Purpose of Cycle 1:
The purpose of my first Action Research cycle 1 is to establish a baseline level of participation that can be used as a comparison point for all future cycles. I am interested in learning how students are interacting with one another, what is motivating them to post, and how many times they post in general.
problem/Situation:
I have the opportunity of working with a fourth grade classroom who actively participate in Edmodo, an online learning management solution, as a means to extend their learning beyond the classroom. Students in this classroom all have a unique profile tied directly to the class and use it as a space to communicate and submit classwork.
I had the opportunity of student-teaching in this classroom during my undergraduate studies and used Edmodo frequently as a means of submitting math assignments during a flipped classroom environment. When teaching through Edmodo, I did a cursory survey of how the medium was being used by the students and found that there was not as much productive conversation occurring outside of the assignments I was giving the class.
For my action research, I will revisit the Edmodo online community of the fourth grade classroom and discover what motivates student participation in an online community of practice and extend learning beyond the classroom.
I had the opportunity of student-teaching in this classroom during my undergraduate studies and used Edmodo frequently as a means of submitting math assignments during a flipped classroom environment. When teaching through Edmodo, I did a cursory survey of how the medium was being used by the students and found that there was not as much productive conversation occurring outside of the assignments I was giving the class.
For my action research, I will revisit the Edmodo online community of the fourth grade classroom and discover what motivates student participation in an online community of practice and extend learning beyond the classroom.
BACKGROUND RESEARCH:
Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1
In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1, Marc Prensky correlates fluency with technology with age. In his article he describes the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants.
Digital natives are people who grew up with technology as a "first-language" and, therefore, receive information differently than people who have not grown up with technology. Digital Immigrants are people who do not "speak" technology as a first language and will always have traces of an accent when adapting to the widespread use of technology. thirteen ways to look at correlation coefficient
Thirteen Ways to Calculate the Correlation Coefficient provides insight into various of ways of capturing statistical correlations. I will be using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient test as a method of evaluation of my collected data.
|
|
Community of Practice:
My membership/position in the community of practice that I am working in can be described in the following way:
The community that I am studying is the virtual environment of a fourth grade classroom in Southern California. Members of this community includes the students of the class, students who use to be a member of the classroom and have sense moved away, myself and their teacher. The classroom uses Edmodo, a learning management solution, as a medium for submitting homework, conversing and extending learning.
I had the opportunity of student-teaching in this classroom during my undergraduate years and was always fascinated by the conversation occurring on Edmodo. It seemed like students appreciate the space to communicate, but never quite understood the purpose of posting or how to post constructively.
I approached the teacher of the classroom and asked if I could be invited back into the online community to examine the conversation happening online in his classroom. I have been a member of the community ever sense that moment.
*Update* It has recently come to my attention that my research in being used for professional development by the teacher of the classroom. He is interested in my thoughts on digital motivation and what methods may be transferable to other members of his elementary school staff.
The community that I am studying is the virtual environment of a fourth grade classroom in Southern California. Members of this community includes the students of the class, students who use to be a member of the classroom and have sense moved away, myself and their teacher. The classroom uses Edmodo, a learning management solution, as a medium for submitting homework, conversing and extending learning.
I had the opportunity of student-teaching in this classroom during my undergraduate years and was always fascinated by the conversation occurring on Edmodo. It seemed like students appreciate the space to communicate, but never quite understood the purpose of posting or how to post constructively.
I approached the teacher of the classroom and asked if I could be invited back into the online community to examine the conversation happening online in his classroom. I have been a member of the community ever sense that moment.
*Update* It has recently come to my attention that my research in being used for professional development by the teacher of the classroom. He is interested in my thoughts on digital motivation and what methods may be transferable to other members of his elementary school staff.
Research question for cycle 1:
What types of conversation are happening in a community of practice constituted predominantly of digital natives in a fourth grade virtual classroom?
Action Cycle 1:
My first cycle revolved around the collection of posts and trends from Edmodo without any alterations to the culture of the online classroom. As a passive observer, I wanted to learn more about how students naturally interact on Edmodo and see if there is any validity in the concept of digital natives "speaking" technology.
My action cycle lasted a total of four weeks ranging from 1/11/2015- 2/7/2015. During these four weeks I cataloged student posts into three distinct categories:
Criteria for a constructive post:
Finally, I am interested to see if there is a correlation between classroom leaders and leaders in the Edmodo community. Due to my inability to be able to be an active observer in the classroom, I sat down with the teacher and asked him to assign a ranking to each of his students. Students were assessed in the following way:
I want to compare his perception of participation in the classroom with actual participation in the Edmodo community.
My action cycle lasted a total of four weeks ranging from 1/11/2015- 2/7/2015. During these four weeks I cataloged student posts into three distinct categories:
- Total posts
- constructive posts
- conversation starters
Criteria for a constructive post:
- posts had to be longer than one word
- posts had to be constructive to the classroom environment
- posts could not be repeated
Finally, I am interested to see if there is a correlation between classroom leaders and leaders in the Edmodo community. Due to my inability to be able to be an active observer in the classroom, I sat down with the teacher and asked him to assign a ranking to each of his students. Students were assessed in the following way:
- 76-100 percentile of participation were assigned a 1
- 50-75 percentile of participation were assigned a 2
- 25-49 percentile of participation were assigned a 3
- 0-24 percentile of participation were assigned a 4
I want to compare his perception of participation in the classroom with actual participation in the Edmodo community.
Collected artifacts
For this action cycle I collected the following artifacts:
- data points for total posts, constructive posts, and conversation starters
- three samples of a general post
- three samples of a constructive post
- three samples of a conversation starter
- teacher feedback form
Evaluation:
I will evaluate the level of conversation occurring in the Edmodo community by assessing digital leadership and peripheral participation.
I will attempt to assess digital leadership and peripheral participation by calculating the total posts posts per day average of students, constructive posts per day average of students, and conversation started per day average for current students. I will then draw correlation between these data points using the sample Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient test.
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient test is a statistical analysis used to see if there is a strong correlation between two variable. The test yields a correlation coefficient (r) ranging between -1 and 1. The correlation coefficient (r) will range between -1 to 1 and will be used to determine if there is a correlation between the two variables being compared. Here is the formula for calculating r can be found to the right.
Once r is calculated, it is important to measure the degrees of freedom (df) for the sample population. the following formula can be used to calculate degrees of freedom:
I will attempt to assess digital leadership and peripheral participation by calculating the total posts posts per day average of students, constructive posts per day average of students, and conversation started per day average for current students. I will then draw correlation between these data points using the sample Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient test.
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient test is a statistical analysis used to see if there is a strong correlation between two variable. The test yields a correlation coefficient (r) ranging between -1 and 1. The correlation coefficient (r) will range between -1 to 1 and will be used to determine if there is a correlation between the two variables being compared. Here is the formula for calculating r can be found to the right.
Once r is calculated, it is important to measure the degrees of freedom (df) for the sample population. the following formula can be used to calculate degrees of freedom:
df= n-2
df= degree of freedom
n= population being sampled
n= population being sampled
Once the correlation coefficient (r) and the degrees of freedom (df) are established one may use the following link to discern if there is a statistical correlation between two variables.
I am curious to see if any correlations exist between constructive posts, total posts and the conversation starters.
I am curious to see if any correlations exist between constructive posts, total posts and the conversation starters.