Personal Goals Statement
This statement was written to fulfill admission requirements. It is an essay describing the processes that culminates in application to the EPET program and the goals I intend to pursue upon acceptance. Essentially, this is what brought me here.The Beginning - Initial Statement
Observations of technology use in classrooms along with recent conversations and discussions within the last week have incited a desire to pursue ways to bring needed support to classroom teachers within the TPACK Framework. Teachers inherently employ technologies comfortable to them to aid in their instruction. Students are encouraged by teachers connected to the 21st century who employ tools that they believe are making their education better. A significant number of teachers in our schools today have been unable to successfully employ relevant technologies that meets both their instructional needs as well as their students’ learning needs.I aim to explore the affordances and constraints of online collaborative environments and the impact on student learning and achievement with the intent to develop instructional models and pedagogical practice toward this end that can be delivered to districts as professional development. My initial research will seek to quantify and measure how student learning increases through the intentional employment of online collaborative tools in the social studies classroom. I also intend to explore the contextual elements that may or may not result in the successful use of collaborative technologies such as the role of the teacher, available technology hardware, direct computer-based instruction in early grades.
Polished Research Interests
My research interests focus on the affordances and constraints associated with online collaborative environments and their impact on student learning and achievement. Of particular importance to me is how online collaborative tools may be used to meet both teachers’ instructional needs and students’ learning needs, and the contextual factors such as teacher comfort-level with technology that may moderate these effects. At present, I aim to examine these issues within the early grades, and ideally within the social studies classroom.The Bridge
Since the beginning of my first semester when I drafted my initial research statement, I was drawing heavily upon what I had discussed in my personal goals statement. I wanted to reference my drive to make technology integration for teachers a priority. It still is, as within classrooms with veteran teachers that the change is difficult but manageable. However, first steps require a research base.Online collaborative environments are the true interest. As students are engaged in tasks that are allowing them to build understanding about their world, even within context of a certain content base, discussion, interaction, and collaboration are critical elements to making that understanding stick. This also shapes their future learning processes in ways that allow them to feel more comfortable engaging in conversations regarding learning and knowledge construction. The current issue is proving that online collaborative environments, or collaborative environments in general, provide greater opportunities for success and achievement. How can an online collaborative classroom be measured?
Experts to Take Me There
Howard Rheingold, University of California, Berkeley
Anytime I think about researching the role of technology in education, my thoughts continue to bounce back to Rheingold. His research has been in communications in this new era of social connections. However, he has asserted the importance of social studies to teach media literacy as a means to increase and "round out" civic literacy.Janet MacDonald, Open University in Scotland
I recently came across her publication from nearly 10 years ago, now, titled "Assessing online collaborative learning: process and product". Given my immediate research interests, this seemed to be a great start. I'd like to see where her research can take me and perhaps to contact her regarding the methods used in her qualitative study.Francesa Pozzi, Institute for Learning Technologies
Her work is related to that of MacDonald in that her publications have attempted to find ways to systematically assess and analyze learning in computer-based collaborative environments. Publications include research on the effectiveness of cooperative and collaborative structures in online environments, and qualitative measures of online collaborative classrooms in post-secondary settings.Agenda - Next Steps...
Read. Simply put, my first steps are to immerse myself in the antecedent work of designing collaborative environments, both online and face-to-face (and the combinations of the two), successful and unsuccessful. This will insure that I am effectively building upon research base guiding this field.From there, It serves my interests well to look to pursue that goal of identifying an effective evaluation of online collaborative environments. What kind of classroom is able to achieve that, sustain it, and provide a base for replication? How will we know?
Looking further ahead into next summer, it would seem appropriate to begin collecting data toward the aforementioned research goals. I would hope to be able to employ my own craft and classroom to achieve this. Perhaps I might look how I could design a descriptive study during this school year for deployment for the following academic year (year two).
Annotated Bibliography
Assessing Online Collaborative Learning: Process and ProductMacdonald, J. (2003). Assessing online collaborative learning: process and product. Computers & Education, 40(4), 377-391. doi: 10.1016/S0360-1315(02)00168-9.
Macdonald expresses the need for providing specific assessments in order to increase participation and interaction in online collaborative learning. In order to design and sustain an online collaborative effort, many skills must be developed. Among the essentials are the increasing mutual trust, team working and negotiation, group decision-making and task management.
In the greater context of educational technology and the use of online collaborative tools, Macdonald provides no more than the fact that processes behind making online collaborative learning work are complex. Assessment can help improve participation and interaction, especially when tasks are linked to assessment. However, the product need not be assessed (process is more important) but if it is, this may require additional skills such as peer review.
Full Annotation
A general framework for tracking and analysing learning processes in computer-supported collaborative learning environments
Pozzi, F., Manca, S., Persico, D., & Sarti, L. (2007). A general framework for tracking and analysing learning processes in computer-supported collaborative learning environments. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(2), 169-179. doi: 10.1080/14703290701240929.
Pozzi expands upon dimensions of collaborative learning, defined earlier by Henri (1992) and Garrison (2003). These dimensions provide areas within which objective evaluation of the process can occur. The product of the collaborative task, however exceptional it may be, is not a useful artifact for measuring collaborative achievement. After all, it is the process, not the product that we’re interested.
Pozzi also articulates the need to maintain the learning environment while the learning tasks are being executed. She identifies three main goals of the tracking and analyzing of learning processes: evaluate the quality of the design, monitor students’ performance, and to assess the individual learning processes and carry out evaluation of performances.
Full Annotation
A content analysis method to measure critical thinking in face-to-face and computer supported group learning
Newman, D. (1995). A content analysis to measure critical thinking in face-to-face and computer supported group learning. Interpersonal Computing and Technology, 3(2), 56–77. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=EJ513734.
The authors begin by asking "How can we evaluate Computer Supported Cooperative Work, in particular, that kind of work we call learning?" In this study, Newman et al sought to evaluate the critical thinking that occurred in computer supported cooperative work and to compare the results with face-to-face conferencing to determine the value of the computer mediated communication. In order to do this the authors set out to define how to measure deep critical thinking, a necessary feature of a successful collaborative environment and found content analysis to be the “key... to the essence of the educational value of any activity”. They turned to cognitive and social psychology for the basis of their research goals and identified with the constructivist theory of learning. Their content analysis was based on the objective identification of several paired indicators of deep versus surface processing. These pairs were coded from transcripted communication from both settings and quantified for comparison. The findings revealed that more new ideas emerged in face-to-face seminars, and more ideas in the computer mediated conferences were important, justified or linked together.
This study allows for an example of a qualitative study employing quantitative measures to increase generalizability. The authors followed precedent by employing the work done by Henri (1991) and Garrison (1992) in defining dimensions and indicators for collaborative work. Content analysis may be the most effective method I’ve seen, despite of the subjectivity in having students filling in questionnaires and the scoring being done by the evaluators (rather than at least being re-scored by an independent scorer). I would like to see a similar study done in given the advances in technology since 1995. Fifteen years has seen great growth in online collaborative environments, and I wonder if the constraints that existed would account for greater growth in critical thinking.
Full Annotation
Face-to-face versus threaded discussions: The role of time and higher-order thinking
Meyer, K. A. (2003). Face-to-face versus threaded discussions: The role of time and higher-order thinking. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(3), 55–65. Retrieved from http://itecideas.pbworks.com/f/v7n3_meyer.pdf
Full Annotation
Evaluating an Online Learning Environment
Stacey, E., & Rice, M. (2002). Evaluating an online learning environment. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 18(3), 323-340.
