Zia -Mindlab Blogging : November 2019

Monday, 25 November 2019

How you have changed your practice

Research literature - Examining the impact of digital technologies on student learning

Stage 1: Problem identification

I have collect data through interviews. I was able to successfully interview 4 experienced teachers of at least 3 or more years who use digital technology in their classrooms. For me it is more meaningful to interview a participant in person rather than by phone or email as Smith (1997) states ‘It is important to meet people in person and to be a face that is known to and seen within a community.

However, the problem was one of my participants didn’t have time to do an interview but wanted to complete a questionnaire (survey) instead so that they could fill it in their own time.

Stage 2: Observation and analysis

As a result of this rangahau project, it is inevitable that technology will continue to be utilised throughout schools in New Zealand. I have been able to establish that students are highly motivated and engaged when using digi-tech. But there is a downside in that not all students engage well with digital technology.

I highly recommend that digital technology be used as a tool to support learning that is creative and task focused rather than busy work. The common reasons for disengagement was distraction. A great way to combat this is through the use of teacher dashboard. Teacher dashboard allows the teacher to actively monitor the student’s online activity, enabling the teacher to notify the students in real time if they are off-task.

I have also discovered that digital technology makes it easier for teachers to effectively track and monitor student progress through individual learner login. It is important to understand the needs of the learner in order to provide for their learning needs.

Stage 3: Abstract reconceptualization

Technology has increasingly become an integral part of everyday life making ordinary tasks easier by a simple push of a few buttons. With the birth of digital natives, more New Zealand primary schools are utilizing technology in order to provide the best learning experiences for children (Ministry of Education, 2017). This qualitative research looks at the impact digital technologies have on student learning. Undertaking this research helps me to understand how to utilize this technology more effectively in the classroom to enhance student learning.

Stage 4: Active experimentation

I might use survey method in the future if I ever do a project like this again as it is more convenient for both parties. As we all know, teachers are very busy and it’s hard for them to make time for a face to face interview. Therefore, if this research was done through survey there are chances of having more participants. This is because survey can be done at anytime and from anywhere.

Another alternative is to do the survey online on survey monkey an online survey platform. Since the research itself is about technology it would be more convenient for the participants. Also, survey monkey can easily be added to social sites like facebook etc. this way other teachers around the country could have done the survey as well.

These findings will help to enhance my own teaching practice and to better understand how I can implement the use of digital devices in the classroom as a beginning teacher.

Reference:

Henderson, S., & Yeow, J. (2012, January). iPad in education: A case study of iPad adoption and use in a primary school. In System science (hicss), 2012 45th hawaii international conference on (pp. 78-87). IEEE.

Higgins, S., Xiao, Z., & Katsipataki, M. (2012). The impact of digital technology on learning: A summary for the education endowment foundation. Durham, UK: Education Endowment Foundation and Durham University.

Light, D & Pierson, E. (2014). Increasing Student Engagement in Math: The Use of Khan Academy in Chilean Classrooms. International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology, 10(2), 103-119.

Melhuish, K. & Falloon, G. (2010). Looking to the future: M-learning with the iPad. Computers in New Zealand Schools: Learning, Leading, Technology, 22(3).

Ministry of Education. (2017). Education in New Zealand. Retrieved 12 July, 2017, from https://education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/specific-initiatives/digital-technologies-for-teaching-and-learning/

Mutch, C. (2013). Doing educational research : a practitioner's guide to getting started. (2nd ed.). Wellington: NZCER Press.

Parsons, D., & Adhikar, J. (2016). Bring your own device to secondary school: The perceptions of teachers, students and parents. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 14(1), 66–80.

Skinner B.F. (1961). Teaching machines. Scientific American, 205, 90-112. doi:10.2307/1926170, p. 381

Smith, L.T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples. New Zealand: University of Otago Press.

Inquiry impacts on future

Evaluate how your Inquiry impacts on future

Inquiry/practice

Research literature - Examining the impact of digital technologies on student learning

What is the actual impact after the ‘Take Action’ phase?

Through the process of thematic analysis, three dominant themes have emerged as well as one sub category. The first theme was Student engagement which includes the subcategory of student disengagement. 4 out of 4 participants strongly declared that students were engaged in their learning when using digital technologies, but these 4 participants also explained reasons why students were not engaged in their learning while using digital technology; The second theme was ‘Student Collaboration' which saw 4 out of 4 participants speak about how they encourage students to work collaboratively using digital technology; The final theme was ‘Personalised Learning’ where 3 out of 4 participants spoke about how they were able to use technology to cater to the individual learner needs.

How is the actual impact different from or similar to the anticipated one?

The actual impact is similar to the literature reviews. However, the words used by the participants for the theme are different from the words used in the literature.

Beside this all participants talk about students disengagement whereas, while doing the literature review students disengagement was not a big deal. There are times when digital technology can cause students to disengagement within their learning.

Literature	Participants
Students engagement	Students engagement
	Students disengagement
Students -students engagement	Students collaboration
Individualising and personalising learning	Personalisation of learning

What is the impact on future inquiry/practice?
Time- Throughout this research I found it hard to fit in time to do interviews. Because we were not allowed to interview participants while at school, this put extra pressure on to find time to get these done. This left term four the busiest term of the school year to arrange interviews with possible participants. Three possible participants turned me away and I never heard back from 2 schools.

Interview vs Survey- One of my participants didn’t have time to do an interview but wanted to complete a questionnaire instead so that they could fill it in their own time. I might use this method in the future if I ever do a project like this again as it is more convenient for both parties.

Time frames- trying to organise interviews around my family’s schedule as well as my class timetable was hard. My first interview was rushed because they had meetings to attend.

Word limit- It was difficult trying to stay within the limitations of the word limit in this project because there were so many relevant quotes from the participants that I wanted to use but I had to shorten down or leave some out.

Reference:

Mutch, C. (2013). Doing educational research : a practitioner's guide to getting started. (2nd ed.). Wellington: NZCER Press.

Smith, L.T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples. New Zealand: University of Otago Press.

Data collected so far...

The data you have collected so far and how you are

analysing it

Research literature - Examining the impact of digital technologies on student learning

Describe the data you have collected so far:

The other methodology implemented in this project is action research. Action research methodology focuses on one’s own practices or the teacher’s perspective for the improvement of teaching and learning purposes (Mutch, pg. 108, 2013). This is relevant for this research because part of my criteria is to interview one’s perspective or experience, in this case the teacher. This will also inform other educators and beginning teachers like myself, about the impacts of digital technology in the classroom.

The interviews will be recorded on a password protected Samsung mobile device which will then be transcribed using a password protected laptop. All recordings and transcriptions will be deleted after the presentation at the end of this year (2020). The interview will be semi-structured of 7 questions relating to their experience teaching with digital technology. (see Appendix A)

Explain how you are analysing your data:

For the current study, the data analysis followed Mutch’s (2013) method of Thematic analysis. This method of data analysis is a qualitative strategy that locates themes from the raw data. This way of working is also called constant comparative analysis or grounded theory. Mutch’s (2013) thematic analysis process follows eight steps which are:

1. Browse

2. Highlight

3. code

4. group and label

5. develop themes or categories

6. check for consistency and resonance

7. select samples

8. report findings.

Reflect on your evidence so far:

I began by transcribing the interviews, then checked and corrected any spelling and

punctuation before returning each one to the interviewee for final comment. I made electronic copies and filed the originals. Next I used the “find in document” function in google docs to highlight key words or any ideas that interested me from the transcripts. After highlighting key words and ideas in the transcripts, I used this “open coding” to look for repeated patterns in the data. I also used prior codes such as “engagement” or “collaboration”, which is derived from the literature review. Becoming increasingly familiar with the data led to some of the codes being renamed or subdivided. On completing the coding, I cut coded chunks from the transcripts and pasted them onto a new google document under separate themes.

The emerging themes were engagement, collaboration, and personalised learning. Some of the data belonged to multiple codes with some data appearing more than once. The themes were put in in order of how many times they appeared in the transcripts from the most to the least. A sub-category emerged from the top rating theme and a final list was formed under the headings of student engagement (which included the sub heading of student disengagement), collaborative learning, and personalised learning.

The next step was to revisit the original text to select quotations to exemplify what I wanted to describe in my findings. Once the relevant samples were selected, I started to construct my findings by summarising the key themes, providing relevant examples.

Reference:

Mutch, C. (2013). Doing educational research : a practitioner's guide to getting started. (2nd ed.). Wellington: NZCER Press.

Smith, L.T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples. New Zealand: University of Otago Press.

How Ethical Issues are Being Addressed

How ethical issues are being addressed

Step 1 (What): Ethical Dilemma

A student/s abuse of a digital device use in the classroom. It is difficult to have eyes on all things when students have been set with a task on the school COWS (laptops). With 21st century learning, the only way forward is giving students the experience to do so. Digital learning plays a huge part, therefore it is important for myself to provide students with these opportunities. I strongly believe that gamification plays a huge role in student engagement and achievement. Students enjoy using digital devices however, students quickly lose my trust by not doing what they are supposed to be doing and visit inappropriate sites. Two students used Facebook inappropriately and the whole school had to suffer the consequences. Facebook was blocked.

Step 2 (So What): Ethical decision making framework – Enrich (2011)
Not following in class rules and expectations when using a school digital device is breaking an agreement. According to Ehrich et al. (2011), when a critical incident occurs there are a group of people or individuals that sways your decision to what happens next. The organisational culture came to mind at first and the question lingered around in my head, “Was my organisation to blame?”, did I have good procedures, expectations and eyes when students are on the computer? In terms of professional ethics, I believe that students know and understand that what they have done is wrong and inappropriate. If they’ve done it once they can do it again. As part of school policy students fill in a cybersafety contact when enrolling into the school, so parents and students are fully aware of the school policies. Thereafter, students make their choice/s and can choose to ignore it or act upon it. After the Facebook incident, all teachers including relievers signed an internet agreement. Students also signed another agreement which the teacher had to read aloud and explain fully. Student Agreement Staff Cyber Safety Use Agreement.

Step 3 (Now What): I have created a digital citizenship lesson plan. It has the achievement objectives followed by the learning experiences and weekly breakdown. Digital Citizenship Plan. It is written in ‘Our Code, Our Standard’, that it has been developed to “provide learners, their families and whanau, their communities and the public with trust and confidence in teachers and the profession” (Education council, 2017 p6). I had the belief that I could trust my students, which I do with most students however there are a few students who test you and your patience as a teacher. I put in place a buddy system (which works well with working collaboratively). Students are buddied up, and I choose their buddies so that I can have more than two eyes.

Our school uses Teacher Dashboard (Hapara) which has a Highlights feature that displays the current screen that students are on. I display that onto the class t.v. It is visible to the entire class. The wrongdoer is easily caught and the class decides on the punishment. Netsafe have worked together with the Ministry of Education and compiled a guide for schools in ‘Digital Technology – Safe and responsible use in schools. This resource includes contents in dealing with the Roles and Responsibilities of a student when having access to digital technology. This has given me more options of what I can do, to be netsafe and keeping students on task while at the same time, being respectful when working on any given task using the school laptops / iPads.

Reference:

Ehrich, L. C. , Kimber M., Millwater, J. & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice Ministry of Education. (2015). DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Safe and responsible use in schools. Wellington: New Zealand.