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BP4 : Evidence - Year 11 DigiTech Students Learning from Sharing in Google+ Community
My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2020 will be my Year 11 NCEA Level 1 class. I intend inquiring into the process of using the LearnCoach online programs (content) and VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning (workflow) to accelerate student achievement for Tamaki College students undertaking courses in Digital Technologies NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3.
During one of my Google hangout sessions with my Year 11 NCEA class, I took the opportunity to undertake a questionnaire using the hangout chat function, to obtain data on student learning and gain an understanding of how students' perceive the use of the Year 11 DigiTech Google+ Community to support their learning. This also relates to, and continues from my previous post BP4 : Evidence, Data and Preliminary Findings - Teaching Strategies.
As the teacher, I encourage the learners in my class to share their completed work that they have submitted and that I have marked, into the Year Level Google+ Community. Throughout this post, I provide explanations as to the intention of asking learners to share their completed work into the community.
As the teacher, I encourage the learners in my class to share their completed work that they have submitted and that I have marked, into the Year Level Google+ Community. Throughout this post, I provide explanations as to the intention of asking learners to share their completed work into the community.
Using Hangout Chat to conduct a Questionnaire
Using the google hangout chat function, meant that I was able to ask one question at a time, the students could clarify if they understood the question, and then answer the question before progressing onto the next question. This was more personalised than using a Google Form survey, because the students could interact with me if they didn't understand what was being asked of them. However, students inputting their responses into the chat function meant that their answers would still be time stamped, and authentic to each student.
Findings from the Questionnaire
The questionnaire focusses on whether the Year 11 students are using the Year 11 DigiTech Google+ Community, if they're using the community to share what they've learnt, or learn from understanding, and if they see value in the community to support their learning.
The whole purpose that I had set up the Year Level Google+ Community was to enable learners to learn from sharing and to learn from each other. From a teaching perspective, this has been instrumental in managing the range of learning abilities within a class, and has supported learners ability to work at their own pace. It is a powerful tool to support differentiation by depth and differentiation by pace.
The whole purpose that I had set up the Year Level Google+ Community was to enable learners to learn from sharing and to learn from each other. From a teaching perspective, this has been instrumental in managing the range of learning abilities within a class, and has supported learners ability to work at their own pace. It is a powerful tool to support differentiation by depth and differentiation by pace.
Question 1
The following shows that all students who participated in the questionnaire are using the Year 11 DigiTech Google+ community.Question 2
The following shows that 4/5 students see the value in the posts that they are sharing into the community, although it is not yet established what that value looks like in terms of impacting their learning. However, it is positive to see that the learners see value in the sharing process. Student 1, (one of the five students) 'kinda' saw the value in the work that they were sharing into the community.Question 3
The three students (Student 3, Student 1 and Student 2) who all explained why they saw value in sharing into the Google+ community, all showed different reasons to each other.Student 3 talked about the "value to students who may need more detailed examples". However, Student 3 didn't specifically include or see themselves as being one of those students.
Student 1 clearly explained that sharing the work into the community is helpful towards their learning, although they didn't go into detail as to why it is helpful.
Student 2 talked about the value of sharing into the community in terms of how sharing can help others.
Question 4
The following question was included to determine whether students felt as though using the community helped the learners to understand how to do tasks. Two of the students (Student 5 and Student 1) responded YES. Three students (Student 4, Student 3, and Student 2) all responded NO. This give some insight into whether learners believe that sharing is of benefit to themselves, to others, or to themselves and others.Question 5
All of the students responded YES to sharing their own work into the Google+ community. What hasn't been established is whether they like sharing their work, whether they do it just because it has been asked of them, whether they share the work because it makes them feel proud to share their work, or any other reason that they may share their work.Question 6
The following responses show, that by the learners having to update their posts into the community to describe the work that they had shared, in addition to including a post title and the link to the work itself, the process of updating their posts gave three of the students (Student 1, Student 4 and Student 2) a greater understanding. However, the learners didn't explain what this process gave them a greater understanding of. I intend delving deeper into the rationale behind this response to see what learners are gaining a greater understanding of, to see how the title, and description as well as the link, is or is not adding value to their learning. Two learners (Student 4 and Student 5) were unsure of the impact of this process, and one learner (Student 3) outright stated that there was no impact on their understanding of the work through this process.From a teaching perspective, the purpose of including a title to the posts is so that the posts can be easily searched for within the community, if learners want to find a similar task to the one that they are currently working on. The purpose of including a description into the post is to explain what the post is about. In writing the description, the learner also demonstrates that they have understood what the post is about by having to articulate the description of the task. Thus, reinforcing their understanding of the work. Finally, the purpose of including a link to the task, is because the task that is shared, has been marked by myself, returned to the learner, and is a model that demonstrates the required standard for that particular activity.
Next Steps
The next steps that I will explore with the information in this survey, is to have the learners read through this post, and see if they have a greater or better understanding of why I have set the Year 11 Level Google+ community up, in terms of supporting their individual and specific learning journeys. I hope that this will provide me with a greater insight into whether this is supporting student learning and if so, how it is supporting student learning.I also hope that when learners see that I am inquiring into their learning, they may have a greater input into communicating in more detail what they feel their learning needs are, and how they may be better achieved through my inquiry this year.
BP3 : Finding Ways to Capture Evidence from my target group of learners in my Year 11 Class
2 Comments
I think it's helpful because you can see how other students do the work you're on to, like if you're confused what to do, so just look at how other students did it.
ReplyDeleteI like sharing my work into the Year 11 DigiTEch Google+ Community because I like to help other students out with what they're confused about.
I don't share my work into the Year 11 DigiTEch Google+ Community because I've been asked to share my work but because I like to help students who are confused about the work.
I share my work into the Year 11 DigiTEch Google+ Community not only because it makes me feel proud but because it's helping other students as well.
It gives me a greater understanding of the work that I have completed and shared because you need to know what is the heading of the work, what's about and where you find it.
Kia ora Olever, I am really impressed with the reasons why you share your work into the Year 11 DigiTech Google+ community, including the fact that it makes you feel proud, because you like helping other students out, and because it gives you a greater understanding of the work that you have completed. I think these are all very positive characteristics about the type of person that you are, and the work that you are doing. I feel as though your comments also outline the value that you see in the use of the Google+ community, both to your own learning as well as the learning of others. Well done!
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