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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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 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. Driving Question: What effect does the increased use of technology have on socio-economically challenged students?
1. What access do students currently have to technology? 2. What ways do students use technology? 3. What apps/games/sites do students use outside of the classroom? 4. Do students continue persue the technology introduced in class outside the classroom? 5. What long term effects does the use of technology in the classroom have in the lives of students outside the classroom? Need to know:
The greatest dilemma facing my classroom right now is how to bring equity to my students. My classroom should provide students with equity of opportunity, equity of resources, and equity of experiences. Teaching in a high poverty school, however, this is not the case. Many of my students have little or no exposure to the world in which they live. They are just a short drive away from large cities and amazing opportunities and experiences, but few of them are even aware of what is beyond their small neighborhood.
How can I help them gain a new perspective on the world around them? How can I help them be proficient in all the skills they need if they lack supplies or access to technology? I want to formulate my driving question around this idea of equality and how it relates to not only technology, but also to world exposure and experiences. Students living in poverty enter the classroom at a profound deficit of understanding of the world around them, simply because they haven't seen it or heard about it. Technology is one obvious way to bridge this gap -- bringing in experiences, connecting them to people and organizations without having to physically travel there. I will need to understand not only the effects of poverty on students but also how technology can bridge that gap. I will need to understand the impact of a "digital" experience on students. Does it has the same effect as an actual experience? Does it benefit students in a tangible, measurable way? How can we bridge this opportunity/experiential gap for students? What are some real ways that this can be achieved? I have already seen how exposure can impact and change students view points. I have already been working at exposing students to various careers, work place environments, and global locations in my computers classroom. This exposure has lead to students gaining a new understanding of the choices that are in front of them. |
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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