Blog Post #2

It seems like for many years, education has become a place for rote memorization, skill drills, and regurgitation of material.  The tests that students have to take in order to graduate seem to only focus on the drill and skill of the concepts instead of going farther with the material and determining if students actually understand the concept on a deeper level.  Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) or Authentic Instruction and Assessment aims to change that standard in the classroom.  With Authentic Intellectual Work, students are going past the point of memorizing a concept and regurgitating what they have learned.  Students are tasked with using what they are learning in a way that could be used by adults in different fields.  They are learning how to use what they are learning in a way that will help them to succeed in future careers.  Students are using the knowledge that they are learning in a way that requires the application of the concepts they learn and challenges them to use their knowledge in new and different ways.  With AIW, students are seeing the value of the concepts beyond the classroom and beyond school.  There are three components of Authentic Intellectual Work-construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond school.  To meet the construction of knowledge component, students are tasked with using their knowledge of different topics to create a solution to a problem that cannot be solved in the same sense as the traditional skill drills that they may be used to in the classroom.  To fulfill the disciplined inquiry, students use their prior knowledge base, their in-depth understanding of their knowledge, and their communication skills to work on the problem at hand.  Lastly, for a task to be considered Authentic Intellectual Work, the task must have some type of value beyond school.  The task should have some type of value other than needing to know the skills in order to pass the course (Newmann et al, 2007).   In mathematics, using Authentic Intellectual Work means going beyond just solving a problem.  It means having students complete tasks where they need to determine what concepts they need to use to solve the problem and what information is relevant to being able to solve the problem.  Students should be exposed to tasks that involve situations that occur outside the classroom, in the real world,  and that need to be mathematized to solve before taking the solution back to the real world.

I can see many opportunities to use technology integration to help create authentic tasks in the classroom.  For example, in the mathematics classroom, technology can be used as a way to find a data source when discussing statistics.  Technology can be used to find data that students find relevant to themselves and what they find interesting.  Also, technology can be used to collaborate with others from around the world.  If a student has an interest in a career outside of the location, they may be able to find someone that is willing to discuss that career with them over the Internet.  Students are even able to create presentations or projects that include multimedia that can be created through the use of technology.  One example of using the Universal Design for Learning would be to have students create a bridge that could withstand a certain weight, while also meeting other criteria such as length, width, height, etc.  At the beginning of the lesson, students could be introduced to what goes into planning a bridge through videos, online simulations, etc.  From there students could create their bridges while also reflecting on the task in various ways, through a written paper, video, etc.  Students could even take on different roles through the project such as engineer, concerned citizen, reporter, etc.  This type of task would create an environment where students would see that what they are learning can actually be used in the world outside the classroom walls and that what they are learning has an impact on their future (Office of Educational Technology, 2017).

I can see many connections between Kolb’s Triple E Framework and Authentic Intellectual Work.  Both of these frameworks are focused on creating an environment that goes beyond the classroom and creates an environment where students are working on meaningful tasks.  Both frameworks set it up so that students are working on authentic tasks that are value based.  In the Triple E Framework, this happens in the Enhancement and Extension components and in the AIW this is most of the framework but specifically in the value beyond school component.  In the example provided above, students are taking part in all of the components of the Triple E Framework.  They are being engaged by the problem itself and developing a bridge that can hold the most weight.  The task is enhanced by creating a situation that goes beyond the classroom.  Students are able to use technology to help them discover a different way to build the bridge and to simulate building bridges in activities such as the one found at https://www.mortgagecalculator.org/money-games/construct-a-bridge/ (Kolb, 2020; Newmann et al, 2007).   

References

1. Kolb, L. (2020, December 9). Triple E framework. Triple E Framework. https://www.tripleeframework.com/
2. Newmann, F. M., King, M. B., & Carmichael, D. L. (2007).  Authentic instruction and assessment: Common standards for rigor and relevance in teaching academic subjects.  State of Iowa Department of Education. Introduction, Chapters. 1 & 2 (30 pages). Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T9JNAZgLfKvXAX7JoaOJElkkZS5Xf-lp/view?usp=drivesdk Links to an external site.
3. Office of Educational Technology. (2017). Reimagining the role of technology in education:  2017 National Education Technology Plan updateLinks to an external site..  Retrieved from http://tech.ed.govLinks to an external site..  Introduction and Section 1 (22 pages).