Topic 6 : Improving Student's Web Use

My notes from topic 6 module's activities. 

How could you teach this to a Year 7 class???

a)      DEFINING  Concept maps.  Student directed activity: what is a mind map?  Why do you need one?  What should it have in it?  Show students a range of different maps to stimulate ideas.  Ask how do you group ideas on a mind map/distinguish between the different sections.  Students work in groups & share ideas with other groups to come up with an outline that suits their needs.  Relate to a tree/branches. Show students how to use an online tool such as bubbl.us to brainstorm/create concept maps.

b)      QUESTIONING  Ask them why they should ask questions (purpose).  Groups come up with ideas through a mind map.  Share with class to explore reasons.  From "Teaching Students to answer their own questions" : “When you ask the question, you feel like it’s your job to get the answer, and you want to figure it out.”  Use QFT (question formulation technique): See QFT Six Steps  - prompt, produce, improve, prioritize, decide, reflect.

c)      SEARCHING  Developing search strategies. Brainstorm "search strategy"/concept map, reasons for. Other ways: Use Boolify to get students to look at different ways to search, look at how search engine works/different search engines, practice searching/comparing engines using Search Tools for Kids.

d)      SELECTION/EVALUATION  Teaching students to be critical readers/what to look for.  Concept map- benefits of website evaluation, then share ideas.  Using the Web from Education Place-  contains good pointers for students. Kathy Schrock's 5Ws- easy for kids to understand. Credible sources count! - useful for showing the importance of credible sources.  Students could create concept map of different ways to take notes.  Look at positive/negative aspects of each. Use this summarization strategy to develop note taking skills.

e)      REFLECTIVE/EVALUATION Teaching students to be reflective web users.  Include this IN the assignment! Allow students to grade their own and/or another students research process using a rubric.  Base the rubric on Bloom using questions similar to The Reflective Student to develop deeper reflection.

Reflection on Assignment 2 - EER500

I have just submitted my second and final assignment for EER500 - Introduction to Educational Research. It is a little before the due date but as I have an assignment for ETL503 due on the same day, I need to get cracking with it.

The second assignment for EER500 involved taking our research question from the first assignment and selecting a research design and research methods as a sort of mini-research-proposal. I am still blown away by the amount of information I needed to read and understand. Research planning is a very complex task and I can understand now why it may take years, even decades for a research plan to be completed.

In choosing the research design and methods we were asked to look at the strengths and limitations of various designs and justify why we chose what we did. In the first assignment I got the idea that a good research question sets the context for the research so firstly I looked back at my research problem and question. I don't feel that I had much choice in selecting a research design - it was my question that chose the design. In summary I looked at the features of quantitative and qualitative research strategies and what my question was telling me. After selecting quantitative I looked at the different types of quantitative research design and again, looked at what my question was telling me. Was it asking for descriptive or experimental research?

Next I looked at the different types of experimental research - a choice between the laboratory experiment or the quasi-experiment, choosing quasi-experiment for reasons set out in my assignment. Further on, I had to consider what data-collection strategies I would involve and why? I went with a pre-intervention questionnaire, intervention through professional development and then a post-intervention questionnaire. By no means was that all there was to it.

We had to look at ethical issues as well and note what ethical considerations we might need for our research. We also had to work out what research paradigm our particular methods and design followed. It was heavy stuff!

What have I learned?

Where do I start? I think the work about research paradigms has had the most impact on me. At first I was thinking why on earth do we need to consider this stuff? But through my readings I discovered how relevant it is to research, indeed, how relevant it is to how you approach so many things. More details on this in my next post: What's my paradigm?

Also I have become very aware that research is not conducted in a vacuum. The results of educational research influence how people think and consider education topics and issues. It can produce change in procedures and methods. For these reasons it is imperative that researchers do their utmost to produce quality, ethical research, that is free from the bias of their own and others assumptions about social reality.

Key Issues in Budget Management facing TLs

In "Resourcing the Curriculum" Module 5, we were asked what we believe are the key issues in budget management facing TLs. Here are some of the thoughts that have come up from my reading:

• Understand how the budget is funded
• Create and submit a budget, even if it is not requested.
• Assess your needs. Prioritise, brainstorm, make it happen!
• Create a strong, out-come driven rationale
• Include goals, be specific, use needs assessments.
• Include others in the budgeting process - an advisory group (students/teachers/admin/parents)

After reading about budgeting I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Not so much at the thought of budgeting but as I find out more and more what is expected of a TL. Having worked for a couple of terms as an acting TL I thought I had a fairly realistic idea of what they did, but since starting uni, I have been regularly surprised at the extent of the TLs role. More than once I have thought "Is this what I really want to do? Am I going to be able to do all this?" I think it is just that feeling of being overwhelmed. I force myself to remember that in a new job, new position, it always takes time to find your feet and learn about the job, and that no one would expect you to know everything straight away. I am still a little nervous though!

Critical Reflection EER500 - Assignment 1

Well if I'm writing a critical reflection for one assignment, I might as well do it for another.

Assignment one for EER500 - Introduction to educational research, was different to any other assignment I've had to do. First of all, it was divided into parts 1a and 1b. Our course work also centred around this assignment. (It was so great not to have to keep following course work while also trying to complete an assignment - all lecturers take note!) We had to select a media article to do with an area of interest. Find 2 to 3 journal articles/studies about the area of interest in the media article. Formulate a research question (based on our module readings) and write about how the research question was related to the literature. Next we had to publish our writing onto a wiki.

For part b of the assignment, we had to read all the wiki posts in our section. Select one relevant to us professionally/personally (as well as our own), and read all the articles to familiarise ourselves with the area. Next with reference to our text and other readings we had to identify and comment on strengths and areas for improvement of the draft research question and the statement of how the question related to the literature, and the practical importance of the research question. Whewww! It took me a while to work out (from the forum posts and assignment info) that what we were doing was a type of critical evaluation (in a positive sense) of our own and the other wiki post and to back up any of our comments with references. Thinking of it like that made it a little easier for me to understand how to go about it.

I read alot about formulating research papers and research questions and literature reviews, and eventually managed to work out what was a good research question and how to effectively connect it to the literature. This whole process was a bit unerving for me because the assignment guidelines seemed to be so broad. Tell me to write a critical analysis on an author's view on a certain subject and I'll have no problems but in this assignment it felt like there was so much we had to work out for ourselves (like what is a good research question and so on). I find open-ended stuff so much harder to deal with, probably because I doubt my own abilities so much.

There was so much that I learnt from this assignment though. Like how most research reports give you ideas for further research if you know where to look and how the research question shapes the whole research process so you really have to get it right! The fact that researchers constantly revise their questions and research design. I'm finding that a bit hard to get used to.

ETL503 Assignment 1: Critical Reflection

The first assignment for ETL503 focused on identifying an aspect of the curriculum not adequately resourced by the school library, and then finding 10 new resources for this area. Simple enough, I though initially. It didn't take me long to identify an area of the curriculum where resources were lacking. Halfway through the year I had to teach a unit of work on Darwin and the theory of evolution for a teacher on leave. The textbook work was boring so I went to the library only to find there was nothing suitable. I still had my copy of the program so I used that. Next step - find 10 new resources - not a problem. I went online, hunted around Tale and some of the usual places. Easy! Then I re-read the assignment, read a few forum posts and went OMG! There was a process to follow and it was actually the process that was more important for this assignment than the end product. Didn't that change things! I think I was relying more on my experience with the curriculum and the students to find resources, which is probably fine when you know that aspect of the curriculum well, but what if you don't. That was something I hadn't considered.

And what is the process for resourcing the curriculum? This how I think it goes :

1. Identify an aspect of the curriculum (which is not well resourced);
2. Look at the teaching/learning program and/or syllabus. Identify outcomes.
3. Consider the teachers who teach this and the students they teach? Do they have any particular needs?
4. How do the current resources fit in with all this? What aspects are not covered by the current resources?
5. Choose and use various selection tools to find suitable resources.
6. Describe and justify the potential acquisition of these resources.

I think I was doing steps 1-5 already but without really thinking about it. With this assignment, we had to break the process down into individual parts so that we go to understand how the process worked. When I was acting TL earlier in the year, I didn't have to justify any resources the library acquired to anyone. Upon completing this assignment, I realise that no matter how well you "know" an aspect of the curriculum, if you can't explain how a resource fits into the program or how it fulfils a need, what good is it? It simply wont be used if it is not useful. As a teacher, I know that I wouldn't use a resource if I couldn't see how it fit into my program.

Looking back, I found reviewing the subject's syllabus very helpful because it gave me more than just outcomes to consider. The school program only gave me a small view of the aspect of the curriculum I had chosen to resource, whereas the syllabus showed me where it fit in the broader picture. I could consider values and attitudes outcomes, as well as skills and knowledge outcomes.

Next assignment, I plan to read the question a lot more carefully.

Critical Reflection

Shortly after submitting our first assignment for ETL503 - Resourcing the curriculum, we received a post assignment podcast from our supervisor, encouraging us to write a short critical reflection on the assignment/assignment process in preparation for ETL507 Reflective portfolio. When we had to write a critical reflection for ETL 401 I found it quite difficult because even though I had started writing this blog, I hadnt done much "reflective" writing at all. When I found out that in ETL 507 we will need to do a reflective portfolio I nearly fell over. Wouldn't it be useful to know right from the beginning that we should continue to write reflectively to assist with writing our reflective portfolio? Perhaps we were told that but if we were, I don't think it was said clearly enough. And what exactly is reflective writing? I found I had to do a little research for myself to really understand it. Anyway, I have come up with a bit of info about reflective writing and a handful of questions that will hopefully encourage it. If you are a Teacher Librarian student at CSU in particular, you may find this useful.

What is critical reflection and why should we do it?
Reflective writing enables the documentation of experiences, thoughts, questions. ideas and conclusions that signpost our learning journey ( see here). Basically, reflection provides an opportunity for us to think critically about what we do and why, so that change and improvement can result. By keeping some sort of reflective journal (ie a blog), we are keeping a record of events and results and our reaction to them, we are keeping data (useful for ETL507), and we are providing an opportunity to challenge and change ourselves.

Some ideas for getting started. (This is the hardest part for me).

• USE AN AGENDA: Describe the context. In our TL course, what is the issue/assignment? Where does it fit in the big picture? What are my assumptions? What could I do differently next time?
• FOCUS ON THE EXPERIENCE AND THINK (NOT ALOUD) IN WRITING: Take something you have read in the literature, or something that has occurred as part of the activity and think about the following - how does this connect with an aspect of my practice as a TL? What are the teaching and learning principles involved? What could I change in relation to this? What would happen if I did? Is there another way of looking at it?
• TAKING STOCK OF MY LEARING:What is the most important think I have learnt about the practice of a TL? What is the most important thing I have learnt about myself as a student? In what ways was I mistaken? How can I use this to improve as a TL/as a student?

Or put even more simply -

1. How do I feel about this?
2. What do I think about this?
3. What have I learned from this?
4. What action will I take as a result of my lessons learned?

Also, what have I learned with what I've done, and what have I done with what I've learned? (Shepherd, 2006)

I wonder how many students from last semesters ETL401 class have continued with their blogs, and if they have, how many are actually writing reflectively (instead of just descriptively)?

Reference
Shepherd, M. 2006. Using a learning journal to improve professional practice: A
journey of personal and professional self-discovery. Reflective Practice 7:333–48.