EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 12 Blog

EDET 636 Impact of Technology on Students

Week 12 Blog

Essential Question: What are the characteristics of an engaging Action Research Report?

            I was very impressed reading the examples of a final written up action research given on our class website. Surprisingly, it was interesting and enjoyable to read the action research projects. I felt connected to the author and understood the reasoning behind the research and the findings of the research. Honestly, I did not think of my action research write up as something that can be interesting enough that someone would read through the whole paper and not just skip down to the findings.

            In my beginning section I will make sure to personalize the reasons of research as much as possible. Hermann gives a great example of how she personalized her introduction. “For the last few years, I have been working with ESOL students who have had limited or interrupted schooling in their home country. This year most of my students come from Somalia, El Salvador, or Pakistan. Often these students have had to deal with the effects of war, poverty, and social upheaval.” (2002) She goes on to give specific examples of her school and students and how these situations have directed her action research. Having examples that the reader can understand and be apart of provides an engaging action research report.

            Another part of reports that I found to be engaging in an example provided by Hermann was the section where he shared what he would do different if he were to do it all over again. “The first thing I’d change is the essay writing evaluation tool I used. But the students and I did not feel comfortable with the writing to the prompt activity.” (2002) This reflection gives the reader and the researcher the ability to see what parts of the action research was either flawed or did not work as planned. Having a section of reflection gives another way to engage the reader into the action research.

UPDATE: I am analyzing my data right now and then I will begin the first draft of my write up.

Resources:

Hermann, K. (2002). Teaching Science to High School Students Who Have Limited Formal Schooling. Fairfax, VA: Annandale High School. Retrieved from https://gse.gmu.edu/assets/docs/lmtip/vol2/K.Hermann_limited.pdf

O’Halloran, D. (200). The Joy of Writing: Creating a Class Culture for Writing. Fairfax, VA: J.E.B. Stuart High School. Retrieved from https://gse.gmu.edu/assets/docs/lmtip/vol1/D.OHalloran.pdf

EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 11 Reflection

I understand the outline that is needed for the research but my main worry is finishing it all in time. Next week will be really busy for me because of this course but I know I am able to get it all done.

My classmates pretty much had all the same idea on the outline of our action research. What I am curious about is how would you like us to present the action research? Will we meet in blackboard to do this presentation? Or just read each other's? Or maybe do a video and post it on YouTube?

EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 11 Blog

EDET 636 Impact of Technology on Students

Week 11 Blog

Essential Question: How will you format and disseminate your research?

            The format of my action research will be about the same as most research papers and articles. The difference might be the intended target. My audience will not necessarily be education researchers but rather teachers and more specifically math teachers who are interested in integrating technology into their RTI skills. My finished results will be shared with my District’s RTI coordinator, RTI teachers, and all of the mathematics teachers in my professional learning community. This is of course above and beyond sharing with our class on my blog. I do not plan on sending my research to someone to get published.

            Merriam & Tisdell give some thoughts about description of the analysis of the data to keep in mind that the representation of data can have different levels such as “the raw data are reported as particular description, patterns discovered in the data are reported as general description, and ever higher levels of abstraction become interpretive commentary.” (2016) I plan to differentiate between these levels within my research paper so that it is clear to the reader what is precise data and what is interpreted.

The following is the format I plan to put my action research paper in.

·      Introduction

·      Research Questions

·      Literature Review

·      Methodology

·      Data Collection Method: Quantitative and Qualitative

·      Data Analysis Method

·      Data Results

·      Conclusion

·      References

Some of the sections might have subsections to make my point or to help organize. When it comes to the data, I plan to use many graphs to help represent the data to everyone who is reading the paper.

Resources:

Glenn, L. (2014). Final Paper! #seaccr. Retrieved from http://linkis.com/wordpress.com/xLKYm

Merriam, S. B. & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. San Franciso, CA. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 10 Reflection

After reading my classmates' posts I made note a few more ways to show credible, reliable, and valid research at the end of this class. Above what I noted in my blog, I will make sure to write down the process of every part of the research as I am going and to show my findings in a way that is very clear to the reader.

Next I can add other research to my research outcomes that either agree or disagree with my findings. This will give the reader the option to see what other research was done and to make a clear decision on whether or not this was a fluke or pertained only to my school and students. Not only to I share these findings but I also can give my own opinion about this and provide the evidence on whether or not my findings seem to be reliable.

EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 10 Blog

EDET 636 Impact of Technology on Students

Week 10 Blog

Essential Question: What primary concerns exist in ethics, validity and reliability in AR? How are you managing these concerns (or how will you) within your study?

            One facet of action research is to share the research with others who are in the same field so that they can hopefully apply what was learned in their own practices. If others are going to take research as truth, the research needs to show a standard of ethics, validity, and reliability. For the most part these standards are fairly uniform over all schools of subject and when it comes to Education research, there are even a bit more ethics that needs to be adhered to. Merriam and Tisdell explain that “every researcher wants to contribute knowledge to the field that is believable and trustworthy” and because of this there is a huge concern on providing ethical, reliable, and valid qualitative research. (2016)

            There are multiple ways for research to be credible and this can be done “by using triangulation, checking interpretations with individuals interviewed or observed, staying on site over a period of time, asking peers to comment on emerging findings, and clarifying researcher biases and assumptions.” (Merriem & Tisdell, 2016) To have valid data and outcomes “you want to have some others review it, to give their expert and experienced opinion as to whether it measures the concept or idea you designed it to.” (IUPUI, 2002) In attempt to for my research to be credible I will be sharing my findings with my colleagues and with them come up with some outcomes. If I am going to have any qualitative data that requires me to interpret what students feel about the two methods that I used for RTI, I will clarify with students on my interpretation of their words.

            In an article written by Research Methodology, it is said, “research reliability is the degree to which research method produces stable and consistent results.” (2017) Some methods that would be used to find stable and consistent results are test-retest, parallel-forms of research, inter-rater research, and internal consistent research. In my own research, it is difficult to do any of these methods to show reliability but if I had more time, I would do the research over again with another set of students.

            In hopes to be all encompassing valid, reliable, and ethical I will be completely open by being honest about the whole research process. This will include dates, data, mistakes, questions on the surveys, and the method of the patterns in the findings.

Resources:

IUPUI School of Education (2002). Validity and Reliability. PACE University in conjunction with Great Cities Universities. Retrieved from http://webpage.pace.edu/jkilbane/gcu/understanding/designing/validity.html

Merriam, S. B. & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. San Franciso, CA. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Research Methodology (2017). Reliability. Retrieved from https://research-methodology.net/research-methodology/reliability-validity-and-repeatability/research-reliability/

Winter, R. (2002) Truth or fiction: problems of validity and authenticity in narratives of action research. Educational Action Research, 10:1, 143-154, DOI: 10.1080/09650790200200178

EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 9 Reflection

I have about half of my data and I have begun to analyze it. It seems that students are more engaged and the data that supports this is on the IXL analytics page that I can see as a teacher. The time that students are on the program and the amount of problems that they attempt is greater than the paper Math Review data. In the final research paper, I will show the comparisons of the two. I am nervous in putting all the data together in a professional manner but I am sure I will be able to do it in a manner that gives important information to other teachers.

EDET 636 Impact of Tech Week 9 Blog

EDET 636 Impact of Student Technology

Week 9 Blog

Essential Question: How will you go about making sense of your data?

            In order to make sense of my data, I will start analyzing data as it is being collected instead of waiting till the research project is finished to analyze the data. As the data is being analyzed, I will look for themes or categories that are created through organizing the data. These themes should begin to answer the essential questions of the action research. (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) As I am collecting data, I will end up using this data to help direct my next move in the research. For example, my students took their first IXL assessment to test whether or not they are retaining the skills that they have learned through this method of RTI via an online component and the data directed me to use a different approach to the online RTI. I decided to require students to have a notebook while working on IXL. The first two minutes we would write notes on the math skill we are working on and then the students would write down each problem that they are solving on the computer. This method was decided because of analyzing data right away and next week, I will be able to analyze this data after the second IXL assessment.

            The other data that I will need to try and make sense of is the qualitative data from student surveys of the two methods of RTI, online IXL and paper Math Review. The data will be collected through Google Forms and there are ways through this method to analyze the data. Graphs can be created especially if there are given options as answers to questions. The data can be exported to Excel of which can be used to create various visuals for the data. Hsu and Wang have used Google Forms to collect data for a classroom activity and they found that students have a great insight of data. (2017) With this said, I would like to present the data that I get from students and ask them to help me analyze. This gives students a chance to engage in the research. It seems like other teachers in our class has had success when the students are aware of the action research.

Resources:

Hsu, H., & Wang, S. (2017). Using Google Forms to collect and analyze data. Science Scope, (8). 64.

Merriam, S. B. & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. San Franciso, CA. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.