During the same week I instructed my students how to use Google Forms to collect data, I decided to do a bit of data collection myself. I was stuck on whether digital HOTS projects were taking up too much time in my classroom and wanted to get their perspective on it. I also wanted to know a little bit more about how they felt about learning in a digital environment that is based on communicating through technology.
Some of the survey results were predictable, but many were surprising to me in some way, shape or form. Below is a synopsis of most of the data that was collected through this student learning survey, along with a brief reflection about the data and what implications it might have for my students and my pedagogy.
The original intention of conducting this survey was to find out how students feel about long-term, synthesized and transdiscipilnary HOTS projects. After wondering about that question, many more naturally followed.
Reflection: When I saw the results of this question, was reassured in my pedagogical insecurity that the majority of my students prefer long-term digital HOTS projects. Perhaps the minority does not have the patience to wait for the process to be finished and needs more immediate closure. The results may also reflect the subject discipline preference of students, as math (number) and word study are typically taught in shorter centers. Either way, it is nice to know that many of my students enjoy the process of learning; not simply the product.
Reflection: I was worried that many students might feel that I was on their back too much, pushing them along through the process too quickly in order to recapture some time. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the students (unlike me) don’t feel we are spending too much time on longer term learning engagements.
Reflection: This result completely floored me at first. Really? Nearly one-third of my students want to make posters? At first, I was annoyed by this and couldn’t believe my students wanted to demonstrate their learning in such an old-school way. Slowly, I’ve realized that I do need to strive for greater balance in my class to provide for those whose digital motivations are not as high. Many students have various multiple intelligences and learning styles, and those that may be more artistically or kinesthetically inclined could feel limited or hindered by iPads. I feel I need to do a better job of differentiating for them, or creating new ways for them to learn and express their understanding through their strengths, while still recording and documenting their process digitally.
Reflection: I’m starting to see a pattern here. About two-thirds of my students seem to be on board with digital literacy. About one-third of my students are throwbacks. In absolute age, all of my students are digital natives. However, I can only imagine how many of them are old-soul digital immigrants living out their karmic rebirth in my classroom (I wonder what they did wrong in their previous lives?). The two-thirds to one-third ratio is an intriguing proportion to me. I wonder what the ratio of old-school teachers to new-school teachers there are in any given educational institution. How many teachers are on board with moving forward in digital learning? How many prefer to teach like they were taught? Is there a two-thirds to one-third pattern with modern-day educators? If so, who would be the majority?
Reflection: I was surprised to see how many students prefer to work independently considering how much collaboration we do in our classroom. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m on a digital and collaborative overkill and they are receiving too much of a good thing. Perhaps I need to lay off a little bit and find greater balance, or open up some of these digital HOTS projects to their learning preferences.
Reflection: Whether they enjoy using them or not, I’m glad to see that the majority of my students feel that they are learning a lot about digital literacy. I’m wondering about the others, though. Are they just the objectors to everything except the one thing they like? I have an exceptional learner cohort and I wonder to what degree the anti-technology syndicate is being spearheaded by some of them and their inflexibility. What can I learn from examining the minority and their reasons for objection? When I look at myself, I’m definitely a minority kind of guy and frequently object to what the majority is doing. What might these objectors be guiding me to look at in myself and my teaching patterns?
In order to assess whether there was a direct correlation between digital learning, learning motivation, feeling challenged in the classroom and happiness at school, I asked a series of questions to posit possible relationships. Here is what I found out:
One: I do not like to use technology to show my understanding.
Ten: I love to use technology to show my understanding.
One: I’m not learning much on the iPads.
Ten: I’m learning so much on the iPads.
One: I’m pretty bored. I’m not learning anything new.
Ten: I’m very challenged and I’m learning a lot.
One: I’m not motivated or enthusiastic about my learning this year.
Ten: I’m very motivated and enthusiastic about learning more.
One: Super relaxed.
Ten: Stressed out.
One: Not happy.
Ten: Very happy.
Reflection: I was secretly hoping for better results and I deliberated whether to share these publicly or not. However, one of my personal goals this year is to make myself more vulnerable, and be easier on myself for my mistakes. I’ll consider this to be a practice in that. I would have liked to have seen all of my students in the seven to ten range for all of these questions. It would have been great to see that they all love communicating their understanding through digital storytelling, that they are all super engaged and challenged, that they are all learning intensively in my class, that they are carrying over their learning motivation to action beyond the classroom walls and that they are supremely happy to come to school this year because of all the new digital technology and innovative learning activities they are being exposed to. It would have been great to see all that data come back, but it didn’t. The only result that I was happy to see was that students are operating in the optimal learning range, between stress and relaxation.
Looking at how many students responded inside my desired range for all other questions, between seven and ten, it should come to no surprise to me that it more or less follows the pattern of two-thirds to one-third.
Is it the apps? Is it some of my students’ apathetic personalities? Was it the concepts we learned about? Is it social factors? Was it their mood at the time of the survey? Are they just so used to technology in their lives that they are already bored with it? It could be a range of many variables that contributed to the data that I’ve collected. Despite all those valuable variables inherent in their responses, a pattern is emerging, and it’s not a positive one. The hard truth I have to face when looking in the mirror is that I’m not providing enough differentiation or engagement for one-third of my students. It’s my responsibility and I fully accept that how I’m designing lessons for them and how I’m interacting with them might not be honoring who some of them are as learners.
After all this reflection, I’ve learned that my classroom is out of balance, but not in the way I suspected it to be. Instead the imbalance being due to too time spent on long-term digital HOTS learning engagements, the lack of balance is due to how I’m not differentiating enough for the needs of the one-third of my class that might be as resistant to pedagogical change as some of us educators are. And the question I have to figure out now after evaluating all this data is, where do I go from here? The answer can only lie one taxonomical level up: creating.
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