Introduction and Initial Assessment
Collaboration, Technology, and Global Awareness
As a foreign language teacher, I am constantly searching for ways to connect my students to foreign cultures and expand my students’ perspective of the world. Ironically, one of my greatest challenges is helping my students find value in foreign language and culture in a world that places such high value on English and American culture. Yet as our world becomes more and more connected via technology, the need for global awareness has never been greater.
The ethnic diversity at my current student-teaching placement is a delight for me as a foreign language teacher. One of my classes alone has linguistic and ethnic representation from more than 17 different nations. I often hear my students speaking in their native languages to each other before and after the bell rings; some of these languages include Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Korean, Turkish, Farsi, Italian, French, Punjabi, Tamil, Hindi, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Yet in spite of such a multi-lingual and ethnically rich environment, I have never seen a more united body of students. It is the norm for students of diverse ethnic backgrounds to walk the halls together, to volunteer in school clubs together, and to participate in after school programs together.
Classroom Community
As students from this school are used to ethnic and linguistic diversity, it would only be natural to assume that they would generally feel at home in a foreign language class, such as Spanish. Yet as I teach them, I can’t help but feel that there is some kind of a disconnect--as if I am forcing the material on them. What is keeping my students from embracing my foreign language class? Why do my students seem to act like strangers as soon as the bell rings? How can I create the same united community inside my classroom that is so common to my students outside of it? How can I more effectively design lessons in ways that allow my students to collaborate and learn together? What can I do to help these students feel as united inside my classroom as they do outside of it?
Technology and Student Engagement
As I thought about these questions, I began to observe my student interactions during class with them in mind. One of the first things that stood out to me was that nearly all of my students seemed to have a smartphone. I took note as nearly all my students walked into my classroom armed with their personal pocket device, and when the bell rang, they would draw them back out as if from a holster. I also took note as several students cleverly hid their devices in their textbooks so they could sneak a text when I “wasn’t noticing”. I also noticed several girls who kept their bags open in their laps with their smartphones just below the surface. At first, I figured that my students were simply using their devices before, after--and in some cases during class--to text each other. But as I observed more closely, I discovered that nearly all of my students were connecting via Twitter. What would happen if I allowed them to use their devices during class for collaborative learning purposes? What if I allowed them to use Twitter, in a productive way, during class?
Coincidentally, the evening prior to these classroom observations, I had created a hashtag (#usdSpanish) via Twitter for my education and technology class. There were several students who were starting to teach themselves Spanish through iPad apps and other online resources, so I decided to create #usdSpanish as an online platform for them to practice what they were learning with each other. They could also use this platform to share language-learning resources and to ask me and or each other Spanish-related questions. Why couldn’t I do the same for my own Spanish students to help each other inside and outside of our class?
As a foreign language teacher, I am constantly searching for ways to connect my students to foreign cultures and expand my students’ perspective of the world. Ironically, one of my greatest challenges is helping my students find value in foreign language and culture in a world that places such high value on English and American culture. Yet as our world becomes more and more connected via technology, the need for global awareness has never been greater.
The ethnic diversity at my current student-teaching placement is a delight for me as a foreign language teacher. One of my classes alone has linguistic and ethnic representation from more than 17 different nations. I often hear my students speaking in their native languages to each other before and after the bell rings; some of these languages include Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Korean, Turkish, Farsi, Italian, French, Punjabi, Tamil, Hindi, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Yet in spite of such a multi-lingual and ethnically rich environment, I have never seen a more united body of students. It is the norm for students of diverse ethnic backgrounds to walk the halls together, to volunteer in school clubs together, and to participate in after school programs together.
Classroom Community
As students from this school are used to ethnic and linguistic diversity, it would only be natural to assume that they would generally feel at home in a foreign language class, such as Spanish. Yet as I teach them, I can’t help but feel that there is some kind of a disconnect--as if I am forcing the material on them. What is keeping my students from embracing my foreign language class? Why do my students seem to act like strangers as soon as the bell rings? How can I create the same united community inside my classroom that is so common to my students outside of it? How can I more effectively design lessons in ways that allow my students to collaborate and learn together? What can I do to help these students feel as united inside my classroom as they do outside of it?
Technology and Student Engagement
As I thought about these questions, I began to observe my student interactions during class with them in mind. One of the first things that stood out to me was that nearly all of my students seemed to have a smartphone. I took note as nearly all my students walked into my classroom armed with their personal pocket device, and when the bell rang, they would draw them back out as if from a holster. I also took note as several students cleverly hid their devices in their textbooks so they could sneak a text when I “wasn’t noticing”. I also noticed several girls who kept their bags open in their laps with their smartphones just below the surface. At first, I figured that my students were simply using their devices before, after--and in some cases during class--to text each other. But as I observed more closely, I discovered that nearly all of my students were connecting via Twitter. What would happen if I allowed them to use their devices during class for collaborative learning purposes? What if I allowed them to use Twitter, in a productive way, during class?
Coincidentally, the evening prior to these classroom observations, I had created a hashtag (#usdSpanish) via Twitter for my education and technology class. There were several students who were starting to teach themselves Spanish through iPad apps and other online resources, so I decided to create #usdSpanish as an online platform for them to practice what they were learning with each other. They could also use this platform to share language-learning resources and to ask me and or each other Spanish-related questions. Why couldn’t I do the same for my own Spanish students to help each other inside and outside of our class?
The next day I decided to give it a try. When I announced to my students that we were going to use Twitter to practice what we were learning, the level of excitement was absolutely electrifying. I explained my expectations for Twitter usage during the activity, showed them #usdSpanish, and gave them several phrases to work with in their table groups. Then I pulled up the Twitter feed onto the Promethean Board and let them go at it. They began tweeting out the phrases in Spanish. When other tables noticed the tweet, they would re-tweet it if it was written correctly, and if it was incorrect, they would correct each other via Twitter. The students were collaborating across the entire classroom. There attitudes seemed to be more positive towards learning Spanish, and there was a sense of community. I had met the students where they were in terms of how they wanted to learn and connect with each other.
Technology, Collaborative Learning, and Attitudes
How else could I foster a sense of classroom community and collaboration? What if I adopted a more collaborative learning approach? How could I further allow my students to use technology for collaborative learning purposes? Would using technology for collaborative purposes during class enhance my students' sense of classroom community? How would my students' attitudes towards learning Spanish be affected if I adopted a more collaborative approach to learning?
As I begin to explore ways to design lessons/activities/projects that allow my students to work more collaboratively, I am interested in discovering how the classroom environment and my students' attitudes towards learning foreign language are affected. I am also interested in determining the impact it has on the students’ sense of community when I allow them to use technology to collaborate with students both inside and outside of the classroom.
Questions
As I complete my action research throughout the rest of the school year, I hope to answer the following questions:
What happens to classroom community when students use technology to collaborate with each other?
How else could I foster a sense of classroom community and collaboration? What if I adopted a more collaborative learning approach? How could I further allow my students to use technology for collaborative learning purposes? Would using technology for collaborative purposes during class enhance my students' sense of classroom community? How would my students' attitudes towards learning Spanish be affected if I adopted a more collaborative approach to learning?
As I begin to explore ways to design lessons/activities/projects that allow my students to work more collaboratively, I am interested in discovering how the classroom environment and my students' attitudes towards learning foreign language are affected. I am also interested in determining the impact it has on the students’ sense of community when I allow them to use technology to collaborate with students both inside and outside of the classroom.
Questions
As I complete my action research throughout the rest of the school year, I hope to answer the following questions:
What happens to classroom community when students use technology to collaborate with each other?
- How does the use of technology and student collaboration affect the sense of classroom community?
- How does using technology to collaborate affect student engagement?
- How does student collaboration affect my role as the teacher and student learning outcomes?
- How does student collaboration affect students’ attitudes towards learning a foreign language?