Build-A-Matrix PD Activity: Printed Card Sort
Here’s a professional development activity you can do with your teachers to help them understand the reasoning behind the various levels of the Technology Integration Matrix. In this activity, teachers will sort the summary descriptors for each of the five characteristics into order from Entry to Transformation Level. It also encourages good conversation around the TIM as different teachers may end up with different arrangements and need to explain their choices.
As teachers work through the exercise, they’ll start to see the patterns from one characteristic to another. The TIM will start to make much more sense as they have the opportunity to construct it themselves, rather than just reading a whole lot of words on a printed grid.
- Print one copy of this 3-page PDF for each participant or each group. Since you will need to keep each deck of 25 cards separate, you may wish to print each 3-page copy on a different color paper or cover stock.
- Cut along the dotted lines to create a deck of 25 cards.
- Within each characteristic, the order of the cards in this PDF is already shuffled.
- Ask teachers to arrange the five cards for each characteristic (Active, Collaborative, Constructive, Authentic, and Goal-Directed) in order from lower to higher levels of technology integration. You may wish to suggest that they consider the shift from simple to complex use of technology; the shift from teacher ownership of learning to student ownership of learning; the shift from procedural understanding of the tech to conceptual understanding of the tech; and the shift from conventional to innovative use of technology tools.
- Teachers should then have the opportunity to explain their choices to their partner, group, or the whole class.
This activity con also be conducted using an online interactive or a wall-sized TIM.
