Purpose of Cycle 2:
The purpose of my first Action Research Cycle 2 is to see if intrinsic motivation will increase the rate of students' constructive contribution to the online Edmodo classroom.
problem/Situation:
After observing the communication patterns of the fourth grade students in the Edmodo community, I noticed a lack of constructive remarks in the dialogue in which students were participating. Of the 1553 posts accounted for during the four weeks of observation in cycle one, only 290 posts were constructive in nature. This means that only 18.6% of all posts were a contribution to the virtual classroom.
After examining the quality of the conversation, I realized that students had fully mastered the action of being an active participant in the Edmodo community and had full autonomy to post anything they were interested in talking about, but they lacked a true purpose in what direction to shape conversation.
Daniel Pink speaks about the importance of purpose, mastery and autonomy as the three crucial elements of intrinsic motivation. The virtual Edmodo classroom already affords students mastery of the system and posting autonomy, but the students do not have a clear purpose for what to post on Edmodo. I would like to examine this further.
After examining the quality of the conversation, I realized that students had fully mastered the action of being an active participant in the Edmodo community and had full autonomy to post anything they were interested in talking about, but they lacked a true purpose in what direction to shape conversation.
Daniel Pink speaks about the importance of purpose, mastery and autonomy as the three crucial elements of intrinsic motivation. The virtual Edmodo classroom already affords students mastery of the system and posting autonomy, but the students do not have a clear purpose for what to post on Edmodo. I would like to examine this further.
BACKGROUND RESEARCH:
Drive
In Drive, Daniel Pink outline his new form of motivation theory, motivation 3.0. Motivation 3.0 is a departure from the old model of motivation 2.0 where people are thought to be motivated by carrots and sticks.
It is believed in motivation 2.0 that rewards for a desired action will further propel people to continue the action, and punishments for undesired actions will prevent people from repeated undesired actions. This model of motivation is present in all aspects of our life with loyalty programs, rewards and benefits being sought after in the professional world. Although popular, these forms of motivation are extrinsic in nature and may not be the most effective way of motivating people to success. This is where motivation 3.0 differes from motivation 2.0. Motivation 3.0 is the thought that all people are motivated by the desire to be a part of a greater purpose, gain autonomy of their life, and gain mastery of their craft. I am interested in using this form of intrinsic motivation as a basis to see if I can increase the quality of conversation happening in the Edmodo community. |
Research question for cycle two:
Will providing the three qualities of purpose, mastery and autonomy as outlined in Pink's theory of motivation 3.0 increase the level of total participation and constructive participation in the Edmodo community?
Action Cycle 2:
My second cycle will focus on the usage of Pink's motivation theory to see if there is a way to motivate students to constructively post at higher rates. Students have already demonstrated full mastery of Edmodo and autonomy of what they post in cycle one, but they are in need of a purpose to the posting.
In order to instill a better sense of purpose into the Edmodo community, I have prepared a series of detailed posted that will automatically be submitted by the teacher over the course of two weeks. These strategic posts will provide content for students to respond to eachother in purposeful ways. Here are the questions I will use to stimulate conversation:
poll questionsHow should we use Edmodo in our class?
How often to you check Edmodo throughout the day?
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open-ended questions
Time for Kids just wrote an article about how chores are good for your health! http://www.timeforkids.com/news/more-chores-fewer-allergies/217436 What do you think? Are chores good for your health?
Hey class! I just read this article: http://www.timeforkids.com/news/elephants%E2%80%99-next-act/221886 and thought it was interesting. Do you think that the circus should stop using elephants in their act? It looks like Nasa found a couple of plants that could support human life: http://www.timeforkids.com/news/are-we-alone/203396 . Do you think that this article provides proof that aliens exist? Happy belated Pi Day, class! I wanted to post this link in honor of the most famous irrational number in the world. Feel free to follow the link to make your own beautiful "Pi Song" and show me in class tomorrow. I am excited to see what you create. Michael Faraday found a connection between electricity and magnetism that is pretty cool. It would be great if you can find a video about what he found a post it here. I just found this maze game on scratch’s website and thought it was cool, but not Room 30 cool! Does anyone want to try and code a better maze? https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/10128431/ |
Collected artifacts
For this action cycle I collected the following artifacts:
- data points for total posts, constructive posts, and conversation starters
- samples of responses to the teacher posts
- Survey results from the Edmodo polls
Evaluation:
The first formula I will use when analyzing my data is percent change. Percent change is a easy way to measure the change in constructive posts, total posts and conversations started between cycle one and cycle two. Any positive value for this number will show an increase in participation.
The second value that I will use to measure success is the percentage of total posts that are constructive to conversation. I am hoping that adding purpose to the conversation will raise the current rate of 18.7%.
The second value that I will use to measure success is the percentage of total posts that are constructive to conversation. I am hoping that adding purpose to the conversation will raise the current rate of 18.7%.