Browsing by Author "Stordy, Mary Margaret"
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- ItemOpen AccessIn Our Hands: Designing for Mobile Devices(2018-01-17) Caissie, Belina; Friesen, Sharon L; Jacobsen, Michele DM; Lock, Jennifer Vivian; Dyjur, Patti; Stordy, Mary MargaretTwo significant impacts on K–12 learning environments are the increasing diversity of learners and one-to-one learning environments. Over the last two decades, several large-scale, provincially-funded projects have supported one-to-one technology in education and equity in Alberta’s education system. For example, the iPad was appropriated by education at an unprecedented rate. This participatory action research study engaged fifth-grade students and their teacher in an exploration of their science learning and teaching with iPads as the one-to-one mobile device used. Two main types of action research cycles occurred: 1) technology and 2) teaching and learning. Multiple action research cycles were carried out concurrently to investigate: In what ways does the design of technology-enabled, inclusive learning environments impact teacher and student learning and agency in middle school? Data collection methods included focus groups, individual interviews, observations, researcher journaling, a survey, documents, and artifacts. Three process findings emerged through the student focus groups: challenges, customization, and choice. Seven impact findings were evident from the classroom observations and individual interviews: increased collaboration, improved student engagement, student empowerment, teacher empowerment, technology-enhanced learning environment, shifts in teachers’ perceptions of learners, and shifts in students’ perceptions. This study revealed that a technology-rich classroom does not automatically create a technology-enhanced learning environment. Systemic barriers mute the potential of one-to-one access. When the design of technology integration at both the school and school authority level creates significant barriers to effective student and teacher use of mobile devices as pedagogical tools, the ability of both teachers and students to act in new and innovative ways is thwarted. The inability to act in new and innovative ways makes it difficult for teachers and students to develop and exert their agency. The findings of this study imply that the potential of iPads is not being fully realized in the context of learning and teaching as well as provides insight on how iPads can be leveraged as pedagogical devices. Ten recommendations for educational stakeholders, including the Department of Education, educational leaders, teachers, and Faculties of Education, are presented to support a shift from technology-rich classrooms to technology-enhanced learning environments.
- ItemOpen AccessRecovering mathematics: an oltolgical turn toward understanding the teaching of mathematics with children(2009) Stordy, Mary Margaret; Paul, W. JimRecovering Mathematics: An Ontological Turn Toward Coming to Understand the Teaching of Mathematics with Children is an interpretive study into the teaching of mathematics to children. Drawing from Gadamer's (1989) ontological hermeneutics, this research examines lived experience through narrative pedagogic events to explore the idea of recovering mathematics as a living human enterprise for children and teachers in schools. Attending to Caputo's (1987) idea of returning to the original difficulty, this text attempts to keep the difficulty of teaching alive while resisting the metaphysics of presence. In Truth and Method (1989), Gadamer claims that the happening of events is essential for understanding. This philosophical inquiry embraces Gadamer's idea of "the fecundity of the individual case" as a way to explore and make meaning from lived experiences with children, teachers, and primary / elementary pre-service teachers. Recovering Mathematics hermeneutically considers the relationship of mathematics to teaching in terms of the past and the present, the particular and the general, the philosophical and the practical, the part and the whole. It is a philosophical exploration into what might be possible when it comes to teaching mathematics to children when the world, which includes the living world of mathematics, is allowed entry.