Cellphones in Class: To ban or not to ban, that is the question.
In Larry Lui’s AP Psychology class he found a way to use powerful mobile digital tools with his students, even though their use is ban during the school day.
Northville, Michigan Level High School
Ap Psychology is a high school course I know well. My daughter is currently taking it through North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) and my son took it two years ago. Despite the online environment, the course seems “flat” to me, more of a class that is typically taught in a classroom and simply “converted” to an online format. It is little more than a recorded PowerPoint lecture and online discussion postings. Good web-based instruction requires the teacher to “re-engineer” her practice and design a course that incorporates 21st century skills and tools, as well as authentic formative assessments..
Larry Liu, in his face-to-face high school class, incorporates many of the digital tools his students use in their personal lives. He offers students an engaging way to apply their learning and “show what they know.” Liu teaches in a school where 98% of the students have personal cell phones, the majority of which can send and receive MMS (multimedia messaging service) messages. The students in his school demonstrate a high level of proficiency in both reading and math (85% and 82%, respectively). Lastly, the parents of his students tend to be at least high school graduates and a majority are college graduates.
The relatively educated population of parents and accessibility of personal mobile devices can be assumed to support his innovative approach to teaching. Liu’s practice is to have students connect and document what they see in their everyday lives outside of school to the concepts learned in class. The “documentation” is in the form of digital photos and video captured by the student’s cell phone. The students upload this content to a class Facebook group. This practice affords the learner the opportunity to apply their knowledge and to collaborate with their peers. Their classmates have the experience of affirming or challenging the connection/application, building on it to extend the learning.
Liu’s practice provides the student with meaningful and authentic learning opportunities, the learning is situated in life, not just in the classroom. The students are excited and motivated to participate. Importantly, he extends his instruction beyond the course content to lessons on digital citizenship. He helps his students to understand their digital footprint and its potential implications. Lastly, he engages in an authentic and purposeful form of formative assessment. After Liu reviews the posts his students make he can easily see any misconceptions and take corrective action. Liu does a commendable job of addressing the International Society for Technology Educators (ITSE) Nets. This activity requires reflection and collaboration, promotes good digital citizenship and gives the instructor an opportunity to gain formative assessment data.
One weakness in his practice appears to be a lack of flexibility in work product. Since the case study in Liz Kolb’s book, Cell Phones in the Classroom: A practical guide for educators, is a rather short summary, it may be that the write-up does not go into detail about the non-digital options for expression. As a parent of high school students, I understand why his approach is successful. It seems a rather brilliant practice to leverage the powerful pocket computing devices the students already own and a way to connect with them, in their preferred medium with their social networking tools. I witnessed something similar to this with my daughter’s other AP course this year, AP Art History (I know, she’s really challenging herself!). The students receive extra credit if they photograph themselves in front of certain architectural styles or features (recently it was an example of gothic architecture), these are posted to a Facebook group page. Hmm, wonder where the teacher get this idea …. Bravo!
Kolb, Liz (2011-09-01). Cell Phones in the Classroom: A practical guide for educators. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Kindle Edition.
