Research Methodologies Thoughts - Technology
There are unlimited possibilities for technology in the classroom. Technology can pump up engagement, assist in data gathering and analysis, allow for differentiation and self-paced lessons, open the door to career explorations, and bring something authentic into the classroom. For all the good technology does, it is easy to become a distraction as well. A solid research idea can get sidelined by technology implementation, absorbed by teaching the tech instead of leveraging tech to learn concepts, or bogged down with the details of creating something digitally. Many math projects can easily lose the rigor and depth of content to the wonders of technology. Technology can also become a crutch instead of a tool for students. I considered all these things as I planned my growth mindset and performance task study. The purpose of the study is to examine student’s ability to perform on content-rich tasks, so technology cannot supercede the content. The research also examines growth mindset, so students need to not rely too heavily on technology or it could undermine the mindset work occurring. That said, technology can be incredibly useful for data gathering and, with the CAASPP tests coming up, students can also benefit from developing their tech skills. Some ideas I currently have are self-paced Echo modules, Echo journals, Doc templates in Google Drives, and Google forms. These pieces of technology all help me gather, organize, and store student work for analysis and has the added benefit of easing my students into the upcoming season of online testing. I am also considering using Prodigy, a game based learning system, as a way to track some content specific data. Khan Academy was also up for consideration, due to their growth mindset articles and mastery challenges. However, Prodigy collects more specific data from students and tends to be more exciting for most. I also am considering having students do some independent research, although that is not necessarily a tool for my action research but just an opportunity to leverage technology. My only concern is adding in too many elements. Many technology uses listed above are standard for my room and my site. However, adding in Khan/Prodigy on top of the normal classroom activities (metacognitive journals, growth mindset reflections and assessments, Performance Task practice and scoring) means that I will already have a lot going on. For the sake of my research and data, this may be a time to be frugal with technology implementation.
2 Comments
Jimmy
3/30/2017 07:15:28 pm
Patrick,
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Nai Saelee
5/27/2017 11:09:45 am
As a math teacher, I could not agree with you more about how math can get bogged down by technology and content and rigor can really suffer by it. I am hoping this masters program can offer some much needed insight to technology that deepens knowledge in the math content area. Many times, I feel like some tasks require technology use just to check that off on project design since the school we are at is a technology focused school. I think all math departments across schools would really benefit from training on technology. For example, I am wondering, what kinds of tools are out there that align with my grade level content standards? Prodigy sounds fun, it would be interesting to see how it would affect 8th grade students.
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