ACTION AND ASSESSMENT PLAN
Rational
Based on my students’ reaction to my in-class Twitter activity, I began to review current academic literature regarding student collaboration and integrated technology in the classroom. An overarching theme throughout my review was using technology for student-centered learning, collaborative learning, and building classroom community.
This inspired me to find out which tech-tools my students are already familiar with and use on a regular basis. I wanted to begin thinking of ways to integrate these tech tools and design collaborative, student-centered lessons and see how they might affect my students’ engagement, sense of classroom community, my role as the teacher, and finally their attitude towards learning a foreign language. I decided to find out which tech-tools my students were familiar with via Google Forms and ask them whether they would feel more motivated to learn Spanish if granted the opportunity to use the tools for collaborative learning purposes.
Through this feedback form, I discovered that most of my students are familiar with and would prefer to use the following tools: Google Docs, Twitter, and YouTube. My students also indicated that using these tools in class for collaborative learning purposes would motivate them to learn more Spanish. With this information, I created an action plan that is based on the concept of student-centered and collaborative-learning.
Description of Intervention
Collaborative Learning, Community, Engagement, and Attitudes
As part of our curriculum, we are currently focusing on a food-related unit. My students are used to completing worksheets and writing isolated sentences in Spanish; however, as I shift away from a traditional teaching approach and begin to implement collaborative learning principles, I would like to give them an opportunity to collaborate on a project that allows them to demonstrate their ability to use the language in a real-life context.
According to Weinstein, a key component to collaborative learning is shifting my role as the teacher from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side" by allowing students to spend time each class period working collaboratively in small groups (Weinstein, 2007). During Phase One of my action plan, therefore, I will allow my students to use their preferred tech-tools to collaborate in small groups and create a cooking show.
In order to create cooking shows, and taken with what I have learned from my needs assessment in terms of the tech-tools my students would like to use towards learning, they will have the option to use the Internet, Google Docs, YouTube tutorials, use their smartphones for filming, post their final video to YouTube, and share their videos via Twitter; their final grade will be based on a rubric. With respect to giving my students the option to use these tech-tools, according to Dornyei, I am keeping in line with collaborative-learning and student-centered learning principles by "encouraging student autonomy and choice" (1997). And according to Dornyei, by granting more autonomy and choice to my students, I am allowing my students to "direct their own learning in a non-traditional, collaborative learning environment", which, according to a variety of studies on effective language teaching, is an "important strategy for promoting positive attitudes towards learning a foreign language" (1997).
Once my students have completed their cooking-show scripts and their videos, they will have the option to Tweet them out to our class and or leave the link to their video on the Google Doc. According to Stepp-Greany, by allowing my students to share their final product with the entire class, I am adding a layer of community in terms of how I allow my students to "connect and share" what they have learned with their peers (2002), and by doing so, my hope is that this will add to my students' sense of classroom community. We will then set aside a day for each group to bring in samples of the food they made while we watch each group’s cooking-show video as a class.
Based on these principles and actions, I hope to find an increase in student motivation, classroom community, learning outcomes, and finally student attitudes towards learning a foreign language.
Technology Days
Each Wednesday my classes have access to the world language computer lab, and I will allow my students to use their tech-tools during lab time to work collaboratively on their projects. And once or twice per week, on days that we do not have access to the computer lab, I will allow my students to use their smartphones to access the tech-tools and continue to work collaboratively on their projects.
Data Collection
Because my question addresses the impact of collaboration on student attitudes, sense of community, engagement, and my role as the facilitator of student learning, I will collect data that informs each of these areas. In order to collect data that provides substantial and valid results about the impact of my interventions, I will use a triangulation of data points. The three data points that I plan to consider are:
1. Student Feedback:
I will gather data from students to better understand their experiences and to evaluate whether the interventions have any impact on their attitudes, sense of community, engagement, and learning. I will gather this student feedback via Google Forms.
2. Student Samples:
I will use my students’ final scripts to evaluate the quality of their writing, and I will evaluate their spoken language through their final videos/presentations. My students will also be expected to submit a rough draft about halfway through the project so I can evaluate their progress as well as provide teacher feedback and commentary for each group.
3. My Observations:
Each time we work on our cooking-show projects, I will take time to circulate the classroom and take quick notes of student discussion and interactions, engagement, and participation. I will also take time after class is finished to reflect and write down in paragraph form what I saw and heard as my students worked on the project.
Timeline:
April 14: Introduce project / Create groups
April 21 – 30: Research / gather information
May 1 – May 7: Post surveys, collect data, reflect on data
May 8 - May 21: Continue to collect data, reflect on, and consider next steps for phase 2
Based on my students’ reaction to my in-class Twitter activity, I began to review current academic literature regarding student collaboration and integrated technology in the classroom. An overarching theme throughout my review was using technology for student-centered learning, collaborative learning, and building classroom community.
This inspired me to find out which tech-tools my students are already familiar with and use on a regular basis. I wanted to begin thinking of ways to integrate these tech tools and design collaborative, student-centered lessons and see how they might affect my students’ engagement, sense of classroom community, my role as the teacher, and finally their attitude towards learning a foreign language. I decided to find out which tech-tools my students were familiar with via Google Forms and ask them whether they would feel more motivated to learn Spanish if granted the opportunity to use the tools for collaborative learning purposes.
Through this feedback form, I discovered that most of my students are familiar with and would prefer to use the following tools: Google Docs, Twitter, and YouTube. My students also indicated that using these tools in class for collaborative learning purposes would motivate them to learn more Spanish. With this information, I created an action plan that is based on the concept of student-centered and collaborative-learning.
Description of Intervention
Collaborative Learning, Community, Engagement, and Attitudes
As part of our curriculum, we are currently focusing on a food-related unit. My students are used to completing worksheets and writing isolated sentences in Spanish; however, as I shift away from a traditional teaching approach and begin to implement collaborative learning principles, I would like to give them an opportunity to collaborate on a project that allows them to demonstrate their ability to use the language in a real-life context.
According to Weinstein, a key component to collaborative learning is shifting my role as the teacher from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side" by allowing students to spend time each class period working collaboratively in small groups (Weinstein, 2007). During Phase One of my action plan, therefore, I will allow my students to use their preferred tech-tools to collaborate in small groups and create a cooking show.
In order to create cooking shows, and taken with what I have learned from my needs assessment in terms of the tech-tools my students would like to use towards learning, they will have the option to use the Internet, Google Docs, YouTube tutorials, use their smartphones for filming, post their final video to YouTube, and share their videos via Twitter; their final grade will be based on a rubric. With respect to giving my students the option to use these tech-tools, according to Dornyei, I am keeping in line with collaborative-learning and student-centered learning principles by "encouraging student autonomy and choice" (1997). And according to Dornyei, by granting more autonomy and choice to my students, I am allowing my students to "direct their own learning in a non-traditional, collaborative learning environment", which, according to a variety of studies on effective language teaching, is an "important strategy for promoting positive attitudes towards learning a foreign language" (1997).
Once my students have completed their cooking-show scripts and their videos, they will have the option to Tweet them out to our class and or leave the link to their video on the Google Doc. According to Stepp-Greany, by allowing my students to share their final product with the entire class, I am adding a layer of community in terms of how I allow my students to "connect and share" what they have learned with their peers (2002), and by doing so, my hope is that this will add to my students' sense of classroom community. We will then set aside a day for each group to bring in samples of the food they made while we watch each group’s cooking-show video as a class.
Based on these principles and actions, I hope to find an increase in student motivation, classroom community, learning outcomes, and finally student attitudes towards learning a foreign language.
Technology Days
Each Wednesday my classes have access to the world language computer lab, and I will allow my students to use their tech-tools during lab time to work collaboratively on their projects. And once or twice per week, on days that we do not have access to the computer lab, I will allow my students to use their smartphones to access the tech-tools and continue to work collaboratively on their projects.
Data Collection
Because my question addresses the impact of collaboration on student attitudes, sense of community, engagement, and my role as the facilitator of student learning, I will collect data that informs each of these areas. In order to collect data that provides substantial and valid results about the impact of my interventions, I will use a triangulation of data points. The three data points that I plan to consider are:
1. Student Feedback:
I will gather data from students to better understand their experiences and to evaluate whether the interventions have any impact on their attitudes, sense of community, engagement, and learning. I will gather this student feedback via Google Forms.
2. Student Samples:
I will use my students’ final scripts to evaluate the quality of their writing, and I will evaluate their spoken language through their final videos/presentations. My students will also be expected to submit a rough draft about halfway through the project so I can evaluate their progress as well as provide teacher feedback and commentary for each group.
3. My Observations:
Each time we work on our cooking-show projects, I will take time to circulate the classroom and take quick notes of student discussion and interactions, engagement, and participation. I will also take time after class is finished to reflect and write down in paragraph form what I saw and heard as my students worked on the project.
Timeline:
April 14: Introduce project / Create groups
April 21 – 30: Research / gather information
May 1 – May 7: Post surveys, collect data, reflect on data
May 8 - May 21: Continue to collect data, reflect on, and consider next steps for phase 2