Presentation to Leading a Digital School 09
This presentation was given to the Leading a Digital School conference held on the Gold Coast in September
Engagement
Thoughts on engagement in activity made through observations of students after week 1
Thoughts on engagement in classroom activity made through observations of students after week 1
Through classroom observations students seem to be actively engaging in the animation activities. This is made clear through student interest levels, motivation and student work samples.
What the students have acheived so far
- cooperation
- motivation/engagement towards activity
- enjoyment
- pride in producing quality work
Workshop 2 - pictures
Thanks to Chris Reading at UNE and to the School of Education for this day
Conference planning
Conferences
- ACEC in Melbourne, 6-9 April 2010: acec2010.info
- ICTLT SIngaoore, 4 & 5 March 2010: www.ictlt.com
- AATE/ALEA (English K-12 teachers' national conference) Perth, July 2010, (conference 2009 website: http://www.englishliteracyconference.com.au; 2010 website TBA).
Year 11 Observations
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Vodcast planning
The vodcast will be built later, but we need to consider it so we can collect relevant data, picture, video, audio etc
In planning your vodcast, we need to consider:
- Time: 5 minutes maximum
- Who is the audience?
- What is your message?
- How will it be delivered?
- What do we need to record?
- How will it be put together?
Focus on research
Chris Reading focusses on the research questions and talks about some administrivia:
- All forms needed by Chris (first blank out students' names who haven't provided permissions forms)
- Martin will collect all permissions forms for Chris from TAS - we need to provide a copy to parents afterwards
Forms issues
DId we need all five levels?
- pre-service used more than in service teachers?
- "mostly" good enough for the endpoint? ie would 4 levels discriminate enough or does "always" mean every time you looked at the student?
Teacher forms
- did the choice of three descriptors work?
- positive attitude to tasks, teacher and peers should be broken out: could have positive attitude to 1 of the three or two, or. Generally interpreted as "positive" overall
Pre-service forms
- straight foward
More general discussions re instruments
- "felt like abandoning the kids to fill out the forms"
- pre-service teachers did assist in management to allow this time, but it's still a time issue. May need separate "writers" or a round robin approach. Would change nature of data sheets though. Maybe "target" kids who may be at one end of the spectrum to see what is happening there.
- Doubles worked well, but 45 minute classes made data collection impossible.
- Would video recording the classroom work? Effectively doubles time allocation.
- The fact that there were more people in the room than normal was disruptive. Dynamics may change depending on whether pre-service teachers were seen as dominant if, say, the inservice teacher went to the back of the classroom.
Student form
- Student reaction overall was positive.
- Accuracy questionable, but time will make this less of a problem
- Language not seen as problematic
- Maybe some anonymous for some of the sets, these forms used to see if there was any correlation to named forms
- Maybe numbered kids, given that we have 1:1 laptops, and use survey monkey or similar
Followup
Maybe a question that is fairly easily answered along the lines of "what was it that you enjoyed most about your activity?
Linley and Chris will follow this up
Reflecting on engagement
I would encourage teachers and pre-service teachers to reflection on the engagement of stduents in the classroom and any issues in recognising and recording data about this engagement.
Reflecting on implementation
I would encourage both teachers and pre-service teachers to reflect on the implementation of ICT in the classroom and to share their thoughts here.
Comments on Data Collection Forms
After checking the revised versions of the Data Collection Forms (see the Research Design Page in the Wiki) please post relevant comments. I need these comments as soon as possible so that I can submit the Ethics Form. Thanks, Chris
designing the data collection (ideas)
| Name | Year | Date | |||
| E: How interesting was the lesson for me? | |||||
| not at all | a bit interesting | OK | more interesting than normal | really interesting | |
| B: How much effort did I put in? | |||||
| I didn't put any effort in | I put a bit of effort in | I made a fair effort | I put in lots of effort | I put in heaps of effort | |
| C: How hard did my brain have to work? | |||||
Issues
Perceived issues are (possible solutions in italics)
- Clashing timetables - resolve by negotiation
- Changing teachers (LSL Robyn)
- Aspergers children - group work may be inappropriate. Existing class teacher gives direction?
- Lack of software experience by teachers/students
- Uni Exams - released April 17
- Un-timetabled interruptions - and this is different because...
- Resourcing - need to block book equipment if needed or timetable access via wiki
- Practical teaching (school experience) demands - Hmmm
- Clarification of Lecturer's role - up to each lecturer and their group to resolve, but predominantly support
Hilary's colour choices
Was Hilary absent-minded in her decision to use black on blue within the Year 3 Inspiration 'Engagement', or was this a deliberate representation of her emotional engagement?
Year 11 thoughts on engagement
- Asking relevant questions: Leads to connections
- Tying it all together to form their own understanding, constructivist.
- Higher Order Thinking: Open ended tasks encouraging evaluation and synthesis.
-How much work is undertaken when they are at home- (when they do not have to work on a project)
- Choice of topics:
Signs
- Rapport of students with the teacher
- Invest themselves in the content
- Engagement with the process
- Engagement can manifest itself in various ways: kids on task, robust discussion, quiet working.
Yr7 thoughts on Engagement
What engagement looks like:
- Asking questions
- being willing
- not needing prompting
- not easily distracted
- going beyond or changing task direction
- being irritated by teacher intervention
- creative thinking
- autononomy
- independent learning
- not overly teacher directed
What it doesn't look like
- fiddling
- being off track
- distracting others
- being the "class clown"
- threatening and bullying
- "window" gazing
- doing something other than required tasks
Year 6 thoughts on engagement
Engagement can be defined as problem solving, negotiation, choice, frustration, risk taking developing options, behaviour, enjoyment, enthusiasm or level of motivation towards the activity, time on task- involvement, some level of success may increase level of engagement, asking relevant questions, willingness to actively participate in class discussion, take responsibility and ownership of their work.
Year 5 thoughts on engagement
Year 5 —
brainstorm of words related to engagement and what you would see if observing
someone who was engaged · concentration
· perseverance
· involves
enjoyment? · seeing
relevance of activity · accepting
necessity of task/learning · suitable
level (ZPD) · want
to do rather than have to do · don't
want to be interrupted · discussing
and thinking · asking
questions · open-ended
promotes engagement · can
be individual or cooperative · goal
and process focused (metacognitive) · novelty? · practical? · suits
learning preference · challenging · competitive? exciting