SAMR: Getting To Transformation

Ruben R. Puentedura, Ph.D.

SAMR: Framing Goals for Transformation
 Redefinition

Transformation
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks,
previously inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Enhancement

Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with

functional improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no
functional change
Choosing Your First SAMR Ladder Project:
Three Options

• Your Passion:
• If you had to pick one topic from your class that best exemplifies why you became fascinated with the
subject you teach, what would it be?

• Barriers to Your Students’ Progress:

• Is there a topic in your class that a significant number of students get stuck on, and fail to progress
beyond?

• What Students Will Do In the Future:

• Which topic from your class would, if deeply understood, best serve the interests of your students in
future studies or in their lives outside school?
The SAMR Ladder:
Questions and Transitions

• Substitution:
• What will I gain by replacing the older technology with the new technology?
• Substitution to Augmentation:
• Have I added an improvement to the task process that could not be accomplished with the older
technology at a fundamental level?
• How does this feature contribute to my design?
• Augmentation to Modification:
• How is the original task being modified?
• Does this modification fundamentally depend upon the new technology?
• How does this modification contribute to my design?
• Modification to Redefinition:
• What is the new task?
• Will any portion of the original task be retained?
• How is the new task uniquely made possible by the new technology?
• How does it contribute to my design?
Design From Expectations
Seymour Papert: Four Expectations

• Expectation 1: the scholastically unsuccessful group among the students will advance by several grade levels on
standard achievement tests in mathematics and language. We shall, of course, confirm the significance of any
such observation by comparison with a control group matched on a series of variables set up before the outset of
the experiment.

• Expectation 2: observers will agree that the student in the experiment not only learned more than in a traditional
class, but learned it in a more articulate, richer, more integrated way.

• Expectation 3: students will develop, or adapt concepts and metaphors derived from computers and use them
not only as intellectual tools in the construction of models of such things as "number" and "theory" but also in
elaborating models of their own cognitive processes. This will in turn have an impact on their styles of learning
and problem-solving.

• Expectation 4: the use of computer metaphors by children will have effects beyond what is normally classed as
"cognitive skill". We expect it will influence their language, imagery, games, social interactions, relationships,
etc…

S. Papert. An Evaluative Study of Modern Technology in Education. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Memo No. 371. (June, 1976)
Measuring the Four Expectations

• Expectation 1: suitably designed formative/summative assessment rubrics will show improvement when
compared to traditional instruction.

• Expectation 2: students will show more instances of work at progressively higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

• Expectation 3: student work will demonstrate more – and more varied – critical thinking cognitive skills,
particularly in areas related to the examination of their own thinking processes.

• Expectation 4: student daily life will reflect the introduction of the technology. This includes (but is not limited to)
directly observable aspects such as reduction in student attrition, increase in engagement with civic processes in
their community, and engagement with communities beyond their own.
Black and Wiliam: Defining Formative Assessment

“Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about

student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers,
learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in
instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the
decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that
was elicited.”

Black, P. and Wiliam D. “Developing the theory of formative assessment.” Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. 21:5-31 (2009)
Wiliam: A Framework for Formative Assessment

Where the learner is

Where the learner is going How to get there
right now
Engineering effective
classroom discussions and
Clarifying learning intentions Providing feedback that
Teacher other learning tasks that elicit
and criteria for success moves learners forward
evidence of student
understanding
Understanding and sharing
Activating students as instructional resources for one
Peer learning intentions and
another
criteria for success

Understanding learning
Learner intentions and criteria for Activating students as the owners of their own learning
success

Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment. Solution Tree (2011)

Bloom's Taxonomy: Cognitive Processes

Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) Characteristic Processes

• Recalling memorized knowledge

Remember
• Recognizing correspondences between memorized knowledge and new material
• Paraphrasing materials
• Exemplifying concepts, principles • Extrapolating principles
Understand
• Classifying items • Comparing items
• Summarizing materials
• Applying a procedure to a familiar task
Apply
• Using a procedure to solve an unfamiliar, but typed task
• Distinguishing relevant/irrelevant or important/unimportant portions of material
Analyze • Integrating heterogeneous elements into a structure
• Attributing intent in materials
• Testing for consistency, appropriateness, and effectiveness in principles and procedures
Evaluate • Critiquing the consistency, appropriateness, and effectiveness of principles and
procedures, basing the critique upon appropriate tests
• Generating multiple hypotheses based on given criteria
Create • Designing a procedure to accomplish an untyped task
• Inventing a product to accomplish an untyped task

Lorin W. Anderson and David R. Krathwohl (Eds.), A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Complete Edition. Longman. (2000)
Facione: Critical Thinking – Cognitive Skills and Subskills

Skill Subskills

Categorization
Interpretation Decoding Significance
Clarifying Meaning
Examining Ideas
Analysis Identifying Arguments
Analyzing Arguments
Assessing Claims
Evaluation
Assessing Arguments
Querying Evidence
Inference Conjecturing Alternatives
Drawing Conclusions
Stating Results
Explanation Justifying Procedures
Presenting Arguments
Self-examination
Self-Regulation
Self-correction

Peter Facione, Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction - Executive Summary. "The Delphi Report". American Philosophical Association, Committee on
Pre-College Philosophy. California Academic Press, 1990
Understanding Science:
How Science Works How science works
EXPLORATION
AND DISCOVERY

Making Asking
New technology observations questions Personal motivation
Practical problem Serendipity
Curiosity Surprising observation
Sharing data
and ideas

Finding Exploring the

inspiration literature

Gathering data

Expected Actual
Hypotheses
results/observations results/observations

Interpreting data
Supportive, contradictory, surprising
or inconclusive data may...

...inspire
...support a revised
hypothesis. assumptions. Feedback and
Develop Address Replication
technology societal issues peer review

...inspire
...oppose a revised/new
hypothesis. hypothesis.
Discussion with
Build Inform Publication
colleagues
knowledge policy

TESTING Coming up
IDEAS
Satisfy Solve everyday Theory
curiosity problems with new
building
questions/ideas

BENEFITS AND COMMUNITY

OUTCOMES ANALYSIS AND
FEEDBACK
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
The PCK Question
Why Study History?

• Problematic claims:
• To learn lessons for the present - implies definite predictions of an unknowable future
• Better: To draw lessons for consideration - examples through which we might contemplate our future
actions
• History provides us with an identity - true, but the past as a basis for identity can also become a prison
for the present, limiting choices for action and for seeing ourselves
• To divine essential aspects of the human condition - not only are such essences not in evidence,
assuming that they exist can have a high price

• Stronger reasons:
• Enjoyment
• A tool for thought - exploring an alternative world makes us more aware of our own lives and contexts
• To be made aware of the possibility of doing things differently - history is an argument, showing that
there have always been many courses of action, many ways of being

John Arnold. History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. (2000)
 gy

C
go

on
da

te
nt
Pe
PCK
PK CK

TPCK
TPK TCK

TK

Technology
 Causality

Chronology

gy

C
go

on
Multiple Perspectives

da

te
Contingency

nt
Pe
Empathy
PCK History – Core Concepts
Change and Continuity Over Time
PK CK
Influence/Significance/Impact

Contrasting Interpretations
TPCK
TPK TCK Intent/Motivation

Does the question represent an important issue to historical and contemporary times?

Is the question debatable?

TK
Does the question represent a reasonable amount of content?

Will the question hold the interest of students?

History – Guiding Criteria
Is the question appropriate given the materials available?

Is the question challenging for the students you are teaching?

Technology
What organizing historical concepts will be emphasized?
Lee S. Shulman, "Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching." Educational Researcher, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Feb., 1986)
Bruce Lesh. ''Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer?'' Teaching Historical Thinking in Grades 7-12. Stenhouse Publishers. (2011)
Information Literacy and Reading Comprehension:
Digital Storytelling and Visualization Tools
Social Mobility Visualization Storytelling Gaming
200,000 70,000 40,000 17,000 8,000
years years years years years
 Pictorial vocabulary;
Narrative sources; Narrative transitions; CDS Seven Elements; Narrative structures;
Narrative constraints Text/image integration Montage structures Narrative flows Ludic elements

Image Sequential Moving Interactive Interactive

Assembly Art Image Media Fiction

5-Card Nancy Comic Life Premiere Pachyderm Inform 7

Infinite Canvas
Prezi
Information Literacy and Reading Comprehension:
Research Needs and Social Structures
Howard Rheingold. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. MIT Press (2012)
 categorizing, providing find differences, similarities and
commentary, analyzing create meaning from them

searching, browsing, accessing,

linking, referencing
collecting

Annotating Comparing
Discovering Referring

Scholarly Primitives

selecting according to a criterion,

showing relationships of items
selected to the original set
Sampling Representing changing depiction mode,
publishing

Illustrating

showing an example, highlighting

features within an example

John Unsworth. Scholarly Primitives: What Methods Do Humanities Researchers Have in Common and How Might Our Tools Reflect This? Humanities Computing, Formal Methods, Experimental Practice Symposium, Kings College, London. (May 2000)
 A group of people with a common interest or practice who share
Communities of Practice
information and/or network.

Communities working on a shared goal for a particular project or

Teams
function.

Community Types Technical Support Groups Provide technical support for a particular software or hardware tool.

Communities in which members brainstorm around a set of questions

IdeaLabs
or issues for a limited period of time, usually one to three days long.

Recreation Communities devoted to recreational activities unrelated to work.

Muller, M., Ehrlich, K., Matthews, T., Perer, A. A., Ronen, I., and Guy, I. Diversity among enterprise online communities: Collaborating, teaming, and innovating through social media. 2012 ACM SIGCHI Conf. on Human Factors in Computing
Systems (2012)
A Basic Toolkit

• Bookmarks: Delicious, Diigo

• RSS Feeds: Reeder

• Forums: itslearning

• Microblogging: Twitter

• Blogging: WordPress

• Wikis: MediaWiki
Framing Cross-Disciplinary Work
Three Categories

• Convergent Design

• What is a common underlying feature connecting different activities in different subject areas?

• Example: how does marketing appear as a common feature to be addressed across vocational areas?

• Divergent Design

• What do different disciplines have to say about one central theme?

• Example: what do different subject areas contribute to the understanding of the European Union?

• Challenge Based Learning

• How do we go from a big idea, to a challenge, to implementing a solution, to assessing it?

• Example: what challenge and response could we derive from the idea of sustainability?
The Big Idea: The big idea is a broad concept
can be explored in multiple ways, is eng
and has importance to learners, and
larger society. Examples of big id
Resilience, Separation, Creativi
Health, Sustainability, and
Democracy.
Essential Question: By de
the big idea allows for the
generation of a wide varie
essential questions. Eventu
process narrows to one ess
question that reflects the in
of the learners and the needs
their community.
The Challenge: From the essentia
question a concise challenge is articul
that asks the learners to create a specific so
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks,
previously inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Big Idea
Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with
functional improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no
functional change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks,
previously inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Solution
Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with
functional improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no
functional change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks,
previously inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Evaluation
Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with
functional improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no
functional change
The CBL Process
Collaborative Space Implement and Assess
• How will the teams communicate? • How can the solution be tested?
• Where will resources be shared? • Did the solution work?
Introduction Document/Reflect
• Why is this idea important to the students? • What did we learn?
• Why is this idea important to the community? • What would we do differently?
Team Formation Publish
• What makes up a productive design team? • How do we share our results?
• How do we capitalize on everyone's skills? • What is the story behind the solution?
Assessment
• How will the process be assessed?
• How will the solution be assessed?
Guiding Questions
• What do we need to know in order to meet the challenge?
Guiding Activities
• What do we need to do to answer our guiding questions?
• What resources are needed?
Solution Development
• How do we meet the challenge?
• Is the solution justified?
Thinking About Assessment
 Brief Lecture or Group Discussion
(~10 minutes)

ConcepTest
(~1-2 minutes)

Fewer than 30% of Between 30-75% of More than 75% of

students answer correctly students answer correctly students answer correctly

Peer Discussion:
The instructor The instructor
students try to convince each other
revisits and explains the concept explains remaining misconceptions
(~2-3 minutes)

ConcepTest
(~1-2 minutes)

Mazur, E. Peer Instruction - A User's Manual. Prentice Hall (1997)

 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
 Redefinition
Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously
inconceivable

Modification
Tech allows for significant task redesign

Augmentation
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional
improvement

Substitution
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional
change
Wiliam: A Framework for Formative Assessment

Where the learner is

Where the learner is going How to get there
right now
1 2
Engineering effective 3
classroom discussions and
Clarifying learning intentions Providing feedback that
Teacher other learning tasks that elicit
and criteria for success moves learners forward
evidence of student
understanding
Understanding and sharing 4
Activating students as instructional resources for one
Peer learning intentions and
another
criteria for success

Understanding learning 5
Learner intentions and criteria for Activating students as the owners of their own learning
success

Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment. Solution Tree (2011)

1. Clarifying, Sharing, & Understanding
Learning Intentions & Success Criteria

• Task-specific vs. generic rubrics

• Task-specific: best for summative

• Generic: best for formative

• Product-focused vs. Process-focused

• Official vs. Student-Friendly Language

Approaches to 1.

• Look at samples of other students' work, then rank them by quality

• Engage students in quality process
• Students frequently better at seeing issues in others' work
• Not a "somebody wins" exercise, but a quality exercise
• Consider using ranked voting, e.g. Condorcet
• Make explicit progressions within rubrics, and progressions across rubrics
• Have students design test items
• Presenting learning intentions and success criteria to students:
• WALT: we are learning to
• WILF: what I'm looking for
• TIB: this is because
2. Eliciting Evidence of Learners' Achievement
In the (Extended) Classroom

• Asking questions in class:

• Discussion/thinking trigger

• Examples: ConcepTest, POE, Virtual Whiteboard

• Incorrect answers have to be "interesting"

• Can allow for:

• Multiple correct answers

• Varying degrees of correctness

• Should provide info for varying instruction on the fly and long term

• Make sure that answers cannot be constructed by accident

3. Providing Feedback that Moves Learning Forward

• Feedback must provide a recipe for future action

• Feedback should:

• Be more work for the recipient than the donor

• Not just right/wrong - make them think about what did not work

• Be focused: less is more

• Relate explicitly to goals/rubrics

Characteristics and Models for Feedback that Satisfies 3.

• When:
• Provide feedback post-problem engagement
• More "mindfulness" = more learning
• How:
• Scores or praise alone do not provide this; comments do
• Supplying minimal scaffolded responses (i.e., addressing where the student got stuck) >> supplying a
full response to the problem
• This emphasizes the crucial role of the draft object and process
• Oral feedback >> written feedback
• Consider using recordings
• Create (sometimes together with students) process rubrics that embody this scaffold
• Provide time for students to use this feedback
• Minimize grading:
• Avoid false stopping points
• Avoid ratchet effect
4. Activating Students as Instructional Resources for One Another

• Two key elements:

• Group goals
• Individual accountability
• Effectiveness due to (in order of importance):
• Personalization
• Cognitive Elaboration
• Motivation
• Social Cohesion
• Reciprocal help only works when it takes the form of elaborated explanations
• Not simple answers or procedures
• Looks to the upper levels of Bloom for both participants
• More effective (by a factor of up to 4) if the product being assessed is the result of the aggregate of
individual contributions, rather than just one group product
5. Activating Students as Owners of their Own Learning

• Effective self-assessment is up to twice as effective as other-assessment

• Two key components:
• Metacognition:
• Metacognitive knowledge: know what you know
• Metacognitive skills: what you can do
• Metacognitive experience: what you know about your cognitive abilities
• Motivation:
• Traditionally viewed as a cause (intrinsic/extrinsic)
• Better viewed as an outcome:
• Flow: the result of a match between capability and challenge
• Students are motivated to reach goals that are:
• Specific
• Within reach
• Offer some degree of challenge
Student Sources for 5.

• 3 sources of info for students to decide what they will do:

• Perceptions of the task and its context

• Knowledge about the task and what it will take to be successful

• Motivational beliefs

• The role of the draft process and object resurfaces as a crucial component here

• Crucial Tools:

• Learning logs

• Learning portfolios
Resources
• Ruben R. Puentedura, Transformation, Technology, and Education. (2006) Online at:
http://hippasus.com/resources/tte/
• Ruben R. Puentedura, As We May Teach: Educational Technology, From Theory Into Practice. (2009) Online at:
http://tinyurl.com/aswemayteach
• Punya Mishra & Matthew J. Koehler, “Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge”. Teachers College Record, 108(6). (2006) Online at:
http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu/OtherPages/Koehler_Pubs/TECH_BY_DESIGN/TCRecord/mishra_koehler_tcr2006.pdf
• TPCK - Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Online at:
http://tpack.org
• AACTE (Eds.) The Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Educators. Routledge. (2008)
• Ruben R. Puentedura, “Technology In Education: The First 200,000 Years” The NMC Perspective Series: Ideas that Matter. NMC Summer Conference. (2012) Online at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NemBarqD6qA
• Punya Mishra and Kristen Kereluik, “What is 21st Century Learning? A review and synthesis.” Paper submitted to the SITE2011 Conference. (2011) Online at:
http://punya.educ.msu.edu/publications/21stCenturyKnowledge_PM_KK.pdf
• Punya Mishra and Kristen Kereluik, “What is 21st Century Learning? A review and synthesis.” SITE2011 Conference Presentation. (2011) Online at:
http://punya.educ.msu.edu/presentations/site2011/SITE_2011_21st_Century.pdf
Hippasus

Blog: http://hippasus.com/rrpweblog/
Email: rubenrp@hippasus.com
Twitter: @rubenrp
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