The Teacher’s Guide to Tech 2022 comes in at a whopping 336 pages. Each page brings fresh ideas regarding apps and websites for the classroom courtesy of the guide’s publisher, Jennifer Gonzalez, and her blog—Cult of Pedagogy. Jennifer Gonzalez concentrates on tech resources for K-12 educators, students, and classrooms. But if you’re waiting for the corresponding andragogy guide to come out, you better not hold your breath!
Is classroom technology just for kids? Does it only hold the potential to engage young digital natives or can tech find effective usages with grown-ups in the classroom as well? Malcolm Knowles died in 1997, long before Web 2.0 turned mere consumers of digital content into creators of digital content. But in Knowles’ characteristics of adult learners, we find plenty of indicators their classrooms are primed for effective tech usage.
Take, for example, Knowles’ description of the adult’s need to know. “Adults need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking it.” A fourth grader goes to school because that is the fourth grader’s job—it’s what they do. And as they learn the capital of Australia, the phases of the moon, and the difference between a gerund and a participle, they may wonder, When am I ever going to need this stuff? Some of it, they will. Some of it, they won’t. But the point is, that question never really needs to be answered for fourth graders. Whether the subject matter is needed or not, the student is required to come to class and learn it.
Adults are in a completely different situation. Many come to class voluntarily—and some have gone to great lengths to do so. They are putting off things on their list of responsibilities. They may have had to procure childcare in order to come to class. They are investing precious time. We can give them assurance that their time will not be wasted by telling them upfront what knowledge, skills, and attitudes we’re intending to convey to them during our time together. That’s why it’s generally a good idea to have lesson goals and to make them visible early and often during class time.
But how do we know what won’t be a waste of their time? How do we know what they want to know? Do they even know enough about the topic to know what they don’t know? Tech can help us here.
A well-constructed, pre-class survey administered via Google Forms will help learners identify their gaps of knowledge and thereby help the teacher be more informed about the learners’ need to know.
A Google Forms survey is an online questionnaire that allows the class facilitator to ask students multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, or short answer questions. The teacher could share a link or post a QR code on a slide upfront to give the students access to the questionnaire. This might work well for the first 10 minutes of a new class, or—even better—during the last 10 minutes at the conclusion of the previous course. “Here’s what we’re going to be discussing next. This survey will help you know what’s coming up.”
A Google Forms survey allows students to take their time and respond thoughtfully. Learners can share their current knowledge level, and what they specifically hope to study. A Google Forms survey can automatically sort responses into a spreadsheet, enabling easy analysis of the data received. The teacher will then have the students’ feedback before class starts and can plan the direction of the course curriculum in response.
Is this simply a digital substitution for a pencil/paper survey? Perhaps. Not every instance of tech integration represents an innovation. Sometimes it’s just about efficiency. In this case, a single link can reach many people in an instant and allow them to respond.
A Google Forms survey connects with the adult learner’s need to know by asking learners for their learning goals before class and thereby giving them part ownership of curriculum planning. A survey also helps them see the gap between where they are and where they want to be, knowledge-wise. And it does this in a way that allows for a thoughtful response on the part of the learner and easy organization on the part of the facilitator.