Computer Assisted Instruction in Education

The vision of Paterson Public Schools is “to be the leader in educating New Jersey’s urban youth” (Paterson, 2017). My vision of student learning is aligned with the school’s vision in the sense that my goal is to help my students be the leaders of their communities, classrooms, schools, and workplaces when they grow up. Part of this leadership must come from character education, which Lickona (1993) and Kristjansson (2014) note is of particular importance in today’s schools. Part of what helps to inform character education is the focus on self-directed learning, which was advocated by Maria Montessori through the Montessori Method (Mangal, 2007). One of the best ways to promote self-directed learning and thereby facilitate character education and achieve the vision of the school is to use computer-assisted instruction as a teaching approach (Hsieh, 2017).

The process needed to implement and promote my vision required access to computer-technology and tutorial time for students so that they could familiarize themselves with the computers that would be used in class. The planning and implementation of this vision was facilitated by meetings with the administration and other teachers so that a support system could be erected that would allow the CAI approach to take place with full network support.

The communication plan used to share my vision was printed off for students and emailed to parents as well as discussed in meetings with administrators and other teachers. The point of this plan was to inform all stakeholders as to the benefits of CAI, how it could support self-directed learning, and how self-directed learning could facilitate the vision of the school.

The stakeholders involved in the process included: 1) Principals and vice-principals and other administrators, 2) teachers, 3) parents, and 4) students. These stakeholders were included to support the process through direct forms of communication, in which my vision, aligned with the school’s, was set out. I asked for feedback from all stakeholders so that I could better understand their perspective and make adjustments to the process accordingly.

The planning steps I took prior to implementation included: 1) speaking with the relevant administrators and teachers about the idea of CAI and its feasibility, 2) coordinating with budget administrators to plan for the implementation of technology in the classroom, and 3) developing an implementation process that intertwined with the school’s curriculum. Technology applications used to assist in the plan development included Microsoft Office applications to help me keep track of issues that emerged as well as to record my own reflections in an electronic journal.

Issues of school climate and culture that I uncovered during planning were that some students’ parents were not as receptive to the idea of using technology in the classroom as they felt there was already too much reliance upon technology in every other part of society. These families were mainly more traditional in deportment and their view was that students should stick to books and penmanship. I discussed with them the realities of the world in which these students would be entering and how having an understanding of computers could benefit them in the long run. I also stressed the importance of self-directed learning, which they supported, and so we were able to find common ground on this point and build from there. I included other teachers in these findings as well and a healthy dialogue was conducted all along the way. They helped me to use internal and external resources to implement my plan, such as places to go for ordering computers, sites to peruse for applications, and external outlets for learning more about what is available.

The goals and topics for the session and how they aligned with the school’s improvement goals were simple: the school’s goal for the curriculum was as follows: “The standards covered during each instructional unit of the Language Arts curriculum are reflective of the New Jersey Student Learning Standards outlined in the New Jersey Curriculum Framework. Each standard in reading and writing has been unpacked to illustrate the critical knowledge and skills students need in order to master the standard. Essential questions and sample activities are included to utilize when teaching such standard. Given the diverse population of learners in the classrooms, the Essential Elements related to the standards from the Dynamic Learning Maps have been included for the special education students as a means to inform teachers of the learning expectations and outcomes for those students, based on their individual needs” (Paterson Public Schools, 2017). The goals and topics of the session also stressed the same standards and the CAI approach was designed to facilitate attainment of those standards.

I used student demographic data and other school or community contextual data in preparing the session by applying ideas related to the cultural backgrounds of all stakeholders to the session presentation so that each member of the audience could feel that it was designed with them in mind. For example, when I wanted to illustrate a point about how CAI could help in scaffolding via collaborative learning with computers, I used students from diverse backgrounds as examples.

The evidence that supported that need for the professional development session was based on direct observation in my own classroom as well as through conversation with other stakeholders, such as other teachers, parents and administrations. All agreed that students could stand to be introduced to more CAI approaches and that enhancing the curriculum through computers and self-directed learning could facilitate the building of leadership skills and character education. The literature on the subject also supports this idea: Ybarra and Green (2003) show that students enjoy computer-based activities I nteh classroom. Keengwe and Hussein (2014) likewise show that CAI helps students to devote more time to practice lessons, increases their motivation, and provides access to more authentic materials. Cassady, Smith and Thomas (2017) report that students who use CAI increase their vocabulary and text comprehension over students who do not use CAI. Additionally, Alvarez-Marinelli, Blanco, Lara-Alecio et al. (2016) demonstrated in their 25-week longitudinal study of elementary students using computer assisted language learning approaches that CAI helps to improve students’ scores, increase their language development and support their language acquisition more than non-CAI approaches.

The activities used in the session focused on CAI-learning approaches that the audience could participate in so that they themselves could experience what the students would be doing. When asked if they found the work more engaging than worked performed in the conventional way of using books and papers, the audience overwhelmingly said yes. I chose to do activities this way because I wanted the audience to experience first-hand exactly what the students would be experiencing so that they could see its power with their own eyes.

An assessment that aligns to the goals and objectives of the presentation to be completed by participants after the session consisted of the following points:

1) Did the session answer your questions about the utility of CAI? Yes/No
2) Did the session answer your questions about how CAI relates to self-directed learning? Yes/No
3) Did the session answer your questions about how self-directed learning facilitates character education? Yes/No
4) Did the session answer your questions about how character education helps to support the vision of the goal, which is that

Paterson be the leader in educating New Jersey’s urban youth? Yes/No

The assessment results showed that all of the session’s participants voted yes to every question, indicating that the session was a success in drawing the connection between CAI and the school’s vision to be a leader. A comment section was included in the assessment so that I could receive feedback from participants and all of the comments were positive and many of them asserted that they were happy to see the school taking such a pro-active approach to education by integrating technology with the vision of leadership and character education. They were very happy to get to experience what the students would soon be experiencing and they expressed great confidence in the school and its ability to care for the students attending it.