioned showed Eve’s attitudes toward the purpose of her mobile technology integration [Teacher]. She stressed that reviews were not merely for fun but practice, so every student should take part of it. When students were typing their names at the entry scene of Kahoot! Jumble, a YouTube song singing similar vocabulary kept them company. The songs were carefully selected to both recap previous knowledge and add related information that didn’t have time to put in the class. Even though it took her much time to look for appropriate clips, it attracted students’ attention and made them anticipate. Next, Eve would stop at each question to double-check and explain. For example, she broke vocabulary into consonants, using phonics to spell out each character. In re-teaching the unclear concepts in details, it helped increase students’confidence and willingness to continue to answer [TPACK]. Since Eve fully understood the traits and characteristics of her students [Student], she would use strategies and techniques to help students establish positive learning experience with iPads. Eve also picked a story of stationary in Reading A-Z to enable students to achieve the goal of mastering vocabulary by multiple practicing with various texts [TCK, TPK].
53