Raj’s learning is told in the third person. The reason for choosing the third person is to have a panoptic view of the whole class including Raj. I was able to include the different elements that influence Raj’s learning through the digitised learning resource. The title ‘Enthralled by learning experiences’ was chosen to depict Raj’s learning through the digitised resource.
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Title ‘Enthralled by learning experiences’
The class was crowded and the seating arrangement was such that all the students were sitting very close to each other. Raj was sitting in the first row with his friend Pamela on his right and Johnny on his left. He was busy talking to his friends when Mrs Lizzy, the class teacher, entered the classroom. Immediately, everyone was silent. Mrs Lizzy announced that she would use the interactive whiteboard (IWB) to conduct the science class and the students appeared fascinated.
‘Wow … I really enjoy when the teacher uses the IWB,’ shouted Manish
Mrs Lizzy was a very kind and experienced teacher. Since she had been teaching at primary level for many years, she mastered the subjects. Mrs Lizzy had a good rapport with her learners but her teaching methods were mainly teacher-centred.
She seldom used the IWB to conduct her classes.
On that day, Mrs Lizzy started explanations on the topic ‘Air’. She then switched on the interactive projector and used the images and animations from the digital resource to support her teaching. The teacher showed application of the concepts in real life through the animated images. Pointing to the image of a basin of water, Mrs Lizzy paused the resource and asked the students, ‘What can you see in this image?’
All the students, except Raj, had their eyes glued to the screen trying to find an answer to Mrs Lizzy’s question. Raj took a quick glance at the screen and turned around to chat with his friends rather than follow the class attentively. Mrs Lizzy did not allow sufficient time for students to answer and she provided explanations on the visuals in the digitised resource.
Mrs Lizzy drew the pupils’ attention to the presence of air in the basin of water by scrolling over the image. On the IWB, bubbles of air started to move continuously to the top of the basin of water. A few students were so amazed and impressed that they exclaimed, ‘Wow!’
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On hearing ‘Wow,’ Mrs Lizzy probed the learners further by asking a set of questions, ‘Where have you seen this before?’ ‘Why do you think bubbles of air are moving upwards?’
Once again, after few seconds, Mrs Lizzy moved on to give the answers herself.
She did not create the momentum for the students to think critically and react to the questions. She explained that air is present in water and reinforced explanations with a live demonstration showing the presence of air in water. Her hands-on experiment was done using an empty bottle immersed into a basin of water. Bubbles of air came out from the bottle. Mrs Lizzy then switched back to the IWB where a visual representation of the experiment with the empty bottle of water was shown. Raj looked at the screen for few seconds and then looked out of the window. He then sharpened his pencil. Unlike his friend Pamela, Raj was not bothered about what the teacher was explaining.
Mrs Lizzy then put questions to the students:
‘Do you think air is present in the atmosphere?’
Raj raised his right hand and said, ‘Yes Miss, air is everywhere, it allows us to breathe.’ He took a deep breath to show to Mrs Lizzy that he was breathing the air from the atmosphere. All his friends started to laugh and they imitated Raj.
Mrs Lizzy smiled and congratulated Raj for his reply. She said, ‘Well done, Raj.
I’m very happy you could understand that air is present’ (Raj beamed with pride and happiness wearing a large smile).
Mrs Lizzy then played a video where there was a little boy roaming around in a shuttle in the atmosphere. The aim of the little boy was to show that air is present everywhere. The boy in the resource first flew through the trees, then swam in the river and lastly dug a hole in the soil. The animations showed that air is present in the atmosphere for birds on trees to breathe, in water for fish to breathe and in the soil for animals living in the soil to breathe.
This was the only moment when Raj remained silent and concentrated on the video. He raised his eyebrows, looked at the roof and nodded. As soon as the
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video was over, Raj told Pamela it had never struck him that air is present even in the soil. He then turned to Johnny and told him that, while he had been watching the video, he felt as if he was the boy in the video, moving around and feeling the air that is present everywhere. Raj added that he remembered vividly what was said in the video, ‘It’s amazing but I can connect the explanations with my experiences. Watching this video has really made it easier for me to understand the topic.’
However, his attention span was very short. As soon as the video was over, Raj started to chat with Pamela and Johnny. He was absorbed in his narration when suddenly he heard his name. Mrs Lizzy was calling him to the board to carry out a completion exercise. Raj stood up and looked at his teacher. He did not show any reaction and appeared to be deep in thought. Mrs Lizzy gave him a gentle nudge, ‘Go ahead, Raj. Don’t be shy.’
Boosted by her encouraging words, Raj confidently walked to the board, took the stylus (digital pen), read the sentence on the IWB, and carried out the activity.
He filled in the blanks by dragging the correct answers into the appropriate blank spaces. Mrs Lizzy was pleased with his answers and, smiling at him, said, ‘Good!’
Back on his seat, Raj shared his excitement at having been able to use the stylus to carry out the activity with Pamela, ‘I’ll tell my parents that I have learnt a new thing today. I have learnt how to use the digital pen to move words on the IWB!’
he told Johnny.’
At the end of the lesson, when the teacher conducted a summative evaluation by asking questions, Raj was eager to answer the questions. He referred to what was shown in the video in his responses. Raj also referred to what he heard in the digitised learning resource in his responses. He again told Pamela how happy he was to be able to learn the concept ‘Air’ as well as manipulate the digital pen.
‘As from now on, whenever I will look at animals on trees, on land or under the soil, I will think about this lesson and what I have learnt about ‘Air’!’ said Raj to Mrs Lizzy.
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He also told Mrs Lizzy that the visual representations in the resource had allowed him to situate his learning within his environment. There was no doubt that Raj was enthralled about his learning experiences.
When Mrs Lizzy asked the pupils to represent what they had understood through drawings, Raj reproduced what he learnt from the hands-on demonstration and the animated images with the bubbles coming up from the empty bottle immersed in a basin of water. He even labelled the bubbles of air and indicated these with an arrow. He coloured the basin blue to indicate that the basin was filled with water. Below the drawing, he wrote, ‘I conclude there are bubbles of air in the bottle.’ Raj replicated exactly what had been shown in the first part of the resource as well as what the teacher had done during the hands-on experiment.
In the second grid, he demonstrated his understanding that air is present in the soil by including the soil in the basin of water. He drew bubbles of air coming out from the soil, which showed his learning of the concept.
In the third grid, he drew an animal standing on the grass and breathing air from the atmosphere, thereby situating his learning in a context. He represented the context or atmosphere by drawing the yellow sun, the blue sky and the green grass on which the animal was standing. Through this, he wanted to bring out that air is present in the atmosphere. However, unlike the drawings in the first and second grids, Raj did not draw bubbles of air to show the presence of air in the atmosphere. Instead, he wrote, ‘I conclude that the animals have air in the atmosphere.’ In addition, Raj did not replicate exactly what he saw in the digitised learning resource in the third grid. He applied the knowledge he had acquired in a context, which was familiar to him. In fact, when Mrs Lizzy asked Raj to explain what he drew in the last grid, he referred to what he saw during the last educational tour in the animal park, ‘Casela’ and linked it to what he just learnt on ‘Air.’ Again, he was able to link his learning with his experiences.
Below all the grids, he wrote one sentence that brought out what he had learnt.
He even wrote a general statement at the bottom of the page: ‘Air is everywhere, in water, in the soil and in the atmosphere.’ Even though Raj was not attentive throughout the whole class, he was able to represent his learning in different
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contexts. He made reference to all the concepts he learnt from the digitised learning resource and Mrs Lizzy’s explanations.
One week after that lesson, Mrs Lizzy conducted another science lesson using the digitised learning resource. This time it was on the topic ‘Time’. She provided few examples through animated images on the digitised learning resource. Even though she did not use any video to illustrate the concept this time, Raj told Johnny:
‘I understood the concept ‘time’ well as the objects that fall quickly compared to objects that fall slowly were shown through images in the digital resource. Many examples were shown and this helped me to understand better.’
Raj also told Johnny that during the weekend, he watched a movie in which a few objects were falling quickly while others were falling slowly. In this class also, Raj was not fully attentive to Mrs Lizzy’s explanations. Instead of following the teacher’s explanations, he was busy narrating what he saw in the movie to Pamela and Johnny. It was evident that Raj had grasped the concept being taught as he was relating his learning of the concept to his personal experiences.
His excitement was obvious in the way he was turning to his right and left to explain what he had understood.
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Mrs Lizzy then projected an activity sheet with several colourful objects on the right on the IWB. There were also two blank spaces labelled: objects falling quickly and objects falling slowly. The activity required students to choose the right object, drag it and drop it in the correct space. As soon as Raj saw the worksheet, he told Pamela that he would like to carry out the activity as he has learnt how to use the digital pen in the previous class. To his delight, Mrs Lizzy called him to the board and asked him to drag and drop two different objects in the correct spaces. He was more confident than the last time and successfully carried out the activity. Mrs Lizzy as well as his friends clapped to congratulate him. Raj was beaming as the claps resonated in the classroom. Not only had he enjoyed manipulating the stylus but he had also learnt a new concept in an engaging manner.
As in the previous lesson, the teacher asked the students to represent their learning through drawings. This time, Raj produced an amazing set of drawings in a specific context by linking his learning with what he had seen in the movie.
He displayed his acquisition of knowledge and understanding through a scenario and in a chronological way. Raj was so excited to show Mrs Lizzy what he had learnt that he quickly completed his drawings without colouring them.
He drew a house with a garage and wrote, ‘Batman is going to pick up the batmobile but before that the key falls quickly down.’ Raj did not replicate what was shown in the digitised learning resource, but applied his learning to other situations. He could link what he learnt in the class to what he saw in a movie
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during the weekend. Moreover, he illustrated his drawing with complete sentence.
In the second drawing, Raj gave a continuity to the story by integrating his learning of the concept ‘Time.’ He wrote, ‘On the road, his phone rang and the day was windy, the leaves fall slowly.’ With a large smile, an expression of satisfaction and pointing at the second drawing, Mrs Lizzy told Raj:
‘Your drawing is wonderful! Can you please tell me more?’
Raj excitedly stood up from his chair, put his hands on his waist, and said, ‘Well, this second drawing shows that Batman is driving his batmobile while answering his phone and the weather is very windy outside. The leaves are falling everywhere because of the strong winds. The leaves fall slowly because they are light and they take more time to fall.’
Amazed by the explanation, Mrs Lizzy told Raj:
‘Wow, what a nice scene. I am now eager to know what happens next. Can you please explain your drawing in grid 3?’
Raj said, ‘Well, Mrs Lizzy, in drawing 3, I wanted to give an ending to the story and I wrote: ‘And batman arrived to the supermarket’ just below the drawing.’
Mrs Lizzy congratulated Raj and was very happy. She said:
‘Well done my boy, I am very happy that you are able to link what I have just taught to your experiences. It’s original and unique.’
Mrs Lizzy was very happy to see that Raj could learn the new concept and reflect on its application in a context. She told Raj that he had been very creative and proudly showed Raj’s drawings to the class. Raj was very happy and thanked Mrs Lizzy for her appreciation.
184 5.2.7 Engrossed in learning
Karen’s story is told using the third person as Karen did not like to socialise in the class where the teacher used digitised learning resources. The choice of the title also was in light of the observation made on ‘karen’ interactions during the classes using the digitised learning resources. Karen was a very reserved and attentive child who did not like being disturbed during the class. Hence, the choice of ‘engrossed in learning’ as title.
Title: ‘Engrossed in learning’
It was a Friday afternoon and she was sitting in the first row in a crowded classroom. Her name was Karen and she was a seven-year-old child with a pleasant personality. Karen was a serious and attentive student who did not like to be disturbed her during the class. She rarely interacted with them when the explanation was on. She respected others when they were giving answers and said that she was disturbed when other students were behaving badly in the class. She told her teacher:
‘We should remain silent but those learners are “disobedient”. They shout and move around the classroom!’
That day, Mrs Mala, the teacher, informed students that she would use the interactive whiteboard (IWB) to conduct the science class. Most of the students did not pay attention to what Mrs Mala said as they were busy removing their books from their bags. She projected images on ‘Air’ in the atmosphere on the IWB and asked students to observe the images for few minutes. The whole class went silent and after few minutes, Mrs Mala asked students the following questions:
‘Where is ‘Air’ present?’ ‘Do you think ‘Air’ is important?’
Mrs Mala then started her explanation on the topic ‘Air.’ During this science class, Karen tried to make meaning out of what Mrs Mala was explaining. This could be observed by the pertinent and critical questions that Karen put to check whether