Case Analysis Project

Jordan Vega and Tyler Hamilton

Department of Educational Technology and Literacy, Towson University

ISTC 735: Technology, Learning, and Design

Dr. Kenton

November 8th, 2022

 The lesson chosen for this case analysis is designed for a ninth-grade biology class consisting of

general education and special education students. All original lesson materials can be accessed here.

The lesson focuses first on types of energy by discussing carbohydrates, learned in the previous lesson,

and their role of energy in the body. The students then take notes (on paper or digitally) about the

various types of energy and laws of thermodynamics. To practice and reinforce how energy relates to

biology, the students complete (on paper or digitally) a question sheet about models of energy. Next,

the lesson focuses on balancing equations as this is necessary for eventually understanding how

photosynthesis creates glucose. The students first follow the teacher to learn how to balance, then they

try some practice problems as a class using the smartboard. The closure for this lesson consists of a

station activity where students travel and solve the equations on a piece of paper.

The student laptops are used as a technological tool to allow students to access the notes and

the practice worksheet digitally. This helps give students choice while helping the teacher individualize

the lesson. The use of laptops for notes also allows students to manipulate the images in the practice

worksheet, to re-structure the organization, and lets students share with others. The document camera

is used to project the teacher-guided learning experience for balancing equations so students can copy

and watch as the teacher solves problems. The document camera can also be used to project student

ideas in the instance of the class solving a new problem together and providing the teacher with

guidance. The smartboard is used to project the teacher’s presentation, but also to allow students to

manipulate a balancing equations practice problem using the smartboard pen. The smart pen is a fun

way to get students engaged and excited to solve the problem, but its drag-and-drop capabilities also

allow for mistakes to be easily corrected. Once the problem is solved, the smart board will let the

teacher save the class's work to enable digital sharing. There is a lot of room for improvement regarding

integrated technology, specifically the use of available scientific software to demonstrate equation

balancing and energy transfer.

 The strengths of the technology used in this original lesson include the students’ ability to work

together as a class by viewing together and discussing via the document camera, then practicing

together in real time using the smartboard pen. The drag-and-drop features of the pen reinforce the

concept that what is on one side of the equation will show up on the other side. The watch-practice-try

on your own style of the lesson is also comfortable for a lot of students and while not highly engaging,

many students are more likely to participate and take risks (students typically respond well to this part

of the lesson because the teacher is doing the majority of the work until its their turn to practice on

their own). Another strength is that not only do students have the choice of paper versus digital notes,

but the digital notes being available helps ELL and special education students successfully access the

lesson. This method of digital note taking even allows for sharing if needed.

These technologies are integrated fairly well into the lesson, with room for improvement (to be

discussed). The integration as-is provides the following benefits for students: promotes a classroom

community via collaboration, prompts problem-solving to accommodate NGSS practices, and

accommodates the UDL guidelines of promoting learner autonomy, supplying background knowledge,

customizing display of information, and varying methods for response (CAST, 2021). The lesson is

accessible and provides a great basis of understanding chemical equations.

The largest weakness of the original lesson is that the integration of technology does not offer

gains in student learning. The purpose of this lesson is for students to develop understanding in the

structure of atoms. In the original lesson plan, the integrated technology was utilized to help provide

multiple means of perception and diversify opportunities for expression and communication, and

engagement (CAST, 2021). While the diversification does help support students in their engagement

with the content, it does not help students understand the abstract concepts themselves. By the end of

the lesson, students can explain that atoms make up molecules, however, there are still identifiable gaps
in students understanding of the relationship between atoms and molecules, and the relationship

between atoms on the reactant and product sides of a chemical equation. Unfortunately, in the original

lesson, the integration of technology does not aid students in meeting this learning goal.

Another weakness is that the integrated technology does not help students develop any real

conceptual understanding. The technology does not help students understand atoms and molecules any

better than its non-technology counterparts. The integration of technology that displays media helps the

instructor communicate content to students and helps students engage with the instructor, but does

not offer opportunities for gains in understanding any more than options without technology (i.e.

reading the answers of a physical worksheet out-loud). Additionally, the integration of digital note-

sheets helps students better record the concepts and allows students to use symbols and notation that

are comfortable for them but does not provide any gains in the understanding of the structure of atoms

and molecules. This is because students are using word processors to describe these abstract concepts

in words, and cannot use word processors to actually see an atom or molecule.

Robert Taylor developed a framework to aid the incorporation of technology in a way beneficial

to students called the Taylor Model: Tutor, Tool, Tutee (Taylor, 1980). These three modes in summary

portray that the computer can teach the learners (tutor), can be applied to achieve a task (tool), or the

learner can teach the computer (tutee). In tutor mode, the computer presents the material to the

student, the student responds to the computer, the computer assesses the student’s interaction,

then the computer will decide what the student will do next (Taylor, 1980). In tool mode, the computer

provides helpful features such as word processing and calculator functions that provide a service

without requiring the user to be fluent in computer functions while also saving us time in the classroom

on things that a computer could do for us, quickly (Taylor, 1980). Lastly, in tutee mode the students are

teaching the computer how to be a tutor and a tool (Taylor, 1980). In this action, students are gaining a

deeper understanding of the content, the computer, and their own thinking process which allows the
use of technology in education to extend beyond just acquiring information to manipulating and

understanding information (Taylor, 1980).

To use the computer as a tool is to use the computer for some of its powerful computing

powers; using the computer as a tool does help students quickly perform tasks, it does not offer learning

“benefits” to students. In the original lesson, students utilize the technology as a tool because the

instructor uses it to display media and for word processing. To use the computer as a tutor, the students

must be utilizing the programmed behaviors of the computer, and be learning from those programmed

behaviors (Taylor, 1980). In the original lesson, students never use any programs on any integrated

technology to learn content. As with using the computer as a tool, there is no large learning “benefits”

to students, largely because of the impersonal means that computers operate as tutors (Taylor, 1980).

With a large, diverse classroom, the computer as a tutor may not offer the same benefits as a human

tutor (Taylor, 1980). To use the computer as a tutee, students must have learned the “language” of a

computer and use this learned language to “tutor” the computer (Taylor, 1980). In the original lesson,

the students do not interact with the “language” of the computer and/or technology, and does not ever

use the computers language to teach the computer and/or technology.

To revise this lesson, an interactive simulation was added to help students better interact with

technology aside from using it as a tool. The other pieces of technology were retained, as their inclusion

does help diversify the lesson across UDL (CAST, 2021). The revised lesson materials can be accessed

here. To help students better understand the structure of atoms and molecules, a PhET interactive

simulator will be used in addition to a guiding worksheet for students to complete. The PhET simulation

to be used in this lesson is called “Build a Molecule” which has students building molecules using atoms.

In the “Single”, and “Multiple” modes, students are provided a specific number of atoms and are
instructed on what molecules to build and how to build them. In the “Playground” mode, students

receive the same specified number of atoms with no instructions on what to make and how to make it.

In the “Single” and “Multiple” modes, students are using the computer as a tutor. In the “Single”

mode, students are engaging with the simulators programmed language to learn how a molecule is built

from atoms, and how the number of atoms are represented in a chemical formula. Students build

molecules and compare what they have built to develop an understanding of chemical notation. This is

repeated in the “Multiple” mode, with the addition of students using the simulation to learn how

chemists communicate more than one molecule. Additionally, students are understanding the

difference between noting the number of atoms and the number of molecules. The use of this

simulation as a tutor helps students develop an understanding of the differences between atoms and

molecules, and how they are explained in the context of science. The simulation also improves on the

means of representation, because it models the small atoms and molecules that students are not able to

see with the naked eye. The integration of this simulation as a tutor helps students better understand

what atoms are, and scaffolds future understanding of how atoms can be rearranged in a chemical

reaction to appear in products.

In the “Playground” mode, students are using the computer as a tutee. In this mode, students

are building molecules of their choosing using the available atoms. Students use the language that they

learned in the “Single” and “Multiple” modes (in which the technology was operating as the tutor) to

then engage with the simulation to create what molecules of their choosing. This is using the computer

as a tutee because students are using the learned language of the simulation to “test” the computer of

it’s own aptitude. In this lesson, students use the technology to create a molecule that they already

know (water, or H2O) and use the technology to generate a 3D rendering of this molecule. This is similar
of a teacher asking students a question that the teacher already knows the answer to, for the purpose of

comparing the students understanding against their own.

This addition to the integrated technology allows the students to then utilize the technology at

the level of a tutor and a tutee. In the original lesson plan, the students utilized the integrated

technology only as a tool. While the integrated technology provided students with multiple means of

representation, opportunities for expression and communication, and engagement, the integrated

technology did not benefit student learning of the content. Additionally, while students were able to

perform the lesson objective, there were still measured gaps related to students understanding of a

molecule. With the integration of the PhET simulation, students are able to visualize a molecule, interact

with a molecule in a way that explains the relationship between atoms and molecules, and explain the

chemical notation of molecules. The integration of technology in the revised lesson benefits students in

that it helps to bridge the remaining gaps in student understanding, and uses technology as an

irreplaceable tool that helps students bridge those gaps.

 References

CAST. The UDL guidelines. (2021, October 15). Retrieved November 6, 2022, from

https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Taylor, R. P. (1980). Introduction. In R. P. Taylor (Ed.), The computer in school: Tutor, tool, tutee (pp. 1-

10). New York: Teachers College Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher from Taylor, R.,

Ed., The Computer in School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee, (New York: Teachers College Press, © 1980 by

Teachers College, Columbia University.

What is PhET? (2018). YouTube. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://youtu.be/OjZ6qvi21Qo.