Evaluation: Final Report

Arguing for PBL

Situated Cognition. Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989, p. 34), point out that although students are shown the tools of many academic cultures in their school career, these cultures are that of schools, and not the actual domain for which the tools are to be used. Students may pass exams but still not be able to use the skills and tools of the domain. Students need to be exposed to domain learning and the tools of the domain on authentic activities.

Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), p32-42.

Writing a Synthesis Paper

I haven't written a paper since my bachelor degree...only 18 years ago!

My annotated bibliography wasn't very good as my focus was too broad and I didn't link the sources I chose well enough to generate a full taxonomy; clearly I needed to review the focus of my paper!

I decided to focus on the use of blogs for reflective writing. The majority of the research I found linked with Self Regulated Learning, so this along with social constructivism would be the basis for my taxonomy within the paper.

Of everything I have done over the course of the MET so far, this has been the toughest to date. The amount of time it took to find the relevant research, pick out what I intended to use, and then string it all together was huge. The process, and the research into SRL, has reminded me of the importance of scaffolding activities and formative feedback and support. I will use this experience to ensure my students are eased into the big write-ups that they will need to do for their course.

What I found useful, after forgetting where I had read parts of articles, was to write down the reference and the content I was interested in under particular headings. This, along with the use of Dropbox and Notability has allowed me to organise my research and content.

Due to the school trip, I was left with a couple of days to write my paper...it wasn't enough. I have to thank my peer reviewer for the thoroughness of her edits and comments for improving the flow of my writing. I'm still not 100% happy with the paper, particularly the start, but it is the best I can do until I can find the information I want about the UK National Curriculum and what the government did to the PLTS (personal learning, thinking skills) initiative from 2 years ago!

Final Synthesis Paper

Annotated Bibliography

Theory and Practice of Case-Based Learning Aids

Epistemology Paper: Discovery Learning

PBL Research

Research and thoughts on PBL
Over the past 3 to 4 years, the Edexcel exam board in the UK has produced exam style questions for AS/A2 (A Level) Biology that are increasingly more applied. In the UK, students are expected to submit their practical write-ups and a research paper as coursework to be assessed; as an international school, we are not bound by this coursework requirement and our students sit a written alternative practical exam. While my students do not like having to write practical investigations to the degree I ask them since they aren’t submitted as coursework, I am certain that the skills they acquire from going through the process are a necessary ingredient in their ability to perform while in these written exams.

I believe that having my students go through the process of proper investigation and research, they will be prepared for the strange scenarios the examiners present in the written exam.

What is more of a concern is that Edexcel have begun to introduce these styles of questions for IGCSE; the students have little experience of the thinking processes required of them to answer these questions. Anecdotally, I have found that students who are very good at being “traditional students” and do well in the traditional learning environment can struggle, whereas students who are less rigorous learners but have good common sense can see the questions for what they are!

Stephanie Bell (2010) highlights a study in the UK by Boaler (1999) where they found that three times as many PBL students achieved the highest possible grade in national exam. “Students at the PBL school were equally able to answer procedural questions that used formulas, but they were superior in answering applied and conceptual problems (Boaler 1999).”

I am hoping that by introducing more PBL style lessons for my students that I will be able to enhance their skills in identifying the scenarios they are presented with for what they are by asking the correct questions. At the moment, my colleagues call this exam technique but it is the skill of critical thinking that needs to be targeted as a whole.

“With PBL, assessment is authentic. We measure a child’s performance via rubrics, but a critical aspect of this model includes self-evaluation and reflection. Children learn from their processes. They reflect on how well they worked in a collaborative group and how well they contributed, negotiated, listened, and welcomed other group members’ ideas. Students also self-evaluate their own projects, efforts, motivations, interests, and productivity levels. Students become critical friends by giving constructive feedback to each other, which helps them become aware of their own strengths and improve on their interactions with each other.”

The self-evaluation and reflection part of PBL is clearly a huge part that cannot be overlooked. In a content heavy syllabus with little time for reflection, students often don’t get, or take, the time to consider their meta-cognition. If PBL is to be successful, I will need to carefully plan my contact time with my students in order to provide the support and reflection time they need; a combination of PBL, Flipped Lessons, and reflection time should do it!

Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006) are highly critical of the value of the constructivist theory that lies behind PBL:

“In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance rather than constructivist-based minimally-guided learning. Even for students with considerable prior knowledge, strongly guided learning can be equally effective as unguided approaches. Not only is unguided instruction normally less effective, there is evidence that it may have negative results when students acquire misconceptions or incomplete knowledge.”

Clearly, one should consider the issues they raise regarding “minimal guidance” in order to ensure students do not acquire misconceptions in their knowledge and understanding of the science concepts taught.

Andrew Provan (2011) also highlights the issues of minimal guidance in PBL in his article regarding the the delivery of the medical cases in a Problem based approach to learning at British Columbia. He points out how the course organisation expects students to hypothesise on problems before they have any base knowledge around which the problems are set; this leads to the students going in the wrong direction for their research and that the research is unnecessarily time consuming in an already packed course.

Considering the workload A Level students have in my current school where they study 3 or 4 A Levels plus the Extended Project Qualification, having students research all of their content and self study must be an unreasonable expectation when direct instruction and classroom activities supported by the teacher are more efficient.

Project Idea
A large part of the AS and A2 Biology syllabus is tied to plants; photosynthesis, flowering, hormones, totipotency, mitosis and cloning, seeds, conservation, affects of global warming. 

The project I would like my students to undertake will likely be based around the Driving Questions of:

• Can you produce Food for the Future?
• Can you generate sustainable Fuel for an energy hungry society?

The students will need to grow their own plants and maintain them over the duration of the course. The purpose of the project is to have the students take ownership of their learning and to be motivated in the lessons on plants as they will use their own plants in the practical lessons.

Their initial research is likely to be in germination of seeds, and on which plants will best suit their desired project goal. In order to ensure the students are further "hooked" by the project, their first lessons on seeds will be followed by a scientist from the Millennium Seed Bank giving a live virtual tour of the MBSP and answering the students questions regarding seed conservation and germination strategies.

As the students progress through the course, their plants and how they care for them, will become the central focus around which the content of the syllabus will be hung. 

The students will visit local universities and plant research centres in order to learn first hand the techniques required to allow them to investigate the propagation of their "food plant" or "fuel plant." If at all possible, students will gain experience of genetically modifying their plants in order to cause them to be more productive in harsher conditions predicted by global warming predictions.

As a culminating presentation, the students will present that plants/food/bio fuel at the school summer fair and pass on their projects to the younger students by using the seed banking techniques they have learned from the MBSP.

References:

Bell, S. (2010). Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The Clearing House, 83(2), 39-43.

Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational psychologist, 41(2), 75-86.

Provan, A. (2011). A critique of problem-based learning at the University of British Columbia. Retrieved June 22, 2014, from http://www.bcmj.org/mds-be/critique-problem-based-learning-university-british-columbia.

Strategic Change Models: Concerns Based Adoption Model

As a technology integrator and "sometimes" systems analyst and designer, I need to make sure that the systems and technology I try to bring to bear on my teachers work. I have used Roger's Diffusion of Innovations model already in the use of our VLE, the spreading of Google Apps For Education and the use of iPads in my school.

I have not used the Concerns Based Adoption Model, so this was interesting and really very useful. I wish I had the time in my timetable to speak with every member of staff on a one-to-one basis like I did for this task.

Teacher Profile and Concerns Based Adoption Model

I thoroughly enjoyed doing this task. "Ms Rivers" is a pseudonym for one of my colleagues and she has since read the report I have presented here. It was good to sit with her and go through the Concerns Based Adoption Model as it allowed me to put into context some of the language of the questions, but also to remind her that she has done a great deal of IT in the time that I have known her; sometimes people need to hear that they are doing a good job! Ms Rivers was surprised by my report but when I explained my thinking to her she had to agree!

EDTECH Research

I very much enjoyed the challenge of this task. By being able to research a topic that I am interested in with regards to my work and upcoming projects at my school I was driven to go much further than simply researching and referencing five articles as was required from the rubric. In total I think I read about forty different pieces of research.

The real challenge was workflow. Picking out the most relevant research items that informed my instructional objective and finding the documents I wanted in the various libraries.

Where workflow was concerned I started by finding and downloading journal articles to read. At the start I was inserting the APA reference as I accessed an article. This seemed slow as I found myself spotting errors in the APA style and was tweaking this at the same time. Of course, upon reading the article, I would discover that it didn't rate being in my bibliography so I had wasted time! I decided to leave the referencing until I had found everything I was looking for and I proceeded to find and access many articles. On first glance, some seemed more relevant than others so I begun to separate them into different folders as I progressed. After I felt I had exhausted the research parameters and other relevant references in the bibliographies of the articles I was reading, I began to thoroughly read the articles and pick out those that provided value to my objective, identifying those that seemed most relevant.

In the end I had about ten articles that I had to re-search for to get there locations. The Google Research tool was very useful here and, I think, was quite accurate in it's representation of the APA style. I did find some errors but I'd say the referencing was around 95% accurate. As I was accessing the documents I had downloaded to get their article and journal titles I would reread the document and identify the elements of the published research that I would be able to use in the future in my school. This was the basis of my annotations.

I'm not sure if this workflow is the most efficient way of working but at least how I ended up doing it was better than where I started.

Normally I would print out an article and highlight the sections I was interested in. I found myself getting cross-eyed reading from the computer screen and had to leave my machine a lot to keep my focus but I am determined to do this work on my computer. When I come back to the articles I downloaded to create the plan I intend to present to the senior leaders of my school, I will aim to use the highlighting tools available in Acrobat Pro instead of printing everything off!

Edtech research Google doc

AECT Standards 2012: Research

AECT Standard 5 - Research: 
Candidates explore, evaluate, synthesize, and apply methods of inquiry to enhance learning (p. 4) and improve performance (pp. 6-7).

Indicators:
• Theoretical Foundations - Candidates demonstrate foundational knowledge of the contribution of research to the past and current theory of educational communications and technology. (p. 242)
• Method - Candidates apply research methodologies to solve problems and enhance practice. (p. 243)
• Assessing/Evaluating - Candidates apply formal inquiry strategies in assessing and evaluating processes and resources for learning and performance. (p. 203) Page 3 of 3
• Ethics - Candidates conduct research and practice using accepted professional (p. 296) and institutional (p. 297) guidelines and procedures.

NOTE: Parenthetical page references are to Educational Technology: A Definition with Commentary (2008, A. Januszewski & M. Molenda, Eds., Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.)