Episode 87: From Ed-Tech to Ped-Tech

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi, I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is the School of School podcast.

Welcome to the School of School podcast.

Robin Potter

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Andy Psarianos

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the School of School podcast. Today we are talking about technology with Dr. Fiona Aubrey-Smith, which was named by Education Business one of the 50 most influential people in education, so that's really exciting. So, Fiona, say hi.

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Hi. It's great to join you.

Andy Psarianos

And tell us a little bit about yourself.

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Well, as you said, I'm a freelance strategic education consultant, so I work partly with schools and groups of schools directly in school. I also work with a range of partners, so they are include ed tech companies, publishers, and those supporting schools. And then I also have an academic hat on, so I'm also university lecturer and researcher, specialising in education, pedagogy, and technology.

Andy Psarianos

Well, that's really exciting. So we got Robin and Adam here are with us as well. Say hi, guys.

Robin Potter

Hi.

Adam Gifford

How you doing? Hi. Really nice to have you on, Fiona. I'm really intrigued and interested what you're going to talk about.

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Really excited to be with you all.

Andy Psarianos

I think we're talking about transforming the way we think about technology and education, so from ed tech to ped tech. I've seen you use that word quite a lot, Fiona, ped tech. So what's the difference between ed tech and ped tech?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Sure. Well, in a nutshell when we talk about ed tech, educational technology or technology in education, we are focusing really on the systems and processes and procedures and management aspects of education, so things like teacher resources and dissemination and time-tabling and capturing lessons. And the idea behind ped tech is that we are shifting towards what we know makes an actual impact on learning, so pedagogically-led technology. And the emphasis then is on people in relationships and learning behaviours. It's how we interact with each other, who's interacting with who and how and for what purpose, and how we utilise our time together, teacher and student time together, to really focus on those gains that are going to really make a difference to learning. So shifting really from systems and processes aspects of education to very much focusing on pedagogically-led technology use.

Robin Potter

I wondered if you could define for us pedagogy, because I know most of the teachers out there are very familiar with the term, but for others that may be listening, they may be unclear. That would be really helpful.

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Sure. And I'd really love to do that because pedagogy is one of those words that's used by a lot of people in a lot of different ways to mean a lot of different things. I'm going to really split hairs now in how I define pedagogy. So the word pedagogy itself is all about the study of teaching in order to support learning. But within that, so if we can conceptualise it is quite an umbrella term. But within that, there are a whole load of different aspects of pedagogy that we talk about in conversation. We have things like pedagogical approaches and methods. They're tried and tested methods and ways of doing things that we know will have a particular impact on teaching, a particular impact on learning in the classroom environment. They're kind of like a recipe to bake a cake; you know what you're going to get out the other end. Those are the pedagogical methods, pedagogical approaches.

We also have, kind of sitting alongside that and slightly overlapping, are pedagogical beliefs. These are the things that are within us. They stem from our deep-rooted values and beliefs, and they're what we believe make teaching and learning, what we believe the role of a teacher really is and what we think teaching, the idea of teaching, means, what we conceptualise the role of a learner to be and what learning means and what learning looks like, and how knowledge comes to exist, where it comes from, who shapes it, how it's defined, and what the purpose of schooling is within education in its global sense. So those ideas are all wrapped up under that term of pedagogical beliefs. And our beliefs are very implicit in all the things that we choose, say, and do. They're embedded in the language that we use, the decisions that we make, the way we prioritise things. So you can have a set of beliefs that may be aligned with the methods that you choose to use, or they may be conflicting or contrasting with the methods that we choose or the methods that we are told to use in specific context.

And then the third thing that we need to think about under the umbrella term of pedagogy are pedagogical practises. Those are the everyday actions that we take. They're the choices that we make. When a student asks us a question, it's the choice we make about whose question to answer or how we choose to answer it. It's about the specific language that we use and the inference about learning that we're giving to our students within that language. It's about the nature of relationships that we develop with our learners. So we've got three very distinct things there: pedagogical methods and approaches, pedagogical beliefs; and pedagogical practises, and those three things all sit under that umbrella term of pedagogy.

And then just to split hairs even more, we then just need to think about... There is a difference. Don Hammack said this: consciously, we teach what we know, but unconsciously, we teach who we are. And that's a really profound statement. If we just break that down into four parts, there are things about teaching and learning about pedagogy that we say... We may or may not believe them, but we say them. We know the words, we might repeat phrases we've heard, or it just might be in the conversation we say... there are the things that we intend to do... We really, really do intend to do them, but of course they may or may not then translate into practise... there are things that we enact, the actions that we take, which may or may not be underpinned by our intentions or our beliefs or what we say, and then there are things that are implicit beliefs that are kind of embedded in everything. So we've got that.

Hence, I was saying I'm going to split hairs when I define pedagogy because you've got that umbrella term, those three very distinct aspects of pedagogy, and then the difference between what we say, what we intend, what we do, and what we believe. And amongst all of that, of course, you've then got the traditional different thinking around pedagogy, whether we're looking at sociocultural approaches to pedagogy or constructivist approaches or behaviourist approaches or whatever theory we might align with. So a long answer, but that's because it's complex and because the word pedagogy can mean so many different things to so many different people in so many different contexts.

Robin Potter

Well, I'm glad I asked the question.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. Where are we getting it wrong with technology, then?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

That's a really interesting question. I don't think we're so much getting it wrong. I think we've laid some really interesting foundations in how we're using technology, and the pandemic has accelerated some of those somewhat in terms of introducing technology to so many people's teaching and learning experiences. I think the place we're at now is, okay, we've got this kind of groundwork; what can we do to really make the most of what we now know? And some of that what we now know comes from our experiences from the pandemic, and some of that what we know now comes from the research evidence about where technology can make a difference. And to be really, really clear there, technology on its own, as Professor Rosemary Luckin famously said in a decoding learning report, technology on its own is not going to make any difference to anything. It's how we use it and what we do with that. I could list you hundreds of pieces of research evidence that compound that for you, and I'm sure you'll be very familiar with them anyway. It's what we do with it, isn't it? And that's the real big thing that we now need to focus on is using technology to make a transformational impact on students' learning. But to do that, we have to have it underpinned by effective pedagogy.

Adam Gifford

Man, there's a lot there. There is so much there, and I'm trying to pick little bits because there's all these things that kind of walloped me from left and right and all these things you were talking, like the first one, that idea of pedagogical beliefs and just how influential that can be on our own teaching. I've been in education quite a few years, but I don't know how many discussions I've had where anyone in my career has asked me about what I believed in teaching or anything that relates to if you like that strand, right?

Then we jump to the technology part and we go, all right, well, for someone like me, I've got two children, 19 and 17, and my views about some aspects of what we can loosely call technology and the use of online, I don't know, whether it be time spent on apps, the types of things they're doing, the difference in terms of socialisation compared to when I was kid, all that sort of stuff, there's probably not a bigger part that is so far removed from what I knew at the same age, that technology part, and so my beliefs about that are probably, in part, deeply flawed. So then if we're using technology as we need to, and it's been such a crucial tool when schools have been disrupted, that idea about our own beliefs coming into play with our teaching, it's massive, isn't it?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

It's immense. It's immense. And of course, as human beings, our beliefs are an accumulation of everything that we've lived through to this point. Our beliefs come from, arguably, even prior to the point at which we are born. So when we are born and when we have those first formative years, the way that we start conceptualising the world even as a very small child sets in place a framework for how we then see all the experiences that come after that. And if we think back to then our earliest years, as children ourselves, our earliest years in school, the way that our own classroom teachers, our own childhood teachers interacted with us started to define how we conceptualise the role of what it means to be a teacher. How we saw them, that's how we started building ideas about what it means to be a teacher. And also, that's what started building in us our ideas about what it means to be a learner. And those experiences are quite profound. Research shows that that's the single biggest influence on how we conceptualise the idea of what it means to be a teacher or learner, our own childhood teachers.

But the reason that's so profound is that sets in place this kind of lens, like a pair of glasses that we then see the rest of the world with. Every experience that we have thereafter is either confirming that kind of view or challenging that. Say, for example, if I asked you to think about your own childhood teachers, you'll have one or two teachers, at least, that comes to mind straight away. And the reason you'll remember them is because either they had a very positively profound impact on your thinking or actions or experiences, or exactly the opposite because they had a really negative impact. And the way you choose to then teach and the way you choose to then support learning in others will be really heavily influenced by those childhood teachers, by those experiences. You'll either replicate what you perceive as a good thing, or you'll react against what you perceive to be a bad thing.

Going back to the point you were making about when we're talking about our beliefs as teachers today, it stems such a long way back that we can't really articulate a point at which it's begun. And it is something, weirdly, that we don't really talk about a lot as teachers, do we, as educators. We don't have big discussions about, what do we believe the role of a teacher is, what do we believe the role of a learner is? We kind of sometimes do them in a short, nutshell version as part of training days or something like that. But when we do those, they're often under the umbrella of coming up with an organisational view about what teaching looks like in this organisation or for that subject development or whatever it might be. So there's lots of space here to actually have some really profound conversations.

Andy Psarianos

Fiona, I'm going to ask you a philosophical question, but before I do, just going to remind us, we need to get back to talk about technology. But this is so fascinating, I can see us going down this track. Obviously, teachers have their own beliefs and their own intentions when they come into the classroom, and what they do may be entirely different for all kinds of reasons, and their belief system is part of the reason why it might be different. But should teachers be allowed... This is a philosophical question here. I don't have a point of view on this. But should teachers be allowed to follow their own belief system, or should they be told what their belief system should be in education?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Oh. So I'm not going to give you an answer to that, and I can't, and the reason for that, on the premise of it being a philosophical question, is because that depends on whether you think implicit beliefs can be changed. And what we see a lot in terms of what... When we unpack what teachers are actually doing in practise is influenced by two main directions of travel. I don't know if you've come across the funnels of influence model. I can share with you the research papers around that if that would be helpful. There's these two profound sets of influences, these two funnels that come to us. One is the funnels of influence from the context, so that would be the global things that are going on and national culture, role of the media, policy, all of that kind of big-picture stuff. And that filters down to national and regional and localised, and then very localised influences. And then the other funnel is the funnel that comes from within us, and that's the one that stems from our early experiences and all of the experiences we have had right up until this moment in time.

Those two funnels combine, and depending on who we are with and the conversations that we're having and the weather and who else is in the room and what resources we've got will shape the subtleties of then what we do and what we think and what we intend to do and so on. So when we're talking about, should teachers be allowed to believe what they want to believe or should they be encouraged to believe different things, all of these influences at play are doing that, are shaping what that teacher believes in any given moment. But whether you can change those underpinning beliefs, that's a really interesting question in itself because it depends really on where the beliefs start in the first place. So I'm not going to answer that.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, yeah. No, it was a bit of a loaded question. So let's go back to technology, then. On the front of technology, so obviously we need to consider all these things. And pedagogy, from what I gather, and I've read some of your stuff and I found it really fascinating, but there seems to be an implication that a lot of the technology doesn't take into account the pedagogical aspects of teaching. It tends to be that we're facilitating the systems and the processes, as you put it, and we're looking at ed tech with that lens and we're not necessarily thinking about, "Okay, I guess, how does this help children learn," which is really what I suppose pedagogy is supposed to be about, right?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Absolutely. And there's sort of two parts to that, I guess. One is that many technologies, not all, but many technologies have a kind of implicit pedagogy woven into the development of them, woven into the product or the resource or the device or whatever it might be. And I think as teachers, we need to become more aware of what that is because that might encourage us to behave in particular ways or encourage us to prioritise certain things. So some of that is just about being a bit more aware of what we're using and what it might be inadvertently introducing into our teaching and learning practises.

But the other part is, rather than thinking about, "Oh, there's this great tool or this great feature. I want to incorporate that, implement that into my classroom practise," it's just taking a pause and a step back for a moment and thinking, "What am I actually trying to achieve here with the students that I'm working with? What do I want them to receive from me? What do I want to give them? How do I want their learning to be supported? What do they feel they need to help them move on in their learning," and then looking what technologies are available to help meet that... I can't even say it now... to help meet that pedagogical intention. And that's the thing about pedagogy first, isn't it? It's about starting with the student that is in front of you at that given moment. Where are they at? What do they need? How best can we give that to them? And quite often, but not always, technology will offer a solution or a contribution to that.

Adam Gifford

Is part of the problem just the confusion around the word pedagogy, full stop? Because I kind of see it that... I've been a teacher when someone's, I don't know, that there's something that's being spent or have been given a tool, doesn't matter what the tool is, and the general belief is that's going to make the children learn better. So we just think that's good pedagogy, right? Because I've got one now. That's brilliant. Way to go, guys. You just learn better because I've got this. But of course, the question that needs to be asked is like you've just said. Well, first of all, I think there has to be a justification into how does it help us learn? If I don't know, I need to find out because someone's telling me that it can help the children learn. And then secondly, understanding the situation in which it will support children to learn. But it kind of strikes me that we talk about pedagogy, but even just your introduction shows just what a wide-ranging subject it is. We can band it around education very loosely, but maybe that takes the impetus away from some of these things with technology, just an assumption that something technological is going to make children learn better, whereas actually, just as you've described, what we understand about it and the situation in which it will support children best is key.

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Absolutely. And I think that thing about... When we talk about effective pedagogy, you've absolutely hit the nail on the head with that. When we say effective, what does effective actually mean? Because that's values-based, isn't it? Something's going to be better or good, what does good mean? What does better mean? What are the values that are underpinning that judgement ? And then when we talk about effective pedagogy, whose pedagogy? Or are we talking about methods, or are we talking about practises, or are we talking about beliefs? So in a nutshell, the whole thing is about being more forensic and more precise in what we're actually trying to do, and that gives us a much more clear-cut way of making decisions and having conversations that will work towards that point.

Andy Psarianos

I think one of the issues that technology creators have is that often what they do, and I think a lot of people are susceptible to this, and it's not just... Well, any technology, really. It doesn't have to be even digital technology... is they have some form of what I guess they would consider a solution and they're often looking for a problem to solve. And a great example would be this idea of... I see this coming up a lot of the time, where it's sort of like, "Oh, wow, because we're using computers and databases now and there's this emerging, call it artificial intelligence or machine learning technology, that we can apply this to children's learning behaviours," as if you could write an algorithm that would figure out what's going on in a child's head and then feed them the right things at the right time. I see a lot of companies trying to do stuff like this.

It's basically oversimplifying the learning experience into a mathematical formula, effectively, an algorithm, and I don't know that it's that simple. But you see that. You see of people with a computer science kind of mindset, figuring out some kind of technological, I don't know, breakthrough, let's say, and then desperately searching for a problem to solve with it, and then from that emerges some kind of product.

Now, maybe what I'm saying is not true, but I'm just trying to draw an example. What could a technology provider do? How should they approach this problem differently in order to create the tools that teachers and learners actually deserve or need? What fundamental thing could they change in their mindset?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Oh, what a great question. It's a really interesting point that you're making. I think there's this term, isn't it, policy-driven evidence making rather than evidence-led policy making, and that's a really... Let me give you a very concrete example. We see that a lot with the rising in technologies that give students personalised experiences based on their formative assessment. So student will do task A; they'll get this result that will pathway them onto the next thing and so on. And technologies like that are absolutely fantastic in moving students through these very personalised pathways which, of course, because it's all based on the premise of ideas around retrieval practise and knowledge consolidation and all of these profound things, you get really good outcomes from that.

So when you do evidence studies on there or impact studies on there, on those kinds of products, and many, many companies do... The results and the evidence that comes out of it looks great, because you put students through these systems, and then maybe you compare them to another group that aren't doing it, you might be doing a randomised control trial, and at the end it kind of clearly shows that students that use this particular product way ahead in terms of attainment. That's fantastic, and I'm not querying that evidence base, but we need to maybe just be a bit clearer what kind of timelines we are looking at. Because if we then layer over those kinds of studies with other kinds of evidence that we know about long-term memory retention and the forgetting curve and those kinds of ideas, what we can find is if you practise and do something often enough towards maybe an assessment point, your knowledge retention or your memory retention of those things will increase beautifully. But after that assessment point, if you don't continue it, that knowledge is going to drop away. The forgetting curve kicks in.

So if the timeline of a particular product is only ever looking at a term or a year or a phase, a grade over an academic year, for example, then we're only measuring the impact over that point in time. And that's great for products because those are the assessment points fixed in our education systems; that's often great for teachers who want to prove impact of their own teaching in their year; it's often great for schools' accountability because of the ways in which we're reporting accountability data. But if we step back and think, "Actually, who's all this about?" It's for the children and their lives. We want to have much longer timelines and look much more longitudinally, because if they're remembering something and doing all of this knowledge acquisition, it's going brilliantly in year one, but come the end of year two they've forgotten 97% of it all, actually we're doing a huge disservice to the children because not only have they lost that knowledge, but there's that opportunity cost to them in what could they have been learning that would've become embedded in their understanding if we're taking a different approach.

Now, I'm not saying those technologies are good or bad, but I think we just need to be really clear on what timeline do we want to be looking at evidence for, and what timeline do we want to be looking at impact on learners for, and then fitting to those timelines and looking properly and effectively over those periods of time. I don't think tying that in with academic phases or years is always the best timeline to do that for.

Andy Psarianos

That's really fascinating. So it's basically ask yourself, why do we bother teaching children in the first place, and what does success look like before you even start?

Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Back to pedagogy all over again.

Andy Psarianos

All over again. Fiona, thanks so much for joining us. That is fascinating.

Thank you for joining us on the School of School podcast.