Please watch the screencast I have created in which I summarize my WPP project: WPP Screencast
Below you will see WPP- A - D pieced together so that you can see how I went about creating this project and why,
WPP- A
- What is the important educational need that you are seeking to address?
NO TIME FOR GROUP WORK! The Common Core and best practices call for the use of group work. I have seen the growth that can occur when students get together and are allowed to solve a problem or complete a project together; however it is difficult to find class time to allow for these opportunities. My school poses a particularly unique situation because we are an early college that accepts kids from multiple districts. Knowing this it is hard to force students to work on a project outside of class when it can be very challenging for them to all find time to meet after school. Therefore, I am hoping to use technology to better provide these opportunities for my students.
- How you plan to address this educational issue with technology?
I am proposing using Google Drive as a way to combat the issue of assigning group work outside the classroom. For an assignment in one of my MAET courses my group used Google Drive (then Google Docs) as a means of communication/collaboration and it worked very well. One of the biggest draws to Google Drive for me is the fact that it is free to use. Given that I am a part of an urban school, money is always an issue for not only my students but also our school’s budget. Another draw is that students can share their file with each other, edit together in real time, and track who has made edits to the document. This allows for students to work together as long as they have internet access, they can talk to each other using the comments/chat feature, and it promotes accountability because group members and myself can see who made edits to the project (this is a secondary issue with group work... the group member who decides to do nothing because they do not think the teacher will know).
- Logistics of solution:
I have chosen my 10th grade World History students as the guinea pigs for my Google Drive experiment. Last week I began the process by having students create Gmail accounts so that they could access Google Drive. I then created a short presentation assignment that small groups needed to complete and submit to the class Google Presentation as a way to practice. I had students work on this in class as they got used to the system so that I could be there to troubleshoot problems. I think that this made students more comfortable with the break from the norm and will make future Google Drive assignments run more efficiently.
- Relevant research and resources.
Source 1:
· Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy In History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
o Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects 6–12
o Grades 9-10:
§ “6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.”
o Citation:
§ Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in
History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010. PDF.
Source 2:
· Marzano Research on Cooperative Learning
o “This suggests that on the average, the use of cooperative learning by teachers in the action research studies was associated with a gain in student academic achievement of 30 percentile points over what was expected when teachers did not use cooperative learning.”
o Citation:
§ "Cooperative Learning." Researched Strategies. Marzano Research
Laboratory, Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://www.marzanoresearch.com/research/researched_strategies.aspx>.
Source 3:
· “You'll find that Google Docs helps promote group work and peer editing skills, and that it helps to fulfill the stated goal of The National Council of Teachers of English, which espouses writing as a process and encourages multiple revisions and peer editing.”
· See video embedded in site.
o Citation
§ "Google Docs." Google For Educators, Web. 04 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html>.
- A plan for the portion you will implement during this course and the portion you will implement after this course completes.
Last week (9/27/12 & 9/28/12) I had my 10th Grade World History students create their accounts so that they would have access to Google Drive. I then created a brief group presentation assignment in which they were to use the Google Drive Presentation feature to create a lecture that they made. This was done entirely in class so that I could troubleshoot any potential problems that arose for their first time using the system. The next step is to create a group project that students will create primarily outside the classroom in groups using Google Drive to collaborate. This assignment will be based on World Religions in which students will be in pairs/small groups and will be asked to create an encyclopedia page for each of the major World Religions. They will create this on Google Drive so that they can both collaborate on the document and eventually share their findings with their classmates for peer editing.
6. How would you know you were successful?
- The quality of the group work will be an indicator of the success rate of the assignment.
- Student performance on the World Religion Unit Test will be an indicator of the success rate of the assignment.
- Student feedback will be an indicator of the success rate of the assignment.
WPP- B
What is the TP knowledge for the solution?
After thinking about teaching strategies/standards, I really do believe that I can utilize Google Drive technology for group projects in a meaningful way. Common Core Standards especially call for increased group collaboration and usage of various technological components in the classroom. Google Drive will address both needs. I can assign group work outside of the classroom and have students collaborate using a technological piece like Google Drive (documents or presentations).
What is the TC knowledge for the solution?
There are multiple benefits to having students use technology to create presentations compared to the standard paper and pen method or, slightly more appealing to me, the paper and colored pencil/crayon/marker method. With the aide of a technology like Google Drive, and even more particular, Google Presentation, students can insert images, audio, video, charts, graphs, etc. into their presentation. This makes the presentation more dynamic and stimulating to all members involved (i.e. student and teacher). This is not unlike a traditional PowerPoint but the added benefit of using Google Drive is the collaboration component. Since I do not have to worry so much about giving students classroom time to work on a project I can add additional pieces to rubrics that perhaps I would leave out in the past because otherwise it would just take too long for groups to complete. Further, students can make comments (peer editing) and share their work with other classmates. This expands the learning environment so much more than an individual teacher could ever do.
Knowing all of the potential benefits though does not necessarily paint an accurate picture of Google Drive. Part of the TCK component is to understand the limitations of the technology in how information can be represented. I would like to make it known that I have not completely drank all of the Google Drive Kool-Aid. There are a few drawbacks to this technology:
1. If you ask students to create a presentation they will almost always use the Google Presentation feature.
a. It is possible to install other presentation tools but rarely will you find students that will do this unless specifically informed to do so.
2. Google Presentation has very few pre-programmed themes/backgrounds so creativity can be hindered.
3. Just because it makes group collaboration easier and potentially creates more accountability since group members and the teacher can track individual contributions, does not mean that some students will all-of-a-sudden become involved with group work when they were not involved before using traditional methods.
4. Google Drive requires not only Internet access but also preferably fast Internet access. In addition Google Drive requires a computer. Occasionally a teacher might have a student that does not have one or both of these necessities which creates a barrier to learning if the class projects are centered around this technology.
Taking the potential negatives into consideration, I still believe that Google Drive is a valuable technology for me to begin implementing inside and outside the classroom.
What is the PC knowledge for the solution?
Aside from the time component of group work that I tend to have issues with (i.e. not enough time), another big issue is that students will divide work up or allow one student to complete the whole project. Therefore students are not fully engaged in the assignment. With Google Drive students can work simultaneously on a group project instead of waiting for one person the complete their portion before handing the computer off to someone else. Google Drive further supports my cause because it eliminates the, “I forgot my flashdrive,” or “my partner has the project and isn’t here,” issues that never fail to arise.
Perhaps the bigger pedagogical reasoning behind using this technology comes from research surrounding Bloom’s Taxonomy and multiple intelligences/learning styles. At the top of Bloom’s list is the “Creation” piece. It has long been understood that one of the best ways to learn something is to actually create a finished product utilizing the knowledge that you acquired. Having students create group projects pushes them towards the higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The other pieces to the puzzle, or the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, can be addressed by what the teacher is asking students to do. The final pedagogical reason to use this technology that I would like to address is catering to multiple intelligences/learning preferences. As I mentioned in the previous section, with this technology students can create projects that incorporate text, images, video, color, charts, motion, and sound which all together give students the opportunity to make the assignment better suit their needs. Overall the potential of using Google Drive inside and outside the classroom appears to just keep growing.
WPP- C
Listen to my reflection on how my first real attempt to use Google Drive in the classroom went.
See the product my students put together via my screencast created through Jing.
WPP- D
See the product my students put together via my screencast created through Jing.
WPP- D
Google Drive in the Classroom
For my WPP assignment I chose to address the issue of assigning group work effectively by using Google Drive. The goal ultimately was to find a way to conduct group work outside of the classroom since my school has the unique situation of drawing students from multiple school districts and, perhaps even more challenging, we do not provide any sort of transportation (students are either dropped off/picked up by parents or by city bus. This means that many of my students simply cannot find a common time/place to meet after school to complete a project.
My plan was to first have my 10th grade World History students create a Gmail account so that they had access to Google Drive. This step was made possible from technology waivers that our school has all students turn in at the beginning of the year since. Once this process was done the next step was to have students work on a Google Presentation in small groups, the final product would become the compilation of each group's project. For the most part this went as planned. There were a few unforeseen problems that occurred but most of those were related to internet connectivity or slow computer processing speed.
For all intents and purposes the project was implemented as planned. The true value of using Google Drive for collaborative group work however should be judged on student performance. Each group was assigned a topic and given a rubric of items that had to be included in their portion of the presentation. In addition they were to submit their slides to the overall class presentation so that it would truly be a class-wide collaborative effort. From a grading stand point, group did exceptionally well. Looking over the graded rubrics, the only significant points that groups lost were tied to the actual verbal presentation part of the assignment where they had to actually stand and present what they had contributed. Therefore, I would have to say that Google Drive was successful in addressing the issue I face with group work. The one caution that I have to remind myself of is that I did give class time for groups to work on the project since it was our first time using Google Drive and I wanted to make sure there were no issues. This means that students were not required to do as much at home as they will have to in the future.
I do plan on using Google Drive for several upcoming group projects. There are a few things that I plan on doing differently though to try and avoid some of the complications that occurred the first time around. Although I really like the idea of creating one class document that groups can post to, this process bogged the system down and left the opportunity for students to interfere with other's work. In the future I do plan on creating a class document but I will have each group create their own separate document, share it with me, and once they are done I will take their work and submit it to the class document. The other item that I want to change is how I check that all group members contributed. The first time around I could see that all students contributed, however Google Drive only makes group work easier, it does not solve the issue of individual student effort. I still will use some of the features provided by Google Drive, like the ability to track who has made various edits, but beyond that I am going to incorporate a group evaluation sheet where individual group members can discuss what they contributed and what others contributed. Adding this layer of accountability will help somewhat to avoid the free-rider effect.
Overall, I really like the idea of using Google Drive in the classroom. I believe that I received better participation and a better product using this technology. Perhaps just as important, students now have another way to save files that will help them avoid the consequences of forgetting/losing a flash drive, or having their computer freeze/crash before they could save. There are a few areas as of right now that I will tweak in the near future, and certainly I will find other tweaks to make along the way that I have not thought about yet, but I am very happy with Google Drive. It definitely has a place in my classroom, at least until the next latest and greatest technology comes to claim its' place.
No comments:
Post a Comment