Further Reflection about Digital Learning

Ruth Mellinkott wrote a cookbook
called Easy, Easier, Easiest Cookbook.
How to apply this theory to
teaching research to
middle school students!

Speed. The middle school students, almost 2 generations away from me, live in a fast and ever changing world. Although I intellectually knew this as fact, I now see I did not fully understand what that meant. Fast tools, a variety of access avenues, and individual access to information does not mean learning and/or teaching easier.  In fact, the students in the first semester of this study still had the memory of handwritten notes, and evenings of tallying surveys manually.  Each successive semester sees a growing number of students who expect more with less effort.  There is a fine line within the speed component to learning....and it's not an iPhone or a Chromebook, although those things can be part of the learning conundrum.

I see students waiting until they absolutely need knowledge before wanting it...and want the quickest avenue to get it. Asking me for the piece of information on the spot is most expedient way to access what's needed, but I am reluctant to be the parroting source of facts. I refer them to the class GoogleSite where all the rubrics, handouts, and flashcards exist along with my commentaries.  Eyeballs roll.

What's needed it seems, is a leaner GoogleSite, Blogger requirements, quizzes, and note making. Avenues where information can be accessed quickly, as needed.  The digital learning arena is a slippery slope toward student expectation that the research process should be easy, instead of easier. 

Underachievement Among Gifted Thinkers

It is apparent now that a student can be given all the bells and whistles of time and social collaboration, but if the student is not motivated into action, it is all for naught. So, we're back to how to motivate the underachieving gifted thinker! We're back to the teacher, teaching practices, and making learning real and authentic.

The student I speak of is doing a research project about survival. He has been reluctant to do much of anything outside of taking quizzes which can be prepared for, taken, and aced. What the Chrome Book is now allowing is freedom for him to document what he is doing as he builds his survival fort. In the real time action of learning, he has begun to ask questions and seek information. Taking pictures with his Chrome Book and annotating the images has breathed new life into a lethargic project.

This would certainly work for all students once they learned how to use the tool. Hands-on learning, especially in middle school, is deep learning....surely!

Student Responsibility

One situation that has become apparent with this study is the way students have been led to think they have limited responsibility for their own learning. It seems they come to class unable, or unwilling, to take ownership for what needs to be done. Parents back this notion when they contact me with concerns about their student's grades when he/she has missed deadlines, did not accomplish tasks during a grading period, or had internet issues at home for a day or two. I am expected to make everything right without mentioning the student's part in making anything right.

The biggest issue with digital learning, and using the web-based free apps, is that most students are unprepared to accept the responsibility that easy access to all necessary materials affords. They expect to be handed the work piecemeal, and pretty much dictated to about each step of learning. The education system has done that very carefully through all the grade and by the time I get them in 7th and 8th grade, students wait to be told what to do.  When tasks are not done, there are excuses, and reasons, and outright deceptions (dare I say it, lies!?). Once the excuse stage has passed, the parents are involved by whatever story is told at home to enlist sympathy.

Yes, having access to everything needed to be successful can be a blessing, but it can be curse as well. Next semester, I believe the first week will involve parents looking over the website and seeing for themselves what is available for the students to use to accomplish their work: lesson plans, rubrics, handouts, flashcards, quizzes with deadlines, and tutorials. It will also be made apparent that if there are internet issues, the student must be pro-active and ask for hard copies!  I am not a mind-reader. Gifted as I am, I have never mastered the art of knowing what's happening in someone else's home. Go figure!

Mind reading can be a messy business. Better to be
pro-active and ask for what's needed!

Testing Out -- another version of the plan

Here we are in another snow storm with a break from school, again. Some students are taking advantage of these windows of opportunities and working on their EasyBib notes and blogs. Some students, however, are falling further and further behind...as if the digital work does not exist outside of school. These few examples tend to be students who have not taken this research class previously, in any incarnation (written or digital).

All students have the opportunity to work ahead and test out of lessons. but that plan seems to cause confusion because from what I see they try to test out without reviewing the handouts and tutorials at the class website.

Hindsight: next semester, the website and test-out instructions will be sent home to students before the semester begins. In that way they arrive ready to start, either taking and applying the lessons from the beginning OR going directly to their projects. In this fashion, digital connections can be established up front before school starts. Parents will be involved immediately and students will be keenly aware of home-to-school connection of coursework.

Testing Out of Lessons

There has been a mix of students testing out of packets of lessons this semester: some veterans who want to get past the lessons to their projects and some newbies who are reading the handouts, reviewing the flashcards, and taking the quizzes.  One class in particular has 4 students -- 3 veterans (1 is a three-timer), and 1 newbie. The new student new to the course is testing out of the lessons, while the veterans are plugging along not testing out of information they should know.

Tortoise and the hare? or avoiding documenting research?  In an online Ophrah article, The 11th Hour: How Working Under Pressure Can Be A Strength, author Robert Biswas-Diener states, "Waiting until the last minute to tackle important projects doesn't mean you're a procrastinator—it could just mean that your mind works better under pressure." 

Photo Copyright 2009 by Jupiterimages Corporation

A Winter's Blessing?

Since the last post, this digital research class has had a couple challenges and therefore revelations. Overall, it is clear the motivated students will carry on no matter what external forces exert themselves. In addition, it is clear that the teacher needs to pre-plan to allow space for the high-achievers/motivated gifted to move ahead. I thought I knew this until reality clicked in and found how just how fast gifted thinkers can move!

First, there have been several instances when I could not be at class due to conferences, school board meetings, or testing overruns from one school to the other. Students know this ahead of time and will work or not depending on their willingness to push the 'I didn't know' button. To offset this occurrence, lesson plans are now posted on the classes website a week in advance.

There has been the revelation that gifted thinkers arrive knowing more about the topic than anticipated and should be allowed to move on instead of waiting around for others to learn. A fix to this, involving a lot of planning, has been to put a link on the course website with all the quizzes for the semester. When a student tests out of a packet of lessons, he or she can move on to other work.

Procrastination, a gifted trait, reared its head last semester when several students used their time to play instead of getting down to work and then became fretful toward the end when their research projects were due to be presented at an evening reception. So frequently have they been able to knock something at the last minute in their other classes that their planning skills are negligible at best. This was repaired by connecting deadlines to test-out opportunities and by making a planning calendar part of the blog rubric.

The highs and lows of a digital class are opportunities
to find and fix loopholes so students learn planning and
 responsibility skills as well as content lessons.

However, the grades and retained knowledge is far greater than it was prior to the digital format. Letting a student see what is going to be learned and giving them the tools to learn it on their own has been beneficial. It means more work for the teacher upfront, but afterward the students are doing the work. There will always be students who can get around 'the system' and in those instances there will be ways to close the loopholes.

Digital learning is still a work in progress!

Obstacles being overcome...

Things this semester have certainly smoothed out!  YouTube access has been granted and the tutorials on the class Google Site can be reviewed and utilized as needed. Students have already told me they prefer the freedom of choosing when to access the information to listening to a class lecture (however fascinating I can be!).

Smooth sailing -- a picture of peace underway!

I wrote another grant to afford EasyBib Pro. It is small with strong instructional reasoning to support the use so I fully expect to have it for next semester. Several students who have been through the paper version and the digital transition will still be in the course for their last semester as middle school students. They will be the defining line about the usefulness of this tool!

We've also discovered a picture capturing tool, Awesome Screenshot, that does the work of Jing/Screencast. It has already been put to good use for the student doing the Google Treends/Sickle Cell project.

AND, a big bonus -- the students have begun to keep the GALE database link, Library of Congress, favorite peer blogs to watch, Citation Machine, and my blog* on their blogs as links. That has made their blogs more of a command central for their projects.

It's becoming smoother sailing!



*my blog -- Every semester I do a research project along with the students to model the steps. i write posts about the lessons, document my questions and path of research. The recent semesters the projects have been bobbleheads, Follow the Drinking Gourd (where I built a gourd ukelele), and figs as a farm market product.  This way, if they get stuck about how to explain a lesson, they can review my blog and follow the example.