Technology alone won’t transform teacher to facilitator  

Technology holds part of the answer to improving teaching, but it must be combined with sharp and thoughtful changes in how teachers design curriculum and how students learn. 

 

Education leaders, principals, teachers, policy makers and researchers increasingly agree that the traditional role of the teacher must change. Having consensus both on the need for quality teachers and a new conception of the teaching role is encouraging. Unfortunately there is little agreement about the process of change or what the new teacher’s role should look like. Proponents of online and blended learning hold that providing access to technology as an equalizer for low-income students will force teachers to change how they teach and ultimately shift their role to that of facilitator, creating more efficiencies and customizing learning. For this reason, their argument appeals to districts and states.  

But the argument oversimplifies the complex process required to shift teacher roles and thus fails to acknowledge the depth of strategic thinking and careful planning that goes into the role of effective facilitator. Furthermore, the technology-as-driver-of-change argument mischaracterizes how professionals restructure their work and redefine their roles. Professional work is never fundamentally altered merely by external forces, and teacher roles won’t change by simply booting up and connecting to the Internet. Instead the new model requires empowering teachers to break out of their isolated roles and act collectively in flat organizations with strong professional communities where they can shift roles seamlessly. 

Facilitating learning 

At the eight schools profiled in Deeper Learning: How Eight Innovative Public Schools are Transforming Education in the 21st Century (New Press, 2014), teachers collectively share a vision of promoting deeper learning in all students and have collaboratively redesigned the teacher role to that of a facilitator who uses technology as a tool. As facilitators, teachers become learning strategists who constantly plan ways to enable students to master complex content knowledge and develop their critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills. In this construct, technology has a small, disruptive, yet supportive function in changing the role of teachers. Teachers in these schools recognize that only by carefully constructing learning experiences can they fully assume their role as facilitator. To do this, teachers have to return to their core role as curriculum designer of meaningful learning experiences for students that provide opportunities for them to engage in the deliberate practice of deeper learning skills. 

Teacher roles won’t change by simply booting up and connecting to the Internet. 

Rather than lecturing students and relying on outdated textbooks, teachers design assignments and activities that fully engage students and have them regularly practice higher-order skills as they develop and practice collaboration and communication. For example, Socratic seminars are the signature pedagogy for English classes at Impact Academy in Hayward, Calif. The intent is to help students develop the skills required to interpret a complex text as well as articulate a well-developed view to others. However, these teacherless conversations require extensive preparation if students are to function well on their own. As an Impact Academy teacher explained, “I am a ringmaster. My role is to frame and emphasize what we are about to do. I set it up; students do the work, analyze the work, and discuss the work . . . I channel the discussion so the students find their way. Then I provide the postanalysis . . . which prepares them to do even better the next time.”   

Teachers at other schools assume this same facilitation role when using student debates to develop students’ critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills. At High Tech High in San Diego, we saw students successfully participate in 35-minute debates with the teacher as moderator and timekeeper. Former teacher Dan Wise was strategic in designing the learning experience and scaffolding the skills the students needed. Wise first assigned students to conduct extensive background research on their chosen social issue. Next students synthesized and formulated their findings into a research brief. Then students worked in pairs to practice honing their arguments while Wise circulated the classroom, randomly sitting with students to check their understanding of the content, use of evidence, and ability to communicate their viewpoint. By structuring time for significant research and providing many opportunities for practice and feedback, Wise was a facilitator, helping students take responsibility for their own learning. Through these activities, students recognize that they aren’t just memorizing facts to be regurgitated on a test, but they’re developing carefully considered viewpoints for discussion or debate. This role of teacher as learning facilitator does not go unnoticed by the students. As a sophomore student said, “The projects are set up so that we have to do the work and research to learn what we need to know.” 

Facilitating group work 

The teachers at the schools we profiled believe students must be able to work productively in diverse teams. This requires teachers to carefully strategize about the kind of group work students will be required to do, group composition, and group dynamics.  A project is group ready when individual roles are clearly defined and students can work together productively to create a quality product. “When teachers facilitate and support group work, they need to frame the problem and help focus the direction and scaffold it but then have each other to work through their work,” said Rochester Corp. (Ind.) Supt. and former high school principal Dan Ronk. 

Collaboration at these schools is successful because of teachers’ careful attention to grouping students or developing student abilities to choose their own groups wisely. “The way to get to productive collaboration is all about how you design and put the groups together,” Wise said. A common practice by Rochester High School teachers is assigning groups for the 9th- and 10th-grade classes and then permitting greater student choice in upper grades. Rochester teachers are explicit when they describe what makes an effective group and, when they assign groups, they model for students how an effective group balances the skills and motivation of the members.  

The collaboration at these schools is successful because of teachers’ careful attention to grouping students or developing student abilities to choose their own groups wisely. 

Productive collaboration is also a result of how teachers set up the roles within the groups. Teachers carefully define what the group is expected to produce, identify the associated tasks related to the product, and then help students divide tasks and assume individual roles in the group for producing the product. Rochester students must sign a group contract that identifies each student, his or her contact information, assigned role, self-identified strengths and areas of growth, and lists the project’s goals and tasks that must be completed as a team as well as the team agreement. Teachers across these schools are continually working, as one teacher says, to “find the balance between holding onto the reins and letting the groups go.” Another teacher said, “I have to keep reminding myself that I can’t monitor every individual and group action . . . . I have to give space for the students to be productive collaborators.”   

Facilitating access to experts 

Teachers constantly work to provide students with authentic experiences outside the classroom and the school. In this role, teachers are strategically identifying and networking with professionals in the community, including cultural, educational, or government institutions. They leverage these relationships for student learning. “We’re always looking for people — people connected to the school through parents, grandparents, board members, and professionals we know. You need to know who is around and always keep your eyes peeled for what people can contribute to our students,” said Carrie Bakken, a teacher and codirector at Avalon School in St. Paul, Minn. 

MC2 Stem High School in Cleveland, Ohio, has three separate campuses. Ninth graders attend classes at the Great Lakes Science Center; 10th graders report each day to the GE International Lighting Division’s corporate campus. These sites provide exceptional opportunities for teachers to network with STEM professionals, engaging them as tutors and mentors, and arranging for students to work alongside them in their laboratories and offices. Juniors and seniors spend most of their time fulfilling internships with high-tech industrial partners and/or attending college classes. 

Teachers depend not only on scientific institutions to facilitate student learning through access to experts. Teachers from Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine, leverage expertise from local businesses and nonprofit organizations to ground student learning in field experiences and to ensure students work with professionals, including scientists from the local university, musicians, writers, historians, and outdoor education experts. At King Middle School, also in Portland, students team up with city officials and the Gulf of Maine Scientific Research Institute, a local nonprofit marine science center to brainstorm tactics to control invasive plants. The common thread is that teachers facilitate student connections with people and resources outside of school and integrate their experiences as part of learning.  

Facilitating inquiry and reflection  

Guided inquiry is the most typical facilitation strategy that these teachers use. Teachers use questioning in all aspects of their communication with students, particularly when they provide feedback on student work and engage students in reflection. Avalon teacher Kevin Ward said he most commonly plays the role of a questioner. “I am always asking to see where they are academically and personally,” Ward said. 

Instruction at these schools proceeds through a constant stream of questions from teachers, all designed to get students to reflect on their work and consider the choices they’ve made. Why did you choose this argument? How do you know this is right? What is your opinion, and what is it based upon? How did you come to your answer to the math problem? Is there a different way to solve the problem? How can you prove what you wrote? What did you predict or think was going to happen? How do you know one variable is more significant than another? What do you hope the reader takes away from your writing? Careful questioning facilitates student acquisition and synthesis of knowledge and presses students to recognize that learning requires making thoughtful choices. 

Teachers also construct formal opportunities for reflection, frequently assigning students to keep journals or post in online blogs, and through annual rituals requiring students to reflect on their academic performance and social growth before transitioning to the next level. A vivid example of how teachers promote reflection is using student-led conferences, where students — rather than the teacher — lead the discussion with their parents about their schoolwork. Teachers facilitate this opportunity for students to own their learning through their efforts before the conference as they help students identify work samples and reflect on the connection between their effort and the products’ quality.  

Students learn that reflection is a norm and value the reflective questions and conversations with teachers. A sophomore at Avalon said, “Every time I do a project, I learn more about what I want to do differently next time . . . .  You just learn to always be thinking about what you want to do next and how you can improve it.” Students at Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia, Pa., feel similarly. A sophomore student said, “Teachers always ask, ‘What could you have done better?’ So, for every project you do, you know you better be ready at the end with that answer.” Casco Bay High School biology teacher Ben Donaldson said, “It’s a running joke that the students are professional reflectors.”   

Facilitating learning through technology  

The teachers at the schools we profile embrace technology. As Rochester High biomedical science teacher Amy Blackburn said, “Students are able to get a lot more information than I can ever give them as a teacher . . . .  I want them to learn to go get it.” No longer the single source of information, teachers are freed to guide students’ learning, leveraging technology to help students access knowledge, manage their work, collaborate, communicate, and create and produce various products.  

At SLA, Rochester High, Avalon, and other such schools, students have access to a robust learning management system; they immediately go to their laptops and log on when they come to class. Students find all of the class resources for the projects and assignments on their learning management system  and can access communication tools through Google Apps for Education, which gives them a suite of free communication and collaboration tools, including gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sites. A Rochester High student proudly declared, “l have come to expect that we can do everything on the computer. We can write papers, journals, do our research, collaborate, and organize and store our work. I can also access all of this all of the time from anywhere.”   

Some of the teachers use the learning management system to facilitate discussion forums for students to post their work or collaborate with one another. But other teachers, like 10th-grade English teacher Larissa Pahmov at SLA, has students use wikispaces.com to leverage students’ desire for social networking. After reading a wide range of poems in class, teachers have students assume the role of both poet and critic or peer editor and provide a critique on wikispace.  

When beginning a new project, teachers guide students in recognizing what they’re trying to learn and then the best way to pursue their inquiry — an Internet search, library research, contact with an expert, or an interview with someone in the community. Technology helps teachers use valuable class time to work with student groups, concentrate on individuals who are struggling, and circulate around the room, asking questions and dealing with issues as they come up. “What I most like about our school now is how fluid the classroom is,” said Rochester High teacher Amy Blackburn. “Students are on the computers, they function in groups, and I am just guiding their work.”   

Conclusion 

The teachers at these schools are distinctive in the thought and creativity they put into finding ways to continually press students to deepen their learning. They are strategic in creating opportunities for students to become responsible learners developing their critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills. In breaking with the traditional role of teacher, the staff at these schools gives us a picture of what the new model of teaching and teacher leadership looks like.   

Strikingly, the teachers’ approaches defy most of the current debate about the nature of teaching. While many argue that the teaching role has to change to promote efficiency, teachers in these schools take a different view. They often describe their task as “getting out of the way” or “standing in the background.” They’re able to do that because in their master role as learning strategist they have developed rich and engaging learning experiences that allow them to assume the role of a facilitator offering support for the content knowledge and sophisticated skills they want to develop in students.  

Teachers at these schools have replaced the traditional sage-on-the-stage model that emphasizes rote learning with a flatter and more distributive organizational model. Schools have moved from teachers functioning in a traditional hierarchy to having them work as part of a community of professionals who collaboratively construct learning experiences for students. Teachers don’t act as free agents in isolated classrooms but as responsible members of a professional community who share a common vision. Operating in this collegial manner, teachers use assessments diagnostically, share their experience of what works, and facilitate and customize successful learning strategies. 

 

Citation: Martinez, M. & McGrath, D. (2014). Technology alone won’t transform teacher to facilitator. Phi Delta Kappan, 96 (1), 41-45.