I will be using a student questionnaire that will be asking the students to respond about their experience with goal setting. Some of the questions will be quantitative and other s will be qualitative. These questions will answer some of my "needs to know" questions. I am still in the developing stage of my data collection, but have a goal to complete this by the end of the week and to get my research started in full force. Time is ticking fast, and my priority is to complete this on time!
Creativity is something that can't be taught, one doesn't learn to be creative but becomes creative. After reading about Louis Mobley's 6 Insights, I was intrigued by how he tested his employees, forced them out of their comfort zones and egos, and encourage them to think out of the box and make mistakes.
IBM Executive School 6 Insights 1.) Traditional teaching is useless and unproductive 2.) Becoming creative is an unlearning process 3.) We don't learn to be creative, we become creative 4.) Faster way to become creative is to hang around creative people. 5.) Creativity is correlated with self knowledge. 6.) Give permission to be wrong. There are no wrong or bad ideas, they are only building blocks for better ideas. Reflecting on these insights, I thought about the 21st century skill of creativity. How do I put a number on creativity? How do I really assess creativity? Now I think it is the process of giving students various tools or opportunities, and see what they come up with by allowing them to process and think out side of the box. According to Ken Robinson, creativity is as important as literacy and we need to allow for kids to be wrong in order to get something that is eventually right. Daniel Pink said that rewards don't work, it just narrows the focus. Therefore, in our day in age of education, creativity seems to be very important if not necessary. ”What are the effects of goal-setting and tracking on reading comprehension when using 21st century skills and technology?”
My data collection tools will be a pre/post test that students will take on a Chromebook to measure their reading proficiency. Students will take a google form survey that will result in quantitative data and qualitative data. All the data collection tools will be completed through a link in google classroom. “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
Reading the last chapter of The Flat World and Education, I see a connection with the chapter and the quote from John Dewey. As an individual, typically, we would want the world for our child, but our actions for other children is not the same. As a nation do we actively try to implement the best for children? No, our government does not try to equally give the same opportunity to all children. All five sections of the last chapter make a great deal of sense, and to some degree I think that I see this change within my own school. But do I think other schools are having the same opportunities? I'm not sure. The question is: Who are the seminal people researching in the area of your driving question? What are they known for? What are the big ideas or theories? Tell us about the state-of-the-art knowledge related to your question.
I have been researching my driving question of :”How can elementary students take ownership of their learning and increase their comprehension by goal setting through the use of 21st century skills and technology?” I have found a myriad of articles and authors that address this topic in various ways. To pinpoint one person and call them a seminal figure in this research area, would not be accurate for me because I am a novice in this area of research. I still have a lot to learn, I have yet to find a key person to describe as a leader in this topic. The four basic 21st Century Skills in education are :Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking , and Creativity. Before I read the two articles about integrating technology in the classroom, I noticed that both of the articles are around 20 years old. Then I was really hesitant to read them because in this age of technology, I found them to be archaic but relevant in some ways.
The four 21st century skills have upgraded to seven, and I am trying to catch up. The skills are: Critical thinking and problem solving, Creativity and innovation, Communication and media literacy, Collaboration and leadership, Computing and digital proficiency, Cross-cultural and social fluency, and Career, civic and learning self-direction. Many schools may have adopted all 7, or slowly integrating one by one into their curriculum, it's important to learn and expect to teach all. We need to help guide a student to become a well-rounded individual using these skills. I have been lucky that in the past couple of years, my school has been embracing technology, and now each child has access to their own device in the classroom. I have enough chrome books for each student in my class. I have used a few different programs such as Google Classroom, Quizzez, Moby Max, Khan Academy , Brain Pop, etc., but also have used the internet (with guidance ) to help kids research and learn since we have a wealth of information at our fingertips. Technically, the internet has replaced the old encyclopedia that I had to use for research and learning back in my day (and I'm not that old). What I need to keep in mind is that 21st Century Skills are not only centered in the use of technology, but technology to being one source of educational success. With all the social media out there and instant entertainment, I feel that technology has begun to make students unsocial in real world situations, they are not successfully collaborating with others. They are submissive to their phones and any information that is instantly given to them. This is why the seven 21st century skills can support a student to becoming a person that is a self advocate, a leader, an innovator, and critical thinker. My job is to allow as many opportunities in the classroom for students to experience these skills. I'm still unsure about my driving question, but I'm researching the DQ of "How can elementary students take ownership of their education by setting and monitoring goals through technology?"
The focus of my research begins at the national level. I wanted to learn about how other states use goal setting to increase academic performance. There's a county in Kentucky that found that the greatest problem in students is their apathetic attitude for learning. I feel that apathy is an issue that can begin in elementary. Goal setting might happen with the teachers, they have expectations of their students, but the goals are not shared or internalized by the students. Teaching the instructors and students to set, monitor, and celebrate goal achievement is one way in increase enthusiasm for learning. My research seems to have two parts to it, goal setting and technology in the classroom. A county in Tennessee has incorporated digital tools in the classroom to increase performance in the writing process. They found that even the most reluctant writer should some growth in their writing performance. Narrowing back to the state of California, the use of tablets in the class seemed to increase motivation for learning by allowing the students to have flexibility in using apps that will cater more to their levels of learning. Now my job is to see how I can combine goal setting in a digital manner. There is a plethora of information out there. I see how someone can go overboard with research and how it can pull in different directions. Funnel is my blog title, to funnel through information with many ideas and narrow down to a couple or one. But, I can easily see how the funnel can be flipped and I start with one idea, and I find many. The IRB was created to protect the rights of people that are involved in a research project, but also to educate the person conducting the research project and create a focus.
My initial driving question is slowly evolving, "How can I support, guide, or motivate elementary students to embrace their learning through goal setting by using technology and 21st century skills?" I have many things that I need to know such as: 1. What do students currently do to set goals or do they know they have goals? 2. How do students collaborate to create common goals? 3. How do students celebrate growth and deal with set backs? 4. Are their student friendly apps that kids can easily access to create and manage goals ? I find that sometimes kids just go with the flow and don't understand the purpose of what their learning. These are some ideas that I have so far in my purpose of research.
Reading the first couple of chapters , The Flat World and Education, overwhelmed me with the statistics of how the United States has increasingly declined in education. I started to feel a bit unsure or insecure in our future based on the current education's state. Globalization has changed, and is constantly changing, in an alarming rate. Other nations have been transforming their educational infrastructure to meet these needs, yet the U.S. has been acting in a slower manner to catch up. The book suggests that other higher achieving countries have half as many standards to teach in math compared to the United States. Students are able to dig deeper into the topic and apply it to real word problems. This part made me question my own mathematical practices as I have to follow the common core standards along with my districts pacing guide. Are all the standards I have to teach really important? Is it realistic to cover so many topics in such a short time? Can this be the reason why many students have a difficult time internalizes different mathematical concepts because there are so many and so little time? What I also thought was profound was the inequality of funding between school districts based on the poverty levels and the racial makeup of the schools. This has created the domino effect because of the lack of education, yet increasing need for intervention in the correctional system and social services. It's a good thing I had my coffee refilled twice, because with all these stats, I need to have full focus. This book is an eye-opener to the realities of educational infrastructure. |
Paula SotirasI'm and elementary school teacher, and I love learning about the world. Archives
November 2018
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