Education need or opportunity
One of the largest problems at my school is the high rate of truancy, long-term suspensions and random absences. This is an even larger problem in my science courses as students who miss labs or activities are more likely to have lower or failing grades. As a department, we have tried to set up make-up lab schedules, but often the students who can’t make it to class on a regular basis can’t get to school early or stay late.
How will I address this educational issue with technology?
My plan to address this issue by having students take pictures of the steps or stages of a lab/activity while they are working during class hours and then incorporate those photos into a PowerPoint presentation. I would like to be able to have my students help me create the storyboard for our video both to review the procedure and purpose of the lab/activity and get them to feel as though they are a large part of the process. Then as the teacher, I will create a voiceover based on my students ideas through Garage Band that will explain what was happening during the lab/activity. I can then use either iMovie or Camtasia to combine both parts into a short video/screencast (2-3min) which I can post to our class website. I will also include a either a set of data either from actual student work or from “created” data from which students can complete their lab analysis.
Logistics of solution (What is the scope?)
Since we are taking photos of student’s lab/activity work I do not have to worry about whether or not students have their photo consent form on file (photos will be edited if any identifying information is visible).
In my Biology class we work on an activity almost every other day with formal labs occurring closer to once every two weeks depending on the unit we are in. Forensic Science also has activities two to three times a week. Formal assessments in the form of a crime scene are planned for the end of a unit which may also make them conducive for this type of project.
I will collect pictures of student progress for all labs/activities regardless of student attendance. For the scope of this project, I will create videos/screencast for activities where a high rate of student absences will affect their progress in the class within two days. I plan to save additional photos to create videos/screencast at a later date to use in the future.
Relevant research and resources
With my research I have found many resources on student absenteeism and its affect or impact on academic achievement. One of the first articles I found looked at the relationship between students with Asthma and academic achievement which stood out to me since we have a very high rate of students with severe asthma and I currently have two students out long term due to it.
I am concerned that I've found fewer resources related to using technology to reach out to absent students. Through my limited research it appears that there is a disconnect between absentee students and ways in which they can catch up with missed work in a science class which was made even more poignant after reading the following statement on absenteeism:
"Students who miss school can copy notes or do worksheets; however, the hands-on activities, discussion, listening, questioning, explanation and clarifications are the parts of class that are lost forever when a student is absent."
This statement led me to even question my project's validity in terms of giving hands-on experiences and allowing them to participate in our Kagan style cooperative learning groups. This led me on another search to see if I could find what other science teachers have tried in terms of solving this problem.
I found a discussion group through NSTA (Nation Science Teachers Association) where teachers were sharing how they helped absent students experience missed labs/activities. It was interesting to see teachers posting how their colleagues recorded their lectures for students but I didn't see many suggestions for labs. The discussion did lead me to an article on engaging today's learners with technology which I found to be quite interesting and though provoking (Prensky, 2005). I continued to search for ways to make my project relevant and engaging for as many of my students as possible and over time I may adjust my procedure to make this more student driven as suggested by an article found in the TechSmith Education Community (“Lincoln Middle Schools Students Use Technology to Help Each Other Succeed”.) I think the key for my project will be how I engage the students back to the analysis of the lab/activity they have missed. I think by having the students follow up the video/screen cast with some form of analysis and higher order questions about the information will help to tie together the content - the next possible best practice other than having the student participate in the original lab/activity. I'm beginning to see my research is leading to more questions than it might be answering at this time.
In the end I rounded out my research by looking for more tips and technique help for creating videos and screencasts at TechSmith to streamline this process.
Krenitsky-Korn, Susan. "High School Students with Asthma: Attitudes about School Health, Absenteeism, and its Impact on Academic Achievement." Pediatric nursing 37.2 (2011): 61,61-68. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 6 Oct. 2011.
Matsuura, Susan. "Attendance shown to Affect School Performance." Sho - Ban News: 6. Ethnic NewsWatch. Mar 01 2007. Web. 6 Oct. 2011 <http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/367467540?accountid=12598>.
Prensky, Marc. “Engage Me or Enrage Me: What Today’s Learners Demand” EDUCAUSEreview. September/October 2005. 5 Oct. 2011 http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0553.pdf
“Lincoln Middle Schools Students Use Technology to Help Each Other Succeed”. TechSmith Education Community. Mccollom, Dave. 8 Oct. 2011 http://www.techsmith.com/community/education/real-users/mathtrain.asp
Additional tutorials found at http://www.techsmith.com/community/education
NSTA Learning Center Community Forum "Using Technology When Students Are Absent" http://learningcenter.nsta.org/discuss/default.aspx?tid=ZKcl2xkHeLw_E
Plan for implementation (both during and after CEP 812)
My plan is to create (and keep creating) videos as needed by my students. Due to current time constraints, my goal is to create one video a week for each class that I am currently teaching (Biology and Forensic Science). This number may increase of decrease throughout the school year depending on the needs and wants of my students.
Indicators of a successful project
With this project I will have three types of students in my class: 1. Those who were in attendance and completed the lab/activity, 2. Those who missed all or part of a lab/activity and then watched the video and completed the assignment and 3. Those who fall under neither type 1 nor 2. These three groups should give me the opportunity to compare student understanding of key concepts through their assessments. Success of this project would be seen with equal levels of student understanding between types 1 and 2, at the very least I would expect to see higher levels of student understanding in type 2 over type 3.
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