I plan to implement my study next week with my 5th grade reading class. The following steps will be followed:
1. Administer the pretest 2. Table results 3. Spend two weeks teaching html/css coding. 4. Administer the posttest 5. Table results 6. Adminster exit questionaire As students take the pretest/posttest, I will not only be looking at correct answers, but time taken to complete and am trying to determine an appropriate set of questions to gauge student frustration and problem-solving approach.
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“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must we want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy” -John Dewey Education would be greatly changed if we converted our learning experiences to follow an engineering design model approach, or to implement the concepts of video game building. This would bring about a transformation in education as a whole, but specifically it would create a tremendous impact on testing. As the system works now, students struggle through a set of lessons, or activities, and then take a separate test. Tests, in general, are separate and distinct from the day to day experience in the classroom, and unless a school has shifted the learning experience to prepare students for that test, it is often even disconnected from the details of learning in the classroom.
The belief that testing should be an embedded part of the learning experience, brings an authenticity to that testing. Results are no longer a disconnected set of data for that moment in time, but rather are a part of the learning process. For example, if you want students to learn to code a website, the test should not be a series of multiple choice questions about proper strings of code, but rather a website that students have built. This type of learning is n0t only the type of hands-on problem solving that promotes deeper understanding, but has an integral part of it, a way for students to demonstrate understanding. Can they build the website? This is not a subjective evaluation of a written, descriptive response but an easily demonstrated application of new knowledge. It is interesting to consider the ways in which the gaming industry has mastered the concepts regarding what works for students to develop rapid understanding of new and complex ideas. I did not teach my son how to play Pokemon, in fact when I studied the directions, it made little sense to me, and yet, at nine, he quickly mastered a deep understanding of the game and how it works. His first lessons were brutal -- involving his quick and heartless defeat by those who knew the game better, and yet this "failure" led to his increased "study" and the development of a deeper understanding. This is precisily the type of learing we seek in the classroom, and yet we endeavor to achieve using the same methods we have been using for over a century. As understanding of the development of the human brain, and the process of learning grows, we must adjust our approach to the classroom. Great understanding should lead to change in the classroom because our understanding of how learning takes place has shifted. Learning is connected to clear goals and problem-solving, and curriculum must being to reflect that. And yet, this not truly "new" information. This effective approach to learning has been evident in the classroom -- ask any student who has participated in a hands-on activity that required problem-solving skills. The process of working and reworking the problem, brings about a deeper understanding that remains with them, long after the multiple-choice answer to a test ever could. This type of learning experience must be available to ALL students. It cannot only be the experiences of students who are exposed to the best education has to offer, but ALL students. Statistically, these "real world" experiences are less likely to happen in schools who are batteling the effects of poverty, and as Dewey mandates, all students in our community deserve what we want for our very own children. And in a larger sense, all children in the community are OUR children. We will either pay to make sure that all students experience this type of education so that real, and effective learning takes place, or we will pay to care for students who have been ill-educated in the form of our prisons and other subsidies provided for those who cannot independently function in society. We pay either way, so it is imperrative, for our own survival that education shift and change to make sure that learning is powerful and effective, and available to all. One of the things that became immediately clear to me when researching my driving question was that there didn't appear to be me nearly enough research examining the impact of HTML/CSS coding language development on thinking skills. This maybe because teaching coding in the elementary classroom is a unique or new trend, and therefore hasn't been studied the way that more traditional classroom experiences have been, or it maybe that HTML/CSS are such fluid languages that studies are difficult to conduct. I was able to discover several studies looking at the impact of SCRATCH, a computer language created for children. Filiz Kalelioglu and Yasemin Gulbahar conducted a study on "The Effects of Teaching Programming via Scratch on Problem Solving Skills: A Discussion from Learners' Perspective", is the one that is most often cited. This looks at how learning SCRATCH impacted problem solving skills in elementary students. This study is similiar to the one I propose, and according to their research, learning SCRATCH resulted in a "non-significant increase" for these students. However, as SCRATCH is not a "true" computer language, but rather one created for children, I feel that there is a significant difference between this study and the one I propose.
One trend in education recently is the growth of kid-friendly coding activities. which involves a drag-and-drop technique. This differs widely from learning an actual coding language suchs as HTML, CSS, or Java Script. Students walk away from these activities believing that they have been "coding" on the computer, when really they are simply moving a block from one side of the screen to the other. While some logic is involved in this process, selecting the correct block of code to solve the puzzle, it doesn't require the in depth problem solving of the complex language of HTML. In contemplating my driving question, I focused on this area of technology education. If true computer coding requires a deeper level of logic and problem solving, could it have a more significant impact on student development of these skills? This differentiation is critical when examing the state-of-the-art knowledge related to this question. Should efforts be made to move toward teaching students authentic levels of computer coding, rather than a watered-down, kid friendly version? If students are to be fluent in state-of-the-art computer skills, shouldn't they begin to practice them as soon as developmentally possible? This is an area that appears to be particularly underrepresented in current research. I am hoping that my small study will provide insight into this developing area of education. It would be impossible for me to ignore the presence of technology in the American classroom, as I am teaching in a technology classroom. Looking at both TPACK and SAMR are truly a part of my analysis of my own classroom. Is the tech I am using beneficial to students? Am I enhancing learning or simply just substituting the computer for a pencil? Will the activities done on technology benefit a students understanding in the subject? Will it aid in their learning?
Looking at several classroom examples, I particularly focused on one teacher's use of Google Hangouts in the classroom. http://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/technology-to-help-students-ousd She used it in order to provide students with ways to communicate with students in other schools. Her goal to build students' communication skills through technology. This particular lesson struck me because my students frequently use Google Hangouts to "play" together after school and on the weekends - whether playing videos games corporately or just to "hang around" together. In other words, using this technology would involve taking something students ALREADY value and putting it to use in the classroom. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE CASE The teacher is trying to increase student communication. She is looking for ways to stretch student teaching skills and finding new ways for them to communicate with other students not just in their own class but all over the United States. Her hope is to not only build connections between students, but also to build her students confidence in expressing their ideas and opinions in clear ways. DETAILS Students meet up on-line in Google Hangouts to discuss and assignment with students and teachers with a similar assignment at another school. Students then share their responses and discuss together. They then can form their final response based on shared discussion and feedback. Groups are kept small, just five or fewer students, to keep communication clear and effective. USEFUL INFORMATION I am quite familiar with Google Hangouts and have used it for class presentations - career day with professionals speaking with classes remotely, or meetings with other educators to discuss lesson planning, and effective teaching. I hadn't thought about the benefit of using it to connect with other students to discuss an assignment. WOULD YOU USE IT I was thinking of several applications. I would like to find a way to create a Google Hangout with professionals in the tech industry during Hour of Code next year. What better way to expose students to the benefits of coding than allowing them to speak to the people who actually write code. It would also be interesting to connect with schools either locally or somewhere else in the United States to discuss a particular topic either from history, STEM or even reading -- you could conduct a Google Hangout book club with students who had read the same book. It would be very interesting to see some applications of Google Hangouts in the classroom. FILM EXPERIENCE: 3 I would love more details and more examples. This brief video was just an overview. It is surprising to learn that in our climate of emphasis on technology skills, little has been done to examine the impact of that technology use on the critical thinking, or problem-solving skills of students who use it. The push to become more digitally competent and more digitally aware and to develop "21st Century" skills is prevalent in the world of educators, but what are the benefits or impact of those skills? How do students benefit from the use of technology? These are not questions that are being asked very frequently. The few studies I found focused on the effect of robotics on student learning, ("The Ideal Science Student: Exploring the Relationship of Student's Perception to Their Problem Solving Activity in a Robotics Context" by Sullivan and Lin, 2012), or the impact of technology on women and girls as they solve problems, ("Education: Coding and Aesthetic Understanding, Computer Science Education and Computational thinking", Good, Kenan and Mirsha, 2016), or examining technologies impact on computational abilities, ("Approaches to Achieving Equity of Outcomes in Computational Thinking and Coding Education", Anderson, 2016). These studies seem to examine the broad impact of technology's use, but not a close up examination of the improvement of any skills or abilities, outside skills specifically tied to technology. Yet, we are devoting hours to improving the technology education of our students; time being the most precious commodity in school. Shouldn't we closely consider the overall benefits, if any, of these lessons and activities? I hope to take a closer look at the overall impact of coding (specifically HTML/CSS) on a student's ability to solve OTHER complex problems outside of coding. Can learn to code help students do a better job on solving complex math equations or puzzles? Can it provide them with more tenacity when approaching other problems: writing a paper, solving long-division, or following the scientific process. As we forge ahead, we must always be looking back and attempting to discern if our steps forward are leading us in the right direction. This study will address important issues facing us on both the local and National level. We are still working on National Standards for technology instruction, most schools relying on the ISTE Standards which were reviesed just last year. California, as yet is still working on adding specific standards for technology instruction to the Common Core document, and thus these questions are essential for all educators. |
AuthorJen has been teaching school for awhile now. She's learned some stuff, but she's got tons more to learn. Archives
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