Category: TIEgrad (Page 3 of 4)

Online Training

December 13, 2019 / ctrades

This week’s readings were good sources of research for my project, which is to develop an online resource for students working on BC’s Mathematics 10 and 11 courses. There were explanations of theories of learning, lots of pedagogical models for e-learning design and an extensive set of lists of elements of an effective online learning course. Dabbagh’s article focused on the importance of authentic problem-solving learning activities.

I am definitely an ‘approach it from as many different ways as you can’ type of maths teacher. Definitely inquiry-based with some behaviourism, a focus on cognitive pedagogy, leading towards a constructivist task, with some experiential if possible thrown in. I know that some maths skills need to be practiced in a boring way, but if gamification can be included, that is a wonderful way to make the practice more tolerable, with the goal of being able to complete an interesting authentic real-life task at the end of the learning period.

I have just finished participating in another online course through the International Baccalaureate. Our initial course roster included 24 people from around the world and by the time we finished with introductions, we were down to 14, with 10 finishing. Not even a 43% completion rate, unless some of those original 24 were moved to another class. Granted, we were only notified about the requirement 5 days before the course began, and we had to follow a strict weekly completion for the 3 modules, but still, I would expect more than a 43% completion rate from a group of educators that need this upskilling course in order to continue working for the International Baccalaureate Educator Network (IBEN) in the new year. As this course has refreshed my memory on best practices when planning or facilitating this type of course, I am going to compare it to Shé Ní et al’s Table 10 of key factors than impact on professional development. This course was a significant improvement over the first course I had to take with them online. That one was a quick conversion from a face-to-face workshop to online when no one was able to fly due to the April 2010 Iceland volcano eruption. Needless to say, it was not a stellar experience, but IB has significantly improved their online trainings over the years.

Use of model or framework for PD
The model/framework used was similar to other moodle courses I have done with IB. They have improved their use of videos, slides, and online formative quizzes. The work included group work, forums, small groups for discussion and allowed for different timing in the exercises as long as you completed within the week.

They had a very good ten minute introductory workshop to work through that made some excellent points about etiquette in an online environment, including how to create community by giving people positive reasons to join: using people’s names, replying to posts that you connect with, asking questions to encourage responses, keeping contributions concise by using bullet points and blank lines to separate points, focusing on only a few key points to start with (you don’t have to say everything you know in one post), and if you find too many opinions in the forum you can summarize them and post a question.

Institutional support
Obviously this is enabled and valued by IB and the educators in their network as it is a requirement for continued involvement in their educator network.

Communities
Building community takes more time and effort than the single activity posting what you teach, where you teach, and what is important to you as an IBEN educator. Some community was built through posting the required replies, but certain people were more active than others as those with more experience in this type of training tried to engage the others. Our facilitator posted only a couple of times a week, and could have been more active, but she was in the same boat – asked at the last minute to facilitate a workshop while taking a workshop and doing an evaluation visit over the 3-week time period.

Role of the educator
Our facilitator definitely saw herself as a guide and interacted with us publicly on the forums as well as sending us individual emails when we completed a formal formative assessment or if we were not quite on the expected timeline.

Educator type
All of use in the course were experienced educators, but our experience in the online moodle format was varied. Some needed help on how to get documents posted properly or help in how to find provided items. Assistance was given by the instructor and by participants in the forum and through private email exchanges.

Integration of pedagogy and technology
There was some understanding of how technology and pedagogy should be integrated, but as little attention was given to timing or notice of timing of the workshop, this area was compromised.

Situated learning
Our educator was involved in an upskilling of her own while leading our upskilling, so she would have been very aware of the platform. In order to lead this particular workshop, she would have been experienced in leading many previous online seminars.

Modelling best practice
The instructor noticed some lack of clarity in the provided assignments and made sure she clarified the information either before or shortly after we started on the assignment. In one case, where it appeared it should be group work but it was supposed to be individual work, but one group had already finished creating one activity, she suggested the group create 4 different activities instead of the expected 4 individually created activities. She definitely modelled best practice.

Mix of synchronous and asynchronous
There was no synchronous time (not a surprise since we are spread over the world), but yet I think it would have been helpful to build community, even if it had a few short synchronous times for whoever could drop in. I tried to set up a time with my group of 3 for Module 2, but one was in the middle of a hospitalized family member situation and the other just never responded till our project was almost due.

Sharing of practice/Learning from others
There was plenty of opportunity and encouragement to share practices and experiences through the forums. There were some requirements in how to share on some of the topics (statement/phrase/word, circle of viewpoints, etc.), but responses were always in whatever format you wanted.

Online delivery
Yes, and planned for online delivery.

Online presence
Yes, but with the very short timeline, it was difficult to start informal social interactions.

Situated at the point of need
Well, the new documents are being rolled out in January. Workshop leaders need to be evaluated on whether we know them before they are released and we can only have access to the drafts through the workshop. This workshop is definitely situated at the point of need.

Practice based
The training definitely focused on the changes needed in the workshops we lead. The forum formative assignments were sharing ideas on activities we could do in our workshops so participants could inquire into the new documents.

Discipline specific/generic
My workshop was discipline specific as a new Mathematics Guide was being rolled out as well as the new general document on IB Standards and Practices.

So overall, the course rated fairly well. The area really lacking was community and that was compounded by the lack of synchronicity. This is an interesting point for me as the resource I was going to create did not have any planning for community building. I need to do some thinking on this.

Readings

Conole, G., Dyke, M., Oliver, M., & Seale, J. (2004). Mapping pedagogy and tools for effective learning design. Computers & Education, 43(1–2), 17–33. http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2003.12.018

Dabbagh, N. (2005). Pedagogical Models for E-Learning: A Theory-Based Design Framework. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 1(1), 25–44. http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.475.4593&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Conole, G. (2018). Learning Design and Open Education. International Journal of Open Educational Resources. Retrieved from https://www.ijoer.org/learning-design-and-open-education_doi-10-18278-ijoer-1-1-6/

Shé Ní, C., Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Costello, E., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., & Eccles, S. (2019). Teaching online is different: Critical perspectives from the literature. Retrieved from Dublin City University website: https://openteach.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Teaching-online-is-different.pdf

Money, Money, Money

December 5, 2019 / ctrades

Listen to this as you read. (Thanks to Pink Floyd for allowing this official version of their music video to be embedded free of charge.)

All I could think of as I was reading our two articles for this week was how it all comes down to money. As Friesen stated in his article of open educational resources, “the clear sustainability lesson from both this listing of inactive projects and the earlier listing of active efforts is the importance of ongoing, operational institutional or consortial funding for educational resource collections and the difficulty of realizing alternative funding models. . . Only projects that are large-scale, well-funded, and able to benefit from a first-mover advantage (i.e., being one of the first of their kind) seem to have any chance of developing collections whose scope extends to all educational subjects.” Even some of the ‘long-lasting’ projects he had listed were now defunct. MIT’s project has been successful as it fits Friesen’s criteria. The school itself has benefitted from enrolments from students who upgraded or became involved in the school because of their OER resources. I found it interesting that faculty also said they benefitted from creating the online resources as it made them update their practice. But they were staff and expected to create these resources as part of their job, therefore they were paid for their work AND the larger entity, the school, benefitted from their OER.

Harvard’s Project Zero was also successful and obviously underwritten by a post-secondary institution. It was “founded by philosopher Nelson Goodman at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1967, Project Zero began with a focus on understanding learning in and through the arts. . . . we continue to work towards a more enlightened educational process and system that prepares learners well for the world that they will live, work and develop in.” Yet other universities struggle. Almost ten years after the Friesen article, Canole and Brown stated in their 2018 article, “firstly, incentives and rewards (should) be put in place both nationally and institutionally to celebrate the development of open practice innovations and technology-enhanced learning interventions.” So how do we expect underfunded public JK-12 education to embed open education?

An interesting associated read was noted by someone in my twitter feed: a blog written by David Wiley, “the Education Fellow at Creative Commons, an Ashoka Fellow, and adjunct faculty in Brigham Young University’s graduate program in Instructional Psychology and Technology, where he is part of the Open Education Group (and was previously a tenured Associate Professor).” It was on the UNESCO OER recommendation. The highlights of the article were:

The public draft included a definition of OER as follows: Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license… Open copyright licenses provide the public with free and perpetual permissions to:

- Retain – the right to create, own, and control copies of the content;
- Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways;
- Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself;
- Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new;
- Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, the revisions, or the remixes with others. . . .

The final version includes this definition of OER: Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license… Open license refers to a license that respects the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner and provides permissions granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials.

OER are still defined in terms of copyright – either (1) in the public domain or (2) released under an open license. But the characteristics required to make a license an “open license” have been absolutely eviscerated.

The strong requirement that the public be permitted to retain OER – that is, “the right to create, own, and control copies of the content” as per the public draft – has been replaced in the final version with the indescribably impoverished requirement that the public be allowed “access” to OER. . . (This) . . . creates a policy loophole large enough to drive a multi-national publisher through, . . . (while also) . . . creating the possibility that an author could potentially charge an annual fee for a license to materials and still call them OER. . . (A final concern is that) . . . if money becomes available under a funding program based on the Recommendation, many of the organizations who apply for that money will absolutely be asking themselves “how much can I get away with and still comply with these rules?”

Disappointing. There is always some company willing to capitalize on education while those developing the resources and aiming to help their students get paid a paltry amount in comparison to Big Business.

So now what? Well, we teachers keep on doing as we are doing, and encourage our governments to put the costs of educating its population above the self-interested pockets of the businesses that want to make money off of education—let them wait and make money off properly educated people that they employ.

Fresh Start

October 15, 2019 / ctrades

Over the course of this class, I have become increasingly frustrated with academic articles on technology in education as they are reporting old news. I have decided to try out the idea that my readings should be based on articles that are recent: possibly presented at conferences and conventions, and possibly not polished enough for academic printed journals yet available in online journals. I looked at our professor’s most recent publication, downloaded the journal it was in, and found another one in the same series that was even more recent (though sourced from papers in the 2017 ICTMT conference). Score! And then it was over to the UVic Library search engine to figure out the search parameters where articles from both these journals would be prominent but include other relevant articles. I had considered mining the bibliographies of the articles from the two journals, but I didn’t think they would be published in 2019, which is where I am going to start reading. I also looked at the 2019 ICTMT conference to see if I could find anything useful, but it is focused on business this time. I am eager to start reading what I have found, though!

Wish me luck!

Update: Just checked my Hypothesis account and noticed that Prof. Leslee suggested I check out one of the two journals that I am finding interesting reading!

Totally Batty

October 12, 2019 / ctrades

Photo by Geoff Brooks on Unsplash

No, this picture is not because of the upcoming holiday. This is a reflection of what I become after reading academic articles discussing trends or studies in educational technology. Reading published articles which were three years in the making that just confirm what I have already experienced as a professional and which do not provide any potential solutions or concrete ideas on how to move forwards, drives me batty.

Faune, Leanne and Rochelle read articles on curricular challenges of the twenty-first century from the “Second Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education”. What struck me the most about their written presentation is the twitter feed information on their report and the teacher “strike” in their video. Teachers are looking for help, are overwhelmed, and their best resources include tweets and blogs by other educators. These resources cannot be organized in a easily searchable manner. Yes, Tweetdeck and Feedly will organize it somewhat, but there is no “bookmarking” or search engine other than scrolling through masses of information to find the kernels that will suit your situation. A great project would be to spend hours collecting a resource list on a particular area (and I think this is where many of us will be going) to share out to teachers. Part of the problem with this type of resource is the continued availability of the site or the technology that will support the exercise, as I have already found out.

“error 404”by Magnet 4 Marketing dot Net is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Heidi, Lawrence, René and Dale looked at the section on The Learner and the Learner Process. “Deep, dive into the obvious” for professionals for sure! I have no idea how Heidi, Lawrence, René and Dale managed to force themselves to read their articles because I had difficulty just making myself read their summaries. If their plan for their video was already in place, that would have been a good motivator– some good entertainment value and some points to note. Even though I think the articles were basically useless, the researchers are obviously respected as they have continued to publish and their articles have been cited many times.

Emily and Trevor presented on the section about The Role of Leadership for Information Technology in Education. Again, the articles presented ideas I was familiar with, though the naming of the Appreciative Inquiry five guiding principles could be somewhat helpful if I was going back into a school-based leadership role. I already have these ideas imbedded in how I present my workshops on inquiry-based education.

I had high hopes for the section Ben, Heather and I read on Using Information Technology for Assessment: Issues and Opportunities. But alas, nothing unexpected other than the current call for sharing of information in Open Educational Resources so that maybe we can actually get somewhere.We are on the cutting edge of this technology and teachers need to get involved in developing games and programs that can be used for formative and summative assessment on more than just knowledge and understanding, but also the development of skills and using skills and knowledge in real-life situations.For those of us researching, we need to be reading items that are being presented at conferences and workshops because they are current. Although they haven’t had the chance to go through the vetting process for publication, that process makes them ancient by the time they are published due to quickly developing technology. Just like the bag cell phone we had when we lived in Northern Saskatchewan, which was out of date by the time we bought it, but was useful because it had the furthest coverage when you were far from a tower.

Flexible, Distance, and Open Learning in the Twenty-First Century was the section presented by Rhyanon and Jerry, both distance educators with limited teaching experience. Their articles recognized that distance learning, virtual school, open education and online learning platforms are evolving and transitioning as more research takes place. They did learn that it would be useful to vary their learning experiences in the online portion of their courses, to try include authentic experiences, and to provide their learning motivation to work collaboratively. As I am a more experienced educator, this was not news to me.

The Game and Simulation-Based Learning and Teaching section presented by Tracy and Mackenzie. Their first article stated that there are six game elements to consider when choosing a game: motivation, fun and engagement, social interactions, problem-solving, story and games as systems and tools. Guiding questions listed included what are the goals, who is the audience, what is the context for the game, what are the practical and technological considerations, what are the curricular consideration, what about assessment and evaluation, and what about balancing needs and perspectives? Again, everything presented is automatically considered by an experienced educator when considering whether to use a game for learning. The second article focused on imaginative instruction games called maker spaces. Again, no real surprise that motivation, resiliency and problem-solving skills were developed while working in these low threshold/high ceiling learning opportunities, although knowledge was not increased.

Nicole, Joanna and Hayley presented on the section on Issues and Challenges Related to Digital Equity. Exactly what I have experienced and well said by the group. There are two sides and both are authentically real.

Sean, Jeremy and Clay looked at the section on Basic Principles of Multimedia Learning from the Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Their principles were interestingly named, but also something as an educator, particularly in the workshops I present where I have to use a powerpoint prepared by someone else, of which I am very aware. Planning a workbook so you avoid the split-attention principle, presenting and avoiding the redundancy principle by having people read slides instead of me reading, and using the modality principle when available, are all elements of teaching I have learned through experience. Yet, I did learn names for principles I know . . .

Deirdre, Gary and Andrew did the following section in the book, Advanced Principles of Multimedia Learning. LOVED the video. I was able to pay attention more because of the multimedia presentation!! It was interesting to put names to principles of learning that I have tried to work with.

It is sad to say that I probably learned just as much from a Facebook post than I did from any of these readings: “Dr. Karyn Purvis of Texas Christian University says, it takes over 400 repetitions to create a synapse in the brain (true learning) without playful engagement OR about 12 repetitions to create a synapse when you use play to teach.” No fault of the presenters – who created great notes and presentations! I am just not excited about academic readings – I am a pragmatic educator that wants ideas or solutions!

Trend or Common Practice

September 10, 2019 / ctrades

Photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash

The readings this week articulated trends as though they were not yet common practices in education. In some countries, in some parts of some countries, or in certain educational systems, many of these trends are considered mainstream methods of teaching. Mind you, I do find it interesting that some school systems are just discovering Smartboards whereas others have moved past them into using computers and projectors, which are much more customizable in their use. A Smartboard has proprietary software that continues to support the ‘sage on the stage’ teaching method whereas a projector can allow any student to plug in and access their materials to share what they have discovered with their classmates. School systems that have moved forwards on inquiry-based teaching have moved right past the Smartboard and into technologies that can facilitate more student-centred learning.

The majority of the articles mentioned cloud computing, student-centred learning, augmented reality and learning analytics as current trends. In the workshops I facilitate for the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, I would say 90% of schools, whether affluent or poor, use some form of cloud computing. Therefore this is no longer a trend but a common practice. Student-centred learning is gaining a following in more curricula across North America. As for augmented reality, teachers that have access to this are definitely taking advantage of it, even if it is something as simple as taking control of the camera at Race Rocks. The same with learning analytics–teachers with access to this are taking advantage of it, so as programs with learning analytics become more available (or programs that can attach learning analytics to documents already created), teachers will use them more frequently.

Most of the articles missed the point of Generation Z being in class. Generation Z is used to utilizing wearable tech and mobile devices. They rely on instant access to information and can manipulate many programs, but they are at the edge of all this access and many are not very aware as digital citizens or how to create through coding or robotics. The students currently in school have had more exposure to coding, robotics, STEAM topics and more of the computational thinking focus. Another point most articles did not address was the concern about digital security, including ransomware, of which Generation Z students do have some awareness. The many recent hacks of financial information (Capital One, Credit Union, Equifax) are ensuring more and more people are aware of this issue, but this trend was rarely mentioned in the articles.

Considering technology, I think the success of some of the trends is based not necessarily on technical advancement and educational value, but on smart ad campaigns and salespeople. Part of Apple’s early success in the educational market is they did not push programs at schools that were complicated or developed to the point where teacher commitment to learning the program was going to eat up so much time that the teacher would not consider using it. The programs were simple, with the ability for students to learn them independently and the teacher was provided with the type of data they needed to track learning. The learning that took place was not necessarily more efficiently completed or organized in the order that the teacher may have originally chosen, but it was fun for the students and gave the teacher a bit of a break in preparing lessons. This may be part of the success of Smartboards as opposed to 1-1 computer access as Smartboards give the illusion of starting to incorporate inquiry and student-centred learning in the class while still allowing the teacher to be in total control. In my opinion, future winners will be free or cheap programs that are very customizable. As for Canadian use, hosting in Canada and not collecting shareable personal student data will be huge draws for teachers.

The biggest trends in my opinion will be programs and opportunities that give good value and that encourage student-centred learning, particularly with the opportunity to explore more deeply in areas of interest while still ensuring a base of knowledge and skills has been explored and mastered. Cloud computing can no longer be considered a trend – it is an established method. I expect the use of learning analytics to increase as adaptive learning systems improve and the data and the information ‘tested’ becomes more customizable/chosen by the teacher. The use of game-based learning/testing, for both formative and summative assessment will increase, again, as customization becomes simpler. Teachers using augmented reality will increase as the technology develops and becomes cheaper. The awareness of hacking of information will result in the development of sites that do not require personal information sharing so that hacking the site is not profitable. Yet I do not believe total online education without a teacher monitoring will ever take over as a norm. As Holland and Holland state in their article, “With so many tremendous technological shifts happening, we need to be mindful of the missing bits of information, which still need to be taught.” Even current artificial intelligence is not capable of telling us what we don’t know because we don’t know to ask for it. Humans need human interaction and this is still part of best practice for education.

Readings:

https://www.techlearning.com/tl-advisor-blog/top-10-k-12-educational-technology-trends

https://www.iste.org/explore/Education-leadership/The-9-hottest-topics-in-edtech

https://elearningindustry.com/educational-technology-trends-top-right-now

https://blog.lambdasolutions.net/biggest-education-technology-trends-2019

https://tophat.com/blog/technology-in-education-2019/

https://elearningindustry.com/2019-edtech-trends-excited

Holland, J. & Holland, J. (2014). Implications of Shifting Technology in Education. Tech Trends. 58(3), 16-25. http://vincross.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Holland-Holland-2014.pdf

I Know Where I’m Going???

July 25, 2019 / ctrades

Jamie Saw on Unsplash

If you consider working remotely for the first time when starting an intensive 23-day study program, may I caution you to reconsider? The choice was thrust on me due to computer failure, and even though I am comfortable working without a paper backup, not having access to my regular filing system as well as the lack of consistency of tools across the four computers I used definitely caused additional difficulties that were unnecessary. It did point out what a creature of habit I have become in my computer use and therefore forced me to reconsider my use of online tools.

As a part-time administrator, I have not taught a course for two years, and this year I picked up half an overflowing course in October. I learned Google Classroom (n.d.), exploring quite a bit its bells and whistles and played Kahoots (n.d.) with my students. We used Desmos, an iPad Rotating Sphere Clinometer (n.d.) app, and assorted online tools for what could be boring practice. Our room was vibrant and noisy as we interacted and contributed to each other’s understanding. I utilized structured, controlled, and guided inquiry, with some students taking the opportunity to do free inquiry and present their findings to the class. Our philosophy was “the answers are in the room” and that learning did not require the teacher – though often the questions started from me because the students did not know where to go because of insufficient background.

This summer’s courses have been presented the same way I teach, except on a grander scale. The questions start from the instructors, with some guidance in the readings and presentations, and the rest of the work takes place at home as we research further, documenting some of our work in blogs (and some more privately in notes). My private notes have a number of highlighted areas for further research, my Feedly (n.d.) has some great blogs to read through (and read backwards through) and my Tweetdeck (n.d.) has a number of threads I want to backtrack through. I think it is at least an August’s worth to just catch up! The two courses have set us on the path of gathering information from both traditional sources (books, journals and articles) as well as current sources (blogs and Twitter) so we have a balance between solid academic research articles and fresh ideas being presented by practicing educators. Some of the sources I can discredit based on my experience, but the evaluation technique explored and the methodology understanding I have gained through EDCI 515 have provided me with more solid tools with which to appraise both the traditional studies as well as the contemporary resources. Looking at the Researcher, the Research, the Researched and the Reader applies to blogs and Twitter links as you can see anomalies: the researcher is pushing a book based on a particular company’s product, the researched have nothing in common with the situation you are addressing, or the research is based on some strange bias.

In my own research towards a master’s project, I am going to be wading through studies on appropriate presentation methods for success in online learning environments. Once we learned about action research, I was sure my research would focus in that type of study. I have read a few articles in those areas. Having reached the end of the course, I realize that if I want to include the indigenous perspectives in the tools that I may be curating and creating, I may need to look at other types of studies as well. Research methods more suited to indigenous students may not be action-research based

My ideal goal is to collect and create a body of mathematical resources, organized by the British Columbia Ministry of Education (BCEd) grade 9 through 11 pre-calculus course requirements, for an online math student community of learners who do not need a teacher, only a moderator; basically, a one-room classroom but digital and without a teacher. This means there may need to be a significant number of resources available. Considering I have quite a few myself after having taught Math 9 and 10 a number of times over the last twenty years, it could be doable as one project. My colleagues may be interested in contributing because a successful project could ultimately benefit the students in their classrooms. We have worked hard to establish an open Math Help Centre at school and an Online Math Help Centre with different tools could contribute positively.

Part of my research may also be for good, free, non-copyrighted tools or tools that may be available for an extended period of time. Students should have the opportunity to develop inquiry skills to prepare them for future math courses. Finding a tool or method to preserve some student anonymity while allowing for building a community while not under the protection of a school system may be too much for my current level of expertise. I may need to limit student access, at first, to those enrolled at our school and therefore under the protection of the security offered by our technical support team maintaining our systems. Although I do want it to be open access, I want it to be safe for students as well. I have ruled out the possibility of using Twitter because it is too public for students. I do not want to own student data, so even the use of a website or a WordPress (n.d.) site is questionable. Yet, where could I have the information hosted so that both the students and I are safe (and safe from each other) and the privacy policies adhere to Canadian law? Big question and more research to go.

I came into this summer of courses thinking I knew what type of project I wanted to have as a capstone to my master’s degree. After a few weeks of classes, my scope is much larger as I realize my original idea did not include the development of a learner community, which is something I value, the research I think I should do has snowballed based on learning more about the types of research there is, and the list of things I need to learn how to do has become much longer. How big am I willing to let this be? How much time am I willing to put in and then, once it is created, how much time am I willing to spend maintaining the creation? In this type of project, where it is something that stands alone but is not static, it would be irresponsible to let it go like a helium balloon on a string (which is also irresponsible). After I spend more time researching, will I need to let this idea go and move into something smaller and more manageable? Well, I have not been one to play it safe, so research adventure, here I come!

Bibliography

Chambers, C., Hasebe-Ludt, E., Donald, D., Hurren, W., Leggo, C., & Oberg, A. (2008). Métissage: A Research Praxis. In J. Knowles & A. Cole, Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 142–154). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n12

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589

Engin, M. (2011). Research Diary: A Tool for Scaffolding. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10(3), 296–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691101000308

Graham, L. & Roberts, V. (2018). Sharing a Pragmatic Networked Model for open pedagogy: The Open Hub Model of Knowledge Generation in Higher-Education Environments. International Journal on Innovations in Online Education, 2(3). Retrieved from http://onlineinnovationsjournal.com/download/166ed2992d9a3c9d.pdf

Gu, P., & Lee, Y. (2019). Promoting Students’ Motivation and Use of SRL Strategies in the Web-Based Mathematics Learning Environment. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 47(3), 391–410. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047239518808522

Johnson, H. L., Hornbein, P., & Bryson, D. (2016). Designing Online Playgrounds for Learning Mathematics. The Mathematics Teacher, 110(4), 298–303. https://doi.org/10.5951/mathteacher.110.4.0298

Kim, C., Park, S. W., Cozart, J., & Lee, H. (2015). From Motivation to Engagement: The Role of Effort Regulation of Virtual High School Students in Mathematics Courses. Journal of Educational Technology & Society; Palmerston North, 18(4), 261–272.

McAteer, M. (2013). Action Research in Education. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473913967

Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia. Cloud Computing Guidelines for Public Bodies. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.oipc.bc.ca/guidance-documents/1427

Pete, S. (2017). Idle No More: Radical Indigeneity in Teacher Education. In F. Pirbhai-Illich, S. Pete, & F. Martin (Eds.), Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Working towards Decolonization, Indigeneity and Interculturalism (pp. 53–72). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46328-5_3

Tessaro, D., Restoule, J.-P., Gaviria, P., Flessa, J., Lindeman, C., & Scully-Stewart, C. (2018). The Five R’s for Indigenizing Online Learning: A Case Study of the First Nations Schools’ Principals Course. 40, 125–143.

Weller, M. (2018). The Digital Scholar Revisited. The Digital Scholar: Philosopher’s Lab, 1, 52–71.

Resources

Desmos. https://www.desmos.com/

Feedly. https://feedly.com

Google Classroom. https://classroom.google.com/

Kahoot. https://kahoot.com/

Rotating Sphere Clinometer. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rotating-sphere-clinometer/id1190844563

TweetDeck. https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

Twitter. https://twitter.com/home?lang=en

WordPress. https://wordpress.com

Where do I go from here?

July 21, 2019 / ctrades

“Doors”by susanvg is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I have been a mathematics and computer teacher for almost as many years as I have been a music teacher. I have wanted to do a Masters for a long time, but could not find an area for a thesis or research project that was interesting yet was not already well developed. It has become clear to me recently that although there are many online resources for students, it is difficult for students to find what they need in terms of exercises because they do not know what they need! They can google a Khan Academy (n.d.) video and do multiple choice exercises, but they need to know the correct mathematical terminology for what they are looking for, and that can be a difficulty. These resources are just another lecture-style explanation, with no interactivity, limited motivational factors, no skill building in recognizing patterns or looking at habitual mathematical errors, and no relevance to using mathematics in real-life situations. There are some wonderful online mathematical resources, but most sites require membership to either access questions or to track progress. The majority of the sites do not adhere to British Columbian privacy laws (OIPCBC, 2012) and/or require a monetary contribution.

We have many international students coming to our schools whose curricula do not follow the same layout as ours. In mathematics class, they either repeat a significant amount of material or they flounder without sufficient background in some areas. Some of these students are very motivated, but their English may not be sufficient for the videos at Khan Academy, plus the American system does not organize its courses with mixed mathematics as we do. At school, we have students that would like to accelerate their mathematics in order to complete both Pre-Calculus 12 and an International Baccalaureate (IB) Mathematics 12 course. Their maturity level may have prevented them from successfully accelerating in Middle School and therefore doing some extra math during the year or during the summer would help them accomplish this goal. I currently have a dozen students working on math this summer who are supposed to contact me with problems, but there has been radio silence. Is this because they are doing well or is it because they are doing nothing or is it because they do not want to bother me? At the end of summer, they are going to show me the print resources they have worked through and then challenge a math course based on our school and British Columbia (BC) Education requirements (see BC ministry of Education, n.d.).

I have been reading and blogging about different articles about online math courses, motivation and self-regulation in these courses, and opportunities in interactive online math activities (“It’s Like Scrabble” and “Action Research”). I found an entire “Mathematics Teacher” journal published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (n.d.) on Teaching Math Online (2016). The article I chose for this blog is Designing Online Playgrounds for Learning Mathematics by Johnson, Hornbein, and Bryson (2016). In our grade 6 though 10 courses, as an IB Middle Years Programme school, we regularly involve our math students in investigating patterns and applying mathematics to real-life situations. They can be as simple as a five-minute pattern recognition or a three-hour pattern investigation or real-life problem solution. I was hoping this article could provide ideas on how to develop these as interactive tools.

Figure 1: Webpage for the American National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

The article was written by an associate professor of mathematics education (Johnson), an IB high school teacher (Hornbein), and a middle school math teacher (Bryson), all from Colorado. The two teachers participated in a fully online mathematics education course designed and taught by the associate professor. “Johnson developed online playgrounds— instructional experiences with multiple entry points—incorporating three types of playground equipment: online interactive tools, video conferencing, and social media.” (p. 299) The teachers then began incorporating them into their classrooms. When using online interactive tools, they required students to take multiple screenshots of their work to share reasoning methods as well as errors and how to recognize them. Zoom (n.d.) videoconferencing was used to create a video record of a conversation about an assignment, and then edited to hand in as an assignment. Videoconferencing was later used, with Zoom’s shared whiteboard as well as an online interactive tool, for one of the teachers to help a student individually. Students subsequently used the shared whiteboard feature to collaborate to solve homework problems, taking screenshots along the way. Hornbein also used Twitter (n.d.) to interact with students. Some students really enjoyed Twitter conversations, but considering the privacy requirements in Canada, this is likely not a possibility for our students.

The articled references PBS Education (n.d.), but all the activities are behind a login and their privacy settings do not adhere to an acceptable Canadian level. Although, it could be a good source of inspiration. The article also references Desmos, an online graphing tool with lessons available behind a login, and it has much stricter privacy settings than PBS Education. Even without signing in, Desmos has good access for graphing use.

Figure 2: Desmos interface

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has an activity page and a blog which may be useful or, again, at least a good source of inspiration for activities. The site listed that had the most potential for creation of activities is no longer active, and the java set of files appeared corrupted.

From what I can see, the problem is the lack of curated engaging free activities for math learners. Even the BC Education website only connected to the BC Educational Resource Acquisition Consortium (ERAC) (n.d.) which had a short list of print resources (accessible after a membership fee was paid).

Where I would like to go with my project is:

Diagnostic tools for elements of BC curriculum mathematics skills required by course, particularly Foundations of Mathematics 10 and Pre-Calculus 11, where students can find out what elements they have mastered which course they are ready for. What is out there? What do I need to create as an online tool? Or is a print tool sufficient for a diagnosis?

Curate/create a list of videos, interactive exercises, and real-life applications that are not behind costly or sites with questionable privacy settings. Ideally, most would have the opportunity for translation into other languages. These would be linked
- - from the mathematical content areas from the diagnostic tools
  - from a list of mathematical content by course
  - from a list of competencies
  - from a list of big ideas
  - from a list of curricular competencies
Where would the tolerance level of privacy be set? How could a parent make a choice about their student’s access to a site where my recommended level of tolerance is not met? Do I want to even go there? I need to learn more about reading through privacy settings.

Find a safe online community so students can communicate with each other and with mathematics teachers to clarify, get help, or commiserate with others. We have found the value in a personal professional learning community and our students in face-to-face classes have a classroom and school community. How can we foster this community for online learners?

Ensure there are motivational elements:
- a student can track their improvement and use of all resources (and keep it in Canada)
- there are puzzle challenges to improve pattern recognition
- there is linking to what they already know well
- there is application to real-life problems including ones they will experience (ever try to figure out how to split a restaurant bill and tip?)
- there are authentic links to Indigenous cultural content and Canadian settler cultural content.

As mentioned in a previous blog, “It’s Like Scrabble,” I want to include the types of questions found on our BC Education Numeracy Assessment which is now required of students graduating in BC. The cultural basis of some of the questions excludes our international students from experiencing success (although I have limited data). This new graduation assessment should not require preparation, but those new to BC or Canadian culture find some of the situational questions posed are inaccessible.

Could I extend it to include areas students may want to explore? Like Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry except with suggestions because most students don not know what is fun about math?

I can not create a Canadian Khan Academy, but I want our students to be able to diagnose the areas they need to work on, find good interactive resources without having to sign in, be able to track their work simply for evidence (will look at WordPress multi-site (private to network) with both instructor and learner blogs and perhaps a Buddypress plug-in), experience enjoyable math activities that spark their interest, and find a community of math helpers the way our face-to-face students have found in the classroom and in our Math Help Centre.

Bibliography

British Columbia Department of Education. (2019). Course Challenge. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/support/graduation/getting-credit-to-graduate/course-challenge.

Suggested Resources

BC Educational Resources https://bcerac.ca/?s=Math

Desmos https://www.desmos.com/

Desmos Privacy Policy https://www.desmos.com/privacy

Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Resources https://www.nctm.org/classroomresources/

PBS Learning Media: :https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/subjects/mathematics/high-school-algebra/

PBS Privacy Policy: https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/help/privacy-policy/

Peidi Gu’s Dissertation, from which the article is an excerpt: dissertation

To Cloud or not to Cloud

July 19, 2019 / ctrades

“Macbook Pro 17 21”by Luiz Claudio Monteiro is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Gif created in EZgif

That IS the question! When cloud computing first came out, I was EXTREMELY skeptical. I was really going to put all my data out there? Where anyone could get it? Looking back, it is how my parents first reacted to gift cards. What? I am going to put money on a card? Why not just use cash?

Until this year, I have scrupulously backed up my computer every week to a separate hard drive. Even though work also backed up my computer to their server, I didn’t trust it. And there were a few times over the last 12 years where my backup came in use because their’s failed. It means they have gotten used to me being responsible for my own data. Last year, the school put us all into the cloud for automatic backups, which is why a year later, I gave up on backing up. Backups are useless when the tech department decides to no longer purchase the application for documents you have backed up. So I switched to updating all my documents to the cloud apps with backups to the cloud.

Forward to this weekend, when the intermittent freezing of my computer became more consistent while I was, of course, in Vancouver. Yes, I could get all my cloud backed up documents on my daughter’s computer, but she was needing to use it! Since mine was a school computer, I couldn’t do the diagnostics on it that I wanted to because I didn’t have that type of administrator control. I limped along till I returned to Victoria and took ‘lappie’ in to the office where it was confirmed, her trackpad and keyboard were going into cardiac arrest. So now, I have a loaner computer, with a personal computer in the mail, slowly separating my school files and my personal files into their separate cloud storage spaces. Thank goodness for the cloud, because I wouldn’t have been hauling my backup with me to Vancouver

Being in the cloud and away from home is convenient. And I have nothing really personal stored in the cloud – no budgeting or banking information, few pictures, and limited personal information. My educator hat is there. I have had the lovely experience of having my bank and credit cards stopped because of identity theft and have had to shut down 3 different credit cards taken out in my name. And I traced the situation to a particular card that I use only when working as an IBEN educator which I used in Los Angeles back when they still took your credit card away from you to put it through a machine. Lesson learned.

But in my work as an IBEN educator, I can never rely on internet access or people having the skills to deal with a Google drive. I bring multiple flash drives with the drive information on them so participants can share. But they are adults and are supposedly informed about their cloud usage and sharing decisions. They have the choice to share through Google drive or through the flash drives. Yet, what about work with students?

Our school asks parents and students to sign permission forms which detail the programs we use and where the information is stored. If I want to start using another program with my students, it has to go through our Risk Management and another permission form needs to be signed. If, as part of my research project for my masters’, I am going to use any social media platform, online app or the cloud with minors and not go through a school, I need to research the platforms and the personal legal implications: Trello, Twitter, Feedly, Slack, WhatsApp, BlueJeans, FlipGrid, EverNote, even the hosting server. It is my responsibility to ensure the safety of the students accessing the resources I am considering curating, creating and monitoring, as well as the safety of their personal information. As well, I need to find apps that are established enough that they do not become defunct soon and find a way to track student work that students will enjoy following – I like the suggestion I was given of a wordpress site .

I would really like whatever I create to have experiences in the inquiry model. I firmly believe that it is a great motivator, even when students may not feel particularly gifted in a subject area. Between Trevor MacKenzie‘s visit and Jeff Hopkin‘s visits to class, my interest in making some online math interest connections are stronger. I also found some interesting reads in the November 2016 edition of “The Mathematics Teacher”. What might be the most helpful is the dissertation written by Peidi Gu, one of the authors of the article I found for Edci 515, Promoting Students’ Motivation and Use of SRL Strategies in the Web-Based Mathematics Learning Environment. The whole thing may just be too much of a dream, but I have to start somewhere.

Dreamer, by Roger Hodgson, was first recorded by SuperTramp on the album Crime of the Century, 1974. Note: audio is in compliance with fair dealing under the Copyright Act and with the SoundCloud site.

Five Rs – Relationships, Respect, Reciprocity, Responsibility and Relevance

July 16, 2019 / ctrades

Birch bark biting artwork by Angelique Merasty.
Photo: Western Development Museum Collection,
WDM-1973-S-8214
similar to one I own by Ms. Merasty

Lovely meeting up with Emily to attend class ~~virtuously~~ virtually today. Thanks to my daughter for letting us crash her couch. Our conversations (and cat interruptions) along with today’s readings and presenters uncovered personal revelations and generated questions.

Relationships and Respect

What type of teacher would I have been if I hadn’t started my teaching career in Northern Saskatchewan? My last student teaching (I was in Music Education and at the time, they split up our practicum into parts so we could experience different situations) for Secondary Music was in a high indigenous population Prince Albert Elementary school. For my Secondary English minor, I was in Meadow Lake teaching middle and high school English, Math and Social Studies, again to a school with a high indigenous population. Being raised in southern Saskatchewan at the same time as Dr. Shauneen Pete, I was taught those stereotypes that she spoke of in class. And believed them. My practicum experiences showed me that kids are kids and each one wants to be listened to, met where they are, cared about, and be part of the conversation about how and where they need to go next.

Subbing in Band schools (yes, it still calls itself the Lac La Ronge Indian Band), teaching private music lessons and leading choirs at two of the public schools while my husband taught in a public school framed my practice after university. In all of my activities, creating community was at the forefront. If I didn’t foster community with the students at the band school, they wouldn’t attend school that day or they would leave. If I didn’t foster community with my private students, I wouldn’t have a self-employed work load at a sustainable income. It became a way of life to be part of that cultural way of being because you were living in an indigenous community. Hearing Shauneen speak reminding me of listening to Tom Roberts on CBC radio’s Keewatin Country in Northern Saskatchewan and chatting about it with everyone and anyone: Tân’si, edlánat’e and Hello. (And yes, I felt the blow when Tom Roberts’ legacy of radio from Northern Saskatchewan was shut down in 2012.)

Relationships, Respect, Reciprocity and Relevance

By building community, you wind up getting involved in giving back to that community. While in La Ronge, my volunteer work revolved around helping to establish a competitive but supportive music festival for students as well as a coop for local artists to sell their work (my job was the bookkeeping and establishing it as a non-profit organization.) Again, at the basis of the work was respect and relationships. Understanding the relevance of the work done whether as an artist, a musician, or a student was a given, particularly as you always were working on ‘northern time’ as we affectionally called it. Face-to-face meetings and time spent together working, even if you were doing different things, established a connectivity that is difficult to do through virtual environments. Or is it?

How many times did I spend extended time with the phone tucked between my ear and shoulder chatting with a friend? How does this tiegrad WhatsApp chat connect us in community even while we are in a BlueJeans class? Online, isn’t it important to connect students both with each other and the teacher as well as just with each other? By giving students a voice in class as well as the opportunity to connect privately with each other and with the teacher, could students be more successful? The success of Snapchat is partially because there is no easily visible trail of conversations as there are in WhatsApp. We are strangely motivated by knowing we are all struggling, though not in the same way. Can we get students to open up about that anonymously the way we contributed to the Padlet anonymously today? Lots of questions, lots to think about, lots of potential when I am looking at a research project.

More R’s

How does this relate to our courses’ focus on Researcher, Research, Researched and Reader? It took me a few days for my thoughts to connect (which is why this post is dated Tuesday but posted on Friday). As a researcher, we need to be aware of the history of the community in which we are doing research. Knowledge about the community can affect how you set up your research. Respect towards your Researched can improve the accuracy of your results. Relationships can taint your results, but they may also ensure your results are more authentic and therefore have more value. And if your Researched believe in the Relevance of your study and that Reciprocity is forthcoming, again, honesty in participation could be more prevalent. Research that is as trustworthy as possible is what is needed for genuine positive change to take place in education.

Responsibility

Settlers can learn a great deal from the Indigenous culture. We have a responsibility to our students to educate them about the history of our indigenous peoples, but also about how they have dealt with the difficulties with grace as a positive example to our students. Therefore, we also have the responsibility in our research endeavours to carry out our work in a manner that our indigenous peoples would find responsible and respectful.

PS – interesting blog I found on training to be more aware of indigenous relations, etc.

This blog was based on thoughts inspired from the reading of Chapter 3 by S. Pete in Idle No More edited by Fatima Pirbhai-Illich, Shauneen Pete and Fran Martin (2017), Chapter 10 by S. Pete in Meschachakanis, A Coyote Narrative: Decolonising Higher Education by Gruminder K. Bhambra, Dalia Gebrial and Kerem Nisancioglu, The Five R’s for Indigenizing Online Learning: A Case Study of the First Nations Schools’ Principals Course by Tessaro, Resoutle, Gaviria, Flessa, Lindeman, & Scully-Stewart (2018) and from the guest lecture/discussion with Shauneen Pete, UVic Indigenous Resurgence Coordinator.

Action Research

July 15, 2019 / ctrades

“Do I Need to Cite This?”by tengrrl is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Researcher

The reading for discussion was by Mary McAteer, who earned her Doctor of Philosophy in 2000 after completing her Bachelor of Education in 1979 and her Masters of Science in Educational Management in 1993. Between earning her Bachelor’s degree and her doctoral degre, she held a range of classroom teaching and senior management roles in a number of schools in Northern Ireland. Following her doctorate, she started work at Edge Hill University, which was granted the power to award degrees in 2005. McAteer completed a Post-Graduate Certificate in Research Supervision at Edge Hill University in 2010. More recently, she worked as an author at SAGE Publications, who published her book, as well as the Director for MaST programmes for the United Kingdom’s Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education. McAteer is a respected educator, teaching master’s courses in education enquiry and professional learning as well as specialist primary mathematics practice. Her guest lecture and conference experiences extend to the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Schools Enrichment Centre as well as the United States. She is active as an external examiner for master’s and doctorate work focusing on action research and other close-to-practice research while continuing to supervise PhD students. As a researcher, she has written 40 articles since 2000, and is a reputable source of knowledge for action research in education based on her experience.

Research

Mary McAteer’s book, Action Research in Education, was aimed at the beginner in educational research. “Chapter 2: Getting to Grips with Perspectives and Models” gives clear explanations, describing action research as a systematic and planned process of data collection, analysis of the collected data, and theory generation and testing. A teacher’s regular daily reflection is more focused on providing formative feedback to students and developing strategies to differentiate learning outcomes to students. Action research is more critically reflective, looking for alternative perspectives and considering classroom or pedagogy limitations as problems which require solutions. Action research suggests that reflection on practice should be:

Descriptive, in that it is personal and retrospective.
Perceptive, in that it has an emotional aspect.
Receptive, in that it relates personal views to those of others.
Interactive, in that it links learning to future action.
Critical, in that it places the individual teacher within a broader ‘system’. (McAteer, 2013)

Action research projects are suitable for teachers looking to improving their practice. The project could be rooted in areas in which the teacher has control rather than looking for solutions to institutional problems, unless the institution is the instigator of the project. Good projects allow for testing of personal, professionally important hypotheses and exploring explanations that could be related to a more extensive theoretical base and are relevant to others in education. Action research is a mixed methods form of research.

The Action Research Project Cycle is similar to the design process cycle. The four stages are plan, act, observe and reflect. There could be multiple iterations of the cycle within a project. When starting a project, it is challenging to only collect data at the beginning without affecting the student outcomes. For teachers, it is difficult to remain unbiased if an activity is not producing the anticipated results. They need to stay observant, particularly for small changes. This example of the Action Research Cycle was available in the Creative Commons.

“Action Research Cycle for improving instruction”by w.robkoch is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Researchers of Contrasting Article

The article not using action research was by ChanMin Kim, Seung Won Par, Joe Cozart and Heywon Lee. ChanMin Kim earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1998 in Korea, going on to earn two Masters of Education in Korea (2003) and in Boston (2004). Her doctorate was completed in Florida in 2007. Kim is a mathematics and technology researcher who has written 64 articles since 2004. Although Seung Won Park was not listed in Google Scholar, but had a listing on Research Gate. She has earned her doctorate and is currently in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong after studying Educational Psychology at Pennsylvania State University and Instructional Design at the University of Georgia. Park’s articles are in the technology field. Joe Cozart has a very limited online presence, but has contributed to 10 articles since 2011. Heywon Lee has no information in Google Scholar and only this article listed on Research Gate. Based on the expertise of Kim and Park, I expected this article to be legitimate.

Contrasting Article Research

In “From Motivation to Engagement: The Role of Effort Regulation of Virtual High School Students in Mathematics Courses”, Kim et al. chose to only study quantitative data. The final study had data from 100 online learners that filled out surveys at three times during their semester long online mathematics course. At the beginning of the semester, the middle of the semester and the end of the semester, students rated value statements on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from (1) “Not at all true of me” to (7) “Very true of me.” The study was investigating “How do high performers and low performers differ with regard to their changes in motivation, regulation, and engagement throughout the course?” (Kim et al., 2015) The value statements students responded to are displayed in the chart below from page 264 of the journal.

Implications of adding Action Research

As educators, I expect Kim et al. could collect the reflection data objectively as they were not the teachers of their subjects. In order for this study to use action research, the team would have needed to be involved in affecting the teaching resources or have the ability to change the support students were offered. They also would have needed to commit more time to the study or may have needed to have a larger team, possibly including the teachers in charge of the online students. The organization offering the online courses or its principal would likely need to be part of the team so that the changes could be implicated easily as nine courses were involved. The data collected could have been totally different if they were successful in planning and enacting strategies to motivate the students.

There are two ways this could have or still could be turned into an action research project. In the first possibility, the initial reflection by the students could have been used as the data on which to base the reflection. A decision would need to have been made whether to address all students with all possible motivators or interventions planned, or to just address the students experiencing difficulties in any of the areas. Some possibilities could be providing exercises to build confidence, providing interactive lessons to build confidence and positive attitude, interaction with a teacher in real-time through Skype or something similar, adding study ideas to the lessons, or linking students to help each other. The second possibility is to use the current complete study as the data to establish a plan to affect a different group of online mathematics students.

Changing the method of the study would have meant, if they had found successful ways to improve motivation and self-regulation, students may not have dropped the courses and they would have had more students complete all 3 surveys. From a students’ point of view, this would have been a great alternative.

The reader would have learned possibilities for improving their own online courses instead of just confirming the understandings and shortcomings of online education as traditionally presented. A reader could still use this data as the base for an action research project themselves.

Conclusion

Educational research lends it to action research. The reason behind educational research is almost always to increase student achievement. Any quantitative or qualitative study can be used as the first step in an action research project. After completing or reading this study, how could educators not want to take the next step of trying to test methods to improve the results of the students? The largest obstacle to action research is conforming to the regulations required by ethics boards as well as acquiring continuous consent from all involved parties. Institutions, parents and even students have to agree to allowing the information to be shared and studied in order for documented action research to take place, and this can be a complicated and constantly changing situation.

Bibliography

Alberta Teacher’s Association. (2000). Action Research Guide for Alberta Teachers. Retrieved July 10, 2019, from https://www.teachers.ab.ca/sitecollectiondocuments/ata/publications/professional-development/actionresearch.pdf

Edge Hill University. (n.d.). Mary McAteer. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/education/about/staff/mary-mcateer/

Google Scholar. (2019). ChanMin Kim. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=D6EEp0UAAAAJ

Google Scholar. (2019). Joe Cozart. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=CFjNHv0AAAAJ

Google Scholar. (2019). Mary McAteer. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=g_72zXcAAAAJ&hl=en

Koch, Rob. “Action Research Cycle for Improving Instruction.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 3 Aug. 2015, www.flickr.com/photos/133494837@N03/20084505839.

McAteer, M. (2013). Action Research in Education. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473913967

McAteer, Mary. (n.d.). Posts [LinkedIn Page]. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-mcateer-0a7615b/

Research Gate. (2019). Seung Won Park. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seung_Won_Park

Tengrrl. “Do I Need to Cite This?” Flickr, Yahoo!, 9 Nov. 2015, www.flickr.com/photos/83528664@N00/22467851468.