For the PEDS project, there wasn’t a significant aspect in which I was assigned to do and be responsible for it because majority of the onside work was done collectively since this project was assigned. For instance, the initial surveys were done in pairs, where I worked with a partner to complete it. When creating the Poll Everywhere edition of the powerpoint lesson, we all contributed to the questions equally. We all collaboratively worked on the final survey made for students to determine based on their opinions whether or not this project was successful. However, I did feel that my contribution to this project did not match to those from my group. This is because I wasn’t always included in their conversations and decisions made for this project. It was a bit unfair. The first time when we were responsible to go afterschool to communicate with the teacher and layout our project, a few members including myself were not able to come for some reasons. So, we concluded that any two people should go, and communicate with the teacher to introduce this project and our plans. Hence, only two people went.
Overtime, this became a major barrier of communication within our group. Just because I couldn’t commit myself to the meetings the first time, I was not notified for the future ones as they had already planned. I was unaware of many of these meetings which were the most important part of this project in order for it to bring successful results. In addition to that, they did not update me with any new plans they had planned with the teacher, instead I was blamed sometimes for not being involved enough. Furthermore, the day on which the in-class lesson was organized to teach the class the lesson using Poll Everywhere, was the day that I was absent due to a field trip. This was the significant element of this project and I missed it, which is also why I feel that my contributions too little. Moreover, sometimes a couple members were unwilling to do the tasks and finish things up. They lacked motivation and did not put enough efforts. Personally, I never lacked willingness to get tasks done especially for this project, meaning Biology was not an issue for this project. It was because this project was flexible and since every part that I contributed to was collaboratively done, it was all finished during class and consumed less time. For these reasons, I was not able to contribute much and this is why I believe our PEDs project was unsuccessful. All in all, the major issue was the gap of communication in our group (between a group of grade elevens and one grade twelve). As I mentioned before, the biggest cause of this unsuccessful project was the lack of communication (at least on my side it was). So, if I had to change anything, I’d make sure I talk to my group members firmly and discuss with them our next steps properly and also ensure that the meetings with the teacher is not just with two people, but with all members. This way, the issue of communication will be eliminated within the group as well as with the teacher. Transparency would solve a chunk of the issues that I believe caused this project to be unsuccessful. Another minor thing I would change about this project is organizing more in-class lessons with the teacher because we in fact only had one meeting where we received the chance to teach the class a lesson. Having more of the in-class sessions would mean that we have more data and more data is better when drawing conclusions. I feel that with only one lesson done in class, the results cannot be conclusive enough to confirm whether this PED is a success or not. One suggestion I would give is that maybe have the teacher organize these groups instead of creating our own that way no distractions can distract the friends and let them off-track. What I discovered while working with my group is that when friends go with friends they are more likely to get themselves hooked to something and go on a completely different track. They tend to distract themselves in useless talks and not get the work completed in time. So, having the teacher to organize the teams would be suitable and beneficial to the students because they are forced to work with each other and contribute so that if one does not, they are being covered-up by their friend.
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Distinctive PED tools were presented in class to enhance student learning and the instructor’s teaching. From the list of presented PED tools, it was difficult to narrow the wide range possibilities with just two as they were all genuinely beneficial and possessed its own advantages and disadvantages. Each tool demonstrated was quite enticing and drew attention. However, a select few were repetitive in terms of concept. I wouldn’t want to specify them, but I assume you know them very well. As a regular high school instructor, the two foremost tools that I would consider effective for student learning and teacher practice comprise of Block and Focus as well as Poll Everywhere.
One of the two tools selected contribute towards improving student performance and the other benefits teaching practices. To be specific, Block and Focus which is a Chrome Extension, is what I believe the most essential tool any student requires. Block and Focus allows one to concentrate on school work, by avoiding distracting websites which generally include all sorts of social media platforms. Personally, I would use this extension for my English course this year because it motivates me to stay on task. Most importantly, this tool will eliminate the probability of me procrastinating on any assignment. This is a very advantageous tool for me specifically because I tend to delay my tasks often of simply take too much of time on one. This tool will guide me to completing tasks in the allotted time and also blocks me from social media which is my greatest distraction. And the best part is the bell which rings after the block-session has terminated. The bell provides a signal to go back on social media, which feels as great as a reward. When one is aware of receiving rewards after the accomplishment of any task, they tend to do it faster and in my case more effectively. Previously, in English class I procrastinated on a group presentation, which I want to ensure, is not repeated again. And to put this in practice, I have already downloaded the extension and using it whenever completing journal entries, or any regular homework assignments. The other tool which I chose to best suit an instructor’s practice was Poll Everywhere. This tool is available as an app as well as a website. Imagining myself as a teacher, I would use this tool before introducing to a new unit in a course. Determining where the class stands before the beginning of a new unit is essential for me to recognize, so that I can plan ahead accordingly, which will benefit them the most. In addition, I would also incorporate this as an activity after a few lessons to recap what has already been taught and covered in the unit. This way, I can freshen-up their memory which enforces them to update and keep-up with the material taught. And lastly, I will integrate this tool upon the completion of a unit or the course. This is a great tool for me to investigate the class’s overall preparation and benefits them by knowing what sorts of questions may appear in their upcoming evaluation. Again, the largest advantage to this is that student’s name will not appear in the results after the poll has ended. It is kept completely anonymous, which aids the people who are timid and shy to participate, and thus removes the competition factor which tends to cease certain population of the class from participating. Hence, this is great for collective responses as polls instead of individual results. Thinking of the word technology, you can brainstorm innumerous ideas instantaneously! That’s all because we live in such a nation where technology has evolved greatly within the last two decades and due to this, we encounter in our daily lives. Knowing this knowledge, people out of this school board or even in developing countries might be predicting that we as students would be experiencing and interacting with such advanced technology every day in our schools. However, it’s not fully correct. Our schools in the board try to incorporate technology, but they either forget to model how to use it effectively or result in insufficient funding. Both these factors play a large role for which why classes where technology is present display unsatisfying results. For this reason, in my course IDC, our teacher discussed with our class of why teachers especially in high schools fail to engage students in courses that are predominantly theory based. Form this topic, our debated the different viewing s of the teachers and students on technology in classroom. After the discussion, we arrived to a conclusion of trying to convince several teachers who do not utilize technology in their classrooms to experiment this idea and identify that technology can indeed increase student engagement and their achievement. Within the third week since the school resumed, the class was split into three, each group representing a scope related to implanting PEDs (Personal Electronic Devices) in a classroom. I volunteered to participate in the group specifically focussing on increasing student engagement and achievement by having PEDs in the classroom. We commenced this group activity by recording and planning the requirements for this experiment. What I really admire about this project is that it was goal-directed. By this I mean that the execution of this experiment is entirely dependent on if it goes as planned, so there’s no rush. This is a major advantage because this allows us to execute our plan more effectively, and provides the opportunity to make modifications along the way to increase the productivity. Also, since this project is group-oriented, there is no such pressure of doing things independently and so, the tasks are distributed evenly. This benefits each member to perform their assigned task in a better way because it’s not cramming everything on one individual. As we were performing this task, I felt that our group was not efficient and productive many times. Many members of our group would get “off-track” for long periods of time, ultimately wasting time and being unproductive. Another major drawback was that many certain individuals in the group would dominate others severely, meaning despite of another person being right or wrong, they would merely disagree to show that only their opinions are accounted. I was always dominated, and if I tried to lead or put my opinion forward, I would either be ignored or disagreed. Some positives were that even if some people dominated others, the remaining would try and patch-up for them and incorporate everyone. In addition, when we worked together, people who were responsible of their parts would ensure that they completed it, meaning all members contributed and ensured that they completed the assigned tasks. So far, in the project, the planning was successfully completed with the input of everyone’s ideas to estimate how long this experiment will be carried out for. Later, my partner and I were responsible of creating the diagnostic student survey for a baseline of what they perceive on having PEDs in the classroom. This is crucial for us to recognize what areas do students lack in and require a change (with the help of PEDs to increase their engagement). There were no complications in working with my partner as there was a mutual understanding. It was not clearly decided of who is certainly responsible of what job after completing the first task because it was dependent on who the teacher may be and the course that we would have to examine on. The biggest concern I have is that, certain group members when required to work on a certain task, they distract themselves by browsing gaming sites or social media or doing their other courses’ homeworks. I become peeved by this because this causes a broken bridge of communication, where I (and I am pretty sure others too) are confuse don what exactly we are doing and where to go from here. They only stay on task when being supervised (and sometimes this too doesn’t stop them from being distracted). I think this is because each member excluding myself is in grade eleven, which explains why they don’t understand the frustration of grade twelves. Hopefully, they understand that regardless of what grade they are in, they should give importance to the class they are in and work hard for it. I predict the outcome of the project would be quite successful primarily because we are confident that students would have an alternative to presentations for their lessons or having chalkboard lessons. They would become more engaged with PEDs and have increased interest in that course, thus improving student achievement as well. |
AuthorA grade 12, who is always mistaken as a niner. Archives
January 2017
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