Education holds the key to the future

Rolin Moe, Director of Distance Education Initiative, San Mateo County Community College District

Rolin Moe, Director of Distance Education Initiative, San Mateo County Community College District

The effect of COVID-19 on the operation and organization of education institutions has resulted in an unprecedented engagement of educational technologytools.  What has made this time so unique is the speed and scope of these implementations: months- and years-long processes of research/decision/implementation/assessment for particular software has been truncated into deploying numerous objects in a manner of weeks.  Thoughtfulness and discretion at the heart of organizational decision-making has been foregone for a Hail Mary approach where institutions license numerous solutions in the assumption these products will enable faculty, staff and administration to succeed. 

It is true that today there is a greater need for widespread technological adoption as a core component of schools, colleges and universities.  But the deliberate nature of adoption prior to COVID-19 was a positive element of the technology cycle: each new software significantly impacts not only campus operations but campus culture.  While speedy EdTech adoptions during this time are well-intended, failing to ground them within societal boundaries (i.e., securing buy-in) leaves them often as solutions in search of problems.  Without deliberately designed implementation, the motive behind technological adoption is one of assumption, a belief that new technology alone will provide the campus different and better strategies.  Without defining those strategies, the result is often goal-free activity that at best uses the new (and more expensive) mechanism to replicate existing practice, and at worst creates a fissure in the institution between those goal-free adopters and the technological holdouts.

Education provides a workable solution to this conundrum, an opportunity to more expeditiously adopt necessary software while grounding it within the cultures and norms of each respective institution.  The lessons can be taken from the work on Technological, Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK), an educational framework developed by Punya Mishra & Matthew Kohler that adapts Lee Shulman’s 20th Century work on the intersection of pedagogy and content for 21st Century staffing.  In TPCK, educators must recognize how to navigate three distinct domains necessary for modern instruction: the content knowledge of the subject, a pedagogical foundation in how that knowledge transmits to learners, and a technological component that augments the features of a tool and the contexts in which it can be used.  These three domains are mutually exclusive; each informs ways of thinking about the other.  When instructors recognize technology as a ubiquitous element of instruction, such as how they recognize curriculum or texts, the culture of those instructor’s learning environments have transformed.

How does the success of technological diffusion through the TPCK framework in K-20 instruction apply to larger structures via organizational leadership and EdTech administration? We know TPCK has already been augmented in some contexts to support departmental and administrative processes around teacher education. Applying these lessons requires a similar augmentation to help institutions continue to grow their digital capabilities in a way that positively affects the culture of institutions.  Our campuses are driven by particular missions, visions and values that fortify our daily practices and our long-term strategies.  Linking a framework to adoption that appreciates the unique knowledge of employees and does so from a common guidance apparatus can help provide insight on the purpose for technological implementation, footholds in the moment and foresight in the years to come.  We can achieve this when we pivot TPCK to TOCK (Technological, Organizational Content Knowledge).

"Rolin Moe, Director of Distance Education Initiative, San Mateo County Community College District"

One of the commonalities across education institutions is the importance of objectives and outcomes: the way in which a department or division sets its strategy and measures it through agreed-upon instruments is no different than how a composition instructor identifies the aspirations for the course and the methods in which those will be measured.  This allows us to reframe the pedagogical element of TPCK to an organizational one without losing the uniqueness of each team member’s agency. A TOCK software roll-out would clearly identify the tool and its relationship to particular education practices and would do so in such a way that definitively encapsulates the core ideals of the institution.  We can use the technology to more tangibly realize our various calls to action.

In the San Mateo County Community College District, we recently recognized a need for media storage beyond our existing capacity. We were aware of technological solutions, but before we acted it was important to recognize how such a purchase would relate to our guiding principles.  After convening a working group, we realized media storage was symptomatic of a larger need around media creation and supplementation tools.  That need encompassed classroom curriculum but also involved issues of copyright, open resources and cross-campus collaborations through initiatives such as learning communities.  This shifted our approach to purchasing, allowing us to evaluate our mission/vision/values and identify concrete ways to support our community and the role such a software would play.  The result combines a purchase with a district-wide movement around the relationship of media contents and online education: instructor-created, instructor-edited, clipped elements, student creations and more.  The software is a key element of this initiative, but it both informs and is informed by the particulars of each educational department as well as the larger scope of the district and our three colleges.  We are working together in the spirit of collective impact, something that goes well beyond LTI integration.

This past year has highlighted longstanding operational problems within our institutions, as well as the areas where new implementations can allow us to realize our goals.  Through the TOCK framework, campuses can move forward with a clear understanding of how technology can facilitate greater success.  Without sacrificing speed, we use the organization’s shared vision as a foundation for campus expertise, enabling exponential growth and optimal opportunities and achievements.

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