My goal during this self-designed experience was to collect data about my current group of 8th grade science students to help guide my instruction and assessment strategies throughout the remaining time of this school year. Originally, I thought I would be able to offer the option to conduct experiments online or in person, take assessments online or on paper, and do the readings online or in a magazine, but this turned out to be impossible given my resources and control in the classroom as the student teacher. Ultimately, my mentor teacher and I conducted the classroom as we would have to the best of our knowledge and ability to differentiate, and instead conducted a survey asking about student’s preference for assignments in the future. In the survey, I asked students three simple questions: 1.How would you prefer to take an assessment such as a quiz, test, or state exam (assume no writing section)? ·Online ·On a piece of paper ·Online, but have a hard copy for reference too ·No preference 2.How would you prefer to do reading assignments? ·Online ·On paper ·No preference 3.Why? ·___________________________________. I collected and used 104 complete sets of data for this research project which includes a total of 56 boys and 48 girls; of that total, 7 boys and 6 girls are on an individual education plan (IEP). Once I collected all the surveys using the online web 2.0 tool Socrative.com, I transferred the raw information to an Excel file. I recorded whether the student was a boy or a girl, whether they preferred to take an exam and read articles digitally, on paper or had no preference/preferred both, whether they have an individualized education plan, and then recorded each student’s final grade in the 3rd Quarter. Graphical representations of this information with my thoughts can be found below.
Figure 1: Simply displays the number of boys and girls on my team who prefer to take a digital exam, a paper exam, or have both / no preference on the matter. This includes a quiz, test, or state exam with no writing section.
From this graphic, I can gather that majority of the boys on my team who took the survey prefer to take an assessment digitally, while the girls on my team are split down the middle. Hardly anyone preferred both forms available or had no preference on this subject. This information lets me know that most of my students would be happier to take an assessment online as opposed to a paper. When asked why, common responses from students who are pro-digital exams say the exam can be easily saved and resumed at another time, they get their grade immediately, and can immediately review questions that were answered incorrectly. Common responses from those who were pro-paper exams say they can more easily highlight key words in the question, visually cross out incorrect answers, and write down what they know about a question and resume that thought process if they wanted to skip the question.
Figure 2: Simply displays the number of boys and girls on my team who prefer to read an article digitally, on paper, or have both / no preference on the matter.
By studying this graphic, I can see that boys are split right down the middle with reading online or on paper, and girls have a strong preference for reading on paper. More girls than boys would prefer to have a copy of the article in both mediums, or have no preference at all. This tells me that students would overall be happier by reading from a magazine instead of an online newspaper. When asked why, students who were pro-reading-on-screen liked features such as zooming in, ability to adjust Lexile or readability level, could “ctrl F” key words from a worksheet to answer the questions, and were not able to lose the article since it is always online. Those who are advocates for reading on paper said that ability to highlight or leave post-it notes, flip back and forth between pages, and take a break from staring at a screen were the positive aspects.
Figure 3: Displays the number of boys and girls on my team who are on individualized education plans (IEPs) and prefer to take a digital exam, a paper exam, or have both / no preference on the matter. This includes a quiz, test, or state exam with no writing section.
By looking at this figure, I can conclude that boys with education plans have a preference to take assessments digitally, while half the girls prefer digital and half prefer paper assessments. This information is helpful so I can better tend to the needs of these students. While in theory I should to print off copies for every one of my typically developing students, it is not always possible since that could be 60+ students for a 15 or 16-page assessment. However, with the smaller group of IEP students, it is more reasonable to print off about 10 copies even if the assessment is a lengthy exam.
Figure 4: Displays the number of boys and girls on my team who are on IEPs and prefer to read an article digitally, on paper, or have both / no preference on the matter.
By looking at this figure, I can conclude that boys with education plans have a preference to read articles on paper, while girls are all over the board. This information is helpful so I can better tend to the needs of these students. Typically, my reading assignments are less than 6 pages with large font, so I will be able to print off as many copies as the students would like of it, and those who want to read it online may do that as well.
Figure 5: Compares boy’s preference to take an exam online, on paper, or have no preference / both, to their third quarter final grade in our class. This figure displays that boy’s preference to take an exam on paper finished the third quarter with higher grades overall than those who preferred to take an exam on the computer. Although more boys prefer to take exams digitally, I will encourage students to take exams on paper so they may earn a better grade. While I do consider this to be useful information, I cannot claim these results are correlated or caused because of having one preference or another. This is because the 3rd quarter includes grades other than assessments such as worksheets, reading assignments, writing assignments, and projects. This information would be more useful if I had asked each boy’s preference, and given the exam with that method. Then, have someone else, who is unaware of what my research is about, grade each of the exams. Perhaps it would be even better to type up all the written exams online so the grader is totally unbiased in grading methods. Then, compare the final grades on each of the exams with the method that the exam was taken. I hypothesize that the results would still be the same, but this is something I would like to research further with my first group of students in my classroom. Based on the data I have, it appears to be better to give exams on paper.
Figure 6: Compares girl’s preference to take an exam online, on paper, or have no preference / both, to their third quarter final grade in our class. This figure displays that girl’s preference to take an exam on paper finished the third quarter with higher grades overall than those who preferred to take an exam on the computer. The girls are split on preference, but I will encourage them to take exams on paper so they may earn a better grade. While I do consider this to be useful information, I cannot claim these results are correlated or caused because of having one preference or another. This is because the 3rd quarter includes grades other than assessments such as worksheets, reading assignments, writing assignments, and projects. This information would be more useful if I had asked each girl’s preference, and given the exam with that method. Then, have someone else, who is unaware of what my research is about, grade each of the exams. Perhaps it would be even better to type up all the written exams online so the grader is totally unbiased in grading methods. Then, compare the final grades on each of the exams with the method that the exam was taken. I hypothesize that the results would still be the same, but this is something I would like to research further with my first group of students in my classroom. Based on the data I have, it appears to be better to give exams on paper.
Figure 7: Compares boy’s preference to read articles online, on paper, or have no preference / both, to their third quarter final grade in our class. This figure displays that boy’s preference to read an assignment using any medium finished the third quarter with fairly similar grades. Although more boys prefer to read online, I will still consider printing articles for those who prefer paper since they are typically less than 6 pages long. While I do consider this to be useful information, I cannot claim these results are correlated or caused because of having one preference or another. This is because the 3rd quarter includes grades other than reading assignments such as worksheets, exams, writing assignments, and projects. This information would be more useful if I had asked each boy’s preference, and given the reading in that method. Then, have someone else, who is unaware of what my research is about, grade each of the worksheets they fill out with the reading. Then, compare the final grades on the worksheets with the method that they read they read the article. I hypothesize that the results would still be quite similar, but this is something I would like to research further with my first group of students in my classroom. Based on the data I have collected, it appears to be better to give readings online or based on their preference since they appear yield generally the same grade.
Figure 8: Compares girl’s preference to read articles online, on paper, or have no preference / both, to their third quarter final grade in our class. This figure displays that those girls who preferred to read an assignment on paper generally finished the third quarter with higher grades. Although more girls prefer to read on paper, I will push them to consider reading articles digitally so they may earn higher grades. While I do consider this to be useful information, I cannot claim these results are correlated or caused because of having one preference or another. This is because the 3rd quarter includes grades other than reading assignments such as worksheets, exams, writing assignments, and projects. This information would be more useful if I had asked each girl’s preference, and given the reading in that method. Then, have someone else, who is unaware of what my research is about, grade each of the worksheets they fill out with the reading. Then, compare the final grades on the worksheets with the method that they read they read the article. I thought that the results would show that paper would be more effective, but according to my data it is just the opposite. This is something I would like to research further with my first group of students in my classroom.
Interview with veteran teacher of 25 years
1. In what ways has the increasing presence of technology in the classroom effected your teaching strategies? Has it helped or hindered you? · Obviously, the depth of activity choices for every content standard has increased with the presence of technology. We used to get a book, and here is the lab. Now, I can choose from hundreds of options to teach every standard. This is great in most ways, but then sometimes I find it hard to look through every single lab and find the best one. I spend hours and hours looking for a lab when I could have created my own in a shorter amount of time. It is nice to not have to reinvent the wheel every time I go to conduct a lab experiment though. Now, would I prefer it the other way? Absolutely not! Only having a book with the lab for that standard was very limiting and left no room for my creativity. This way is more challenging at times, but it also allows for me to continue exploring the materials to find the best activities to share with the students.
2. How has student behavior been effected by the presence of technology in the classroom? · Number one: Off task. Students have off task behavior. This has increased by almost 50% I would say from when I first started teaching. Of course, I don’t have any real data and observations to back this up. But, I believe I am a very good control variable for this because I have been in the same age group, same demographic, same school, same district for over 25 years. I started out in this school with a chalkboard and no technology, and have been able to witness the brain changes and change in behavior over the year. There are also more discipline issues. Technology has created more of a battleground in the classroom – kids 20 years ago that I never would have to say a cross word to. . . now I do. I feel that technology has been a major influence in the high distraction level of middle school students today.
2.5 In other words, you wouldn’t have anything positive to say about how it has affected behavior? · The only positive take I have on it is that, due to the wealth of education activities kids can find on the web, we can differentiate. We have larger groups of kids in the classroom who will work independently. The computer has definitely created that independence of that work, which is why I guess there is online school, so therefore kids you don’t have to worry about will do the activity online without any type of interaction from me or any other child. I don’t like that, to be honest, because they are isolating themselves from peer interaction. There is yin and yang for every one of these questions. What I worry about the most is because the level of interaction are so limited these days because of large class sizes, how are these kids going to interact when they are in a high stress environment with a team of other adults where one isn’t doing their job? I worry about the technology affecting their social – emotional component of developing. 3. How has your ability to manage a classroom been effected by the presence of technology in the classroom? · Oh gosh. Well, as far as classroom management and discipline goes, tech has been helpful because with technology I can offer a variety of activities that appeal to all the different learning styles. It is not typically one lesson and that’s it. Again, 25 years ago, everybody did the same in the school. Now, we still do that now but my approach is that I can offer one content standard digitally, hands on, and with literacy also. Reading, writing, the whole nine yards. In the old days I couldn’t do that. I can show each student the standard in 4 or 5 different methods and can be sure that one of the ways will resonate with the students. This means that when you have 30+ students who are learning material the way they want to learn and learn best, then it becomes easier to manage the classroom. It has also made attendance 4. In your opinion, what are the pros and cons about teaching in a school where every student has their own computer? · Pros: No one is excluded from a digital activity. In the old days, they would be sometimes since not every student had access to a computer at home or in school. Also, the wealth of activities and the choices that they have increased tremendously. This may be sort of an outside the box thinking, but I have noticed that when a kid has their own computer, in the end, students learn to be more responsible with it because it is part of their life from the get go. Sometimes throwing so much freedom and access at a kid is really bad to begin with, but over time the kids begin to start disciplining themselves which is a wonderful thing to witness - this growth in the students. Also, the amount of information that is at their fingertips is tenfold from when I started teaching. They know a little bit about a lot of topics which brings quite a bit more to the table when we have class discussions. I am not the only fount of knowledge, but it is also my job to know what they are talking about since they only know a little bit, I need to know the deeper depth of that knowledge. · Cons: technology speaking, they don’t all have the same software capabilities. Some have an apple computer, and some have a pc. Sometimes you find a cool digital interactive and some computers can use it and some can’t. I think it would be better where the school requires all students to have the same computer make and model. Students also think they can have the computer in front of their face at any point, when in reality that is not always required or desired. Sometimes I am speaking in front of the class, and they really need to hear what I am saying, but are instead looking at something “important” on their computer. At this point in my teaching career I just tell them to never have it out unless I ask them specifically to take it out and visit a cite. Basically, it creates a huge lack of attention during classroom attention. I have also noticed that the school is not able to block all the websites that students should not have access to. I have caught way more students way more often on websites that are forbidden but not totally blocked from access. Also, another con is the amount of social communication between the computers. No longer do students just communicate by texting or calling on their phones, but they can have messages between each other on the computer now too. With all the technology they have in their pocket, kids are able to be very abusive to each other and cause a lot more behavioral issues since they are not afraid to be negative towards each other online. This can cause a lot of classroom dynamic issues that teachers are not always aware of since it is happening behind the scene and not in person during school necessarily.
5. Any other thoughts to add about increasing the use of technology in school? · Technology is affecting their brain development, more specifically hindering their executive functioning. I think this because they are not getting as much of the writing and drawing and speaking and reading as they used to. And then that affects their ability to have rational thought and their ability to make decisions. They even have organizations that help teach kids so many life skills since their executive functions have been so retarded, sorry to say that, but retarded that they need more help than any other generations I have had. They don’t need to talk as much or physically write as much as they used to before they had the computer constantly.
Final Conclusions
“In what situation(s) is it more beneficial to use technology for assessment? Why?” Based on this data collected from my group of 8th grade students, it appears to be more beneficial to paper for an assessment. I am thrilled to have discovered this since I have been using digital assessments all year long. It is also important to consider that major state examinations are taken online these days. I could argue that by giving them digital assessments all year I am better preparing them for the digital state exam at the end of the year, but on the other hand if they are not as good at absorbing the information online as they are on paper, then perhaps I am doing them a disservice. I would make the argument to the state to move back to paper state exams, even though it is harder to grade and uses paper which comes from a nonrenewable resource. “Do boys or girls or neither prefer to use technology more often?” “Why might that be?” In terms of exam taking, boys strongly prefer to take exams digitally, and half the girls prefer digital while half prefer paper. I think boys prefer to take exams digitally since boys have a higher affinity to video games than girls do. In terms of reading articles, the boys on my team did not show any preference one way or the other. Girls, on the other hand, strongly preferred to read on paper. Again, I think that this is related back to the fact that boys typically like to play video games more often than girls do. “Based on these results, should our students be taking their state assessments online or on paper? Why?” I would argue that students should be taking their state assessments on paper. Since the data I have showcases how students’ final grades are overall higher when they prefer to take exams on paper, this means I would expect students to score higher on state exams if they were also on paper instead of online. Although, there are more factors to consider when administering state exams such as length, subject, and how many kids are taking the exam. No matter which method is used to administer a state exam, it is important to know the population of students taking the exam so teachers and those who look at the data can determine the legitimacy of the data points.