I've been a teacher at my current elementary school for five years now. Inconceivably, every year since 2014, we have sent over 65% of our fifth graders to middle school writing significantly below grade level. In 2017 alone, according to Smarter Balanced Assessment Test Results Summary, we sent 70% of our students to middle school not able to write at all. As a proctor for the CAASPP and ELPAC tests, I pay close attention to students as they work on the tests. I've observed that kids were not able to demonstrate simple word processing skills. For instance, they repeatedly asked how to type capital letters and quotation marks. Many did not know how to create paragraphs using the enter key or the space bar. This led me to believe that many students were failing because they lacked basic typing skills and did not know how to put their ideas and thoughts into words. Researchers such as Mark Warschauer (2007) and Kathleen Bronowicki (2012) claim that technology actually hinders the writing process. I disagree. I believe that if students are taught how to accurately use digital tools, their interest in the writing process increases and therefore their writing skills improve.
I plan to prove that techno-tools such as Google Docs, Thesaurus.com, Dictionary.com and Google Classroom will improve students' writing skills. First, I will pre-test my students writing skills using the traditional method of pen-and-paper. Next, I will pre-test my students typing skills using Google Docs. Using the data collected from both tests, I will build a writing program in Google Classroom. I will teach my students the different features of Google Docs, such as how to type capitals, punctuation marks, and quotation marks. I will also teach them how to be sensitive to alerts for misspellings and incorrect grammar provided by Google Docs. I will teach them how to use and navigate through Thesaurus.com and Dictionary.com for improvements in word usage. Though out the my study, I will teach my students grammar and composition rules for correct writing. I will also keep a running record of their work through out my study. At the end of my study, I will administer a final post-test.
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Three New Perspectives on My driving Question "Will the use of digital tools and 21st Century skills encourage active student engagement in the writing process?"
Surprisingly, much of the research out there is AGAINST technology as a tool for improving student writing. According to a 156 page research study conducted by Kathleen A. Bronowicki, technology has some significant adverse effects on student writing. She reports that skills such as vocabulary, spelling, grammar, mechanics and conventions are not improving with the use of technology. In fact, they are declining due to the ease of spell and grammar check apps and features on word processing programs. Researchers, like Kurt A. Suhr, David A. Hernandez, Douglas Grimes and Mark Warschauer, blame school districts for not thoroughly researching how effective these programs are in the long run. In 2007, Mark Warschauer wrote in a separate study that since technology is quickly changing how and why people write, it is very difficult to analyze the process and it is debatable if technology is improving the writing skills at all. The concerns are that 1) it is informal, 2) that it is graphic dominant, 3) that it encourages plagiarism. I acknowledge that these are all pretty negative views on technology in the writing classroom, however, they contradict what I observe in my own classroom. Students who were not at all interested in writing at the beginning of the trimester are now self-motivated and focused on completing writing assignments. My platform has always been this: if you teach students how to navigate around Google Docs (for example), teaching them how to create paragraphs, quotes, capital letters, and what those red squiggly lines under the word means, kids will enjoy using word processing digital tools. In turn, they will achieve better writing skills. Considering only these three new articles, I will have to work to produce contradictory evidence. I hope to show through my research that tech tools such as Google Classroom and Thesaurus.com and it's sister website Dictionary.com actually improve writing skills among elementary students. Kathleen Bronowicki's research is four years old, while Mark Warschauer's research is seven years old. Developments in technology is changing every day. I read an article by Rachel Saulsburry, "Getting Students Excited about Learning: Incorporating Digital Tools to Support the Writing Process." She and her team of researchers studied how digital tools such as Skype, Popplet, iPads, and Book Creator encouraged student growth in writing. Saulsburry found that since students were more engaged, they successfully improved their skills. Her research was conducted in 2015. I hope to find more contemporary articles that support my driving question. I'm not too so ashamed that I plagiarized that title. It's just too perfect of a title for this blog.
As I watched the video presentations, thoughts and images collected throughout my career passed in and out of my mind. Years ago, I created a children's theater at my former elementary school. It was a free after school program for kids interested in theater production. Because I absolutely loved my "drama geek" days, I wanted to share my adoration for theater with my kids. Since most of my students' families were living off of slim earnings, I foot the bill for everything. As a seasoned costume and set builder, I did all of that work on my own time. Over 60 children participated. Most parents were excited. They helped by donating a few yards of fabric, sewing notions or props for our theatrical project. It would have been perfect if not for this one fly on the butter. My principal. From the beginning he opposed the idea despite the fact that it didn't cost anything to the school. It was very apparent that he was on a mission to crush our little children's theater. The day before opening night, I found the stage stacked with hundreds of boxes filled with everything from toilet paper to text books. On another occasion, without consulting me or taking in consideration our terrible elementary school gym acoustics, he decided to sell food during the performance. People were eating and talking so loudly, the actors couldn't hear themselves on stage. His argument was that I should have been looking at creating more STEM opportunities and not wasting everybody's time on "playing." The CST test measured Math and Language Arts skills; definitely not theater. He believed that I was using these children to relive my glory days from high school. He quite plainly stated that my theater idea was a joke. That was 16 years ago. Occasionally, I'll run into my former students. The first thing they recall is how much fun staging those plays were for them. I feel vindicated. Sir Ken Robinson has quickly become one my favorite Youtubers! I watched all four of his TEDtalks videos. It was worth the hour. The video "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" resonates with me on a very high level. One of the most profound observations he makes is that creativity is as important as literacy. I feel that misinformed or mislead administrators forget that we (teachers and students) are very distinctly human. Creativity is a HUGE part of being human. The ability to create has taken us out of the Stone Age all the way across the Renaissance to the TESLA 3 Series. The focus has been on standardized test scores. I remember being yelled at as a staff because the third grade did not score well on the CST. Two-thirds of the faculty was at fault because we did not meet our growth goals. One of the accusations was that collectively, we teachers "did not want to understand" the importance of the test. If an eight year old does not pass the CST with proficiency in the third grade, then the state of California would have to start making room for him in jail NOW. I was surprised that I had never seen the parallels between industrial and educational worlds. Our present day school system comes from coal dust-choked Industrial Age ideas. In the video "Changing Education Paradigms," Sir Robinson talks about how the Arts are the victims of this "education as an industrial institution" mentality. When the State of California took over our district back in the early 2000s, the first programs to be cut from the elementary schools were the Arts. A drawing lesson in the classroom warranted a reprimand for the teacher because it was "a waste of time." Sir Robinson declares that we must "bring on the revolution!" We should not be looking toward an evolution of the educational system, but a complete change, a new species altogether. Dan Pink has some ideas how this change can occur, and he has proof that it works. Looking at the business world, innovative and creative ways of running a business are showing surefire signs of success. Mr. Pink clearly recommends getting away from the "carrots and stick" model for motivating workers (and students). He used a couple of strong examples how using money as a reward does not work in creating faster, better results. In fact, he has evidence that money actually destroys creativity. He says the higher level of reward, the lower the performance. I've been a teacher for 25 years. In those twenty-five years, I've worked with 21 principals. Of those 21 principals, I've had the lucky opportunity to work with THREE really good administrators. The rest were absolutely terrible. The first two years of my career, I worked with EIGHT (gasp!) principals. The difference between the three very effective winners and the other lousy 18 was money. The Golden Three went into Administration because they truly care about teachers and students. Their focus was on creating an environment where everyone felt valued. The Lousy Eighteen went into Administration for the pay raise. They had no clue why they were there, and it was evident. The most profound key idea I gathered from John Seely Brown's Closing Keynote Speech is that collaboration goes hand in hand with creativity in the arena of learning. He uses two very good examples where young people use true collaboration to improve their skills and knowledge. Mr. Seely spoke of a case between Chris Averir vs. Ryerson University. Mr. Averir created a Facebook page with over 140 followers. The Facebook page titled "Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions" was a place where students could meet and collaborate on chemistry problems. The University was appalled and was ready to expel Mr. Averir, however after an investigation, it was revealed that there was no cheating going on. Just plain old collaboration. Students were trying to make chemistry equations fun. In another example, five adolescent surfers collaborated on improving their surfing skills. They worked together for years on this project, using video cameras to analyze their performances. Today, all five young men are surfing champions. Mr. Seely said that there is no better way to learn than to explain it to others. Look at the World of Warcraft, for example. Players teach players. Learning is a social thing. Nothing beats a collaborative study group. He shares that the best predictors on how well a child will do in college is how he works with others in class now. In my classroom, my students not only help edit each others writing compositions, they also score each others work. I was pleased to see the comments my students wrote for other writers. Mind you, I removed the names on the papers first, so they did not know whose paper they were scoring. Despite the anonymous author, the scorers wrote positive and helpful suggestions for improvement. Howard Gardner's video was the last one I watched. The Five Minds of the Future included the specific abilities that will be in demand in the near future: 1. The Disciplinary Mind 2. The Synthesizing Mind 3. The Creating Mind 4. The Respectful Mind 5. The Ethical Mind The 21st Century person will be one that has a mastery of science, math, and history Interestingly, Mr. Gardner adds that people will also need at least one professional craft. People will have the ability to incorporate ideas from all areas of learning, and be able to communicate their ideas with others. They will search out new questions and find solutions together. They will be respectful of human diversity and be responsible for their role in society. Now, back to the question I plagiarized from August Turak. I leave the best for last. In the article, "Can Creativity Be Taught?", Mr. Taruk writes that "traditional teaching methodologies like reading, lecturing, testing, and memorization are worse than useless. They are actually counter-productive." He shares that we "don't learn to be creative, but that we become creative." I learned that I should be providing opportunities for my students to work in non-linear ways. Students should be interacting together on activities and assignments that have a game-and-riddle aura about them. Most importantly, allow students to be wrong. Sir Ken Robinson agrees. He also said that we tend to stigmatize mistakes. We need to stop that. We learn from mistakes. Mr. Turak suggests that we become teachers like Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. Teachers who push their students to give it their all are worth their weight in gold. Make it hard. Make it uncomfortable. I love this line: "Make friends with frustration." Most importantly, don't quit. And don't let your students quit. Can creativity be taught? Not by 19th Century methods. You can't learn how to be creative from lectures, tests and flash cards. The only way you can be creative is to be creative. After raking the internet for the names of the most influential researchers in the area of writing and technology, I found that there is not one individual that dominates the spotlight. What I did find was that academics and educators around the globe are looking very closely at the integration of technology and the writing process. It seems that researchers in countries as diverse as Turkey, the United States, Norway, China and Australia are studying not only the effectiveness of digital tools in the writing process, but debating whether they are necessary at all. The majority of the articles I found are in favor of using technology to encourage writing, citing improvements in spelling, grammar and mechanics. However, there are several that present valid reasons why technology actually hurts student writing. According to two studies, plagiarism is on the rise.
Back in 2003, there was a meta-analytical study conducted by Amie Goldberg, Michael Russell and Abigail Cook: "The Effect of Computers on Student Writing:- A Meta-Analysis of Studies from 1992 to 2002." This team of researchers looked at data collected in a ten year period. They systematically reviewed 26 studies that focused on the effects of computers on student writing. Interestingly, they found that in writing composition classrooms, students who used computers were more likely to collaborate with other peers, where as students who used pencil and paper were more attached to their teacher for feedback. This is an old study, but it has been cited 260 times and referenced 116 times. The majority of the research on technology's effects on the writing process shows that collaboration (a 21st Century skill) improves greatly among writing students. The researchers claimed a wide range of digital tools as their favorites, such as SeeSaw, Popplet, iPads and Google classroom . However, the common thread among them was the appreciation for the fact that collaboration among students increased. Turkish researchers Ahmet Yamac from Erciyes University and Mustafa Ulusoy from Gazi University wrote a study on how computers improved writing skills among third graders in rural Turkey. They shared that while writing skills improved, the improvement of collaboration among students was a preferred benefit. According to Linda Darling-Hammond, the educational system in America today is broken since we do not not take the education of ALL children seriously. We have failed to create educational policies and systems that are equitable to ALL children, therefore hundreds of thousands of children (especially the poor) have been shooed to the wayside to struggle alone in a world that they cannot navigate. Our schools have graduated too many young people without the necessary tools to help them cultivate rich, fulfilling lives. Linda Darling-Hammond has dedicated her career to revealing where the failures lie. Fortunately, she also has a plan to help change the current policy.
She writes that we must create educational systems that do two important things: "create systems of curriculum and assessment that point to 21st Century skills, and produce a steady supply of well-prepared, well-supported teachers." (Darling-Hammond, 279) Ms. Darling-Hammond includes five key elements of her policy changing ideas for reform: 1. Meaningful learning goals. 2. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems 3. Equitable and adequate resources 4. Strong professional standards and support for all educators 5. Schools organized for student and teacher learning. Our educational system is broken as it stands. Teachers are stretched to the breaking point. They are instructed to run through chapters without giving students enough time to process information for full comprehension. Students are subjected to test after test after test. Except to generate colorful pie graphs and bar graphs of data, nobody really knows how that data is being used to help improve student work. Linda Darling-Hammond provides an alternative to today's system. Education policymakers would create learning goals that address our changing world, plus provide equitable resources, such as federal funding. Students would be taught the essential skills they need in order to be successful out in the world once they graduate from high school. Students would use critical thinking skills, creativity, communication and collaboration with other students as well as their teacher. They would learn as a community. Veteran and new teachers would receive support, such as time to collaborate with other teachers and work alone prepping for their individual classes. Teachers would also be provided with time to learn from other teachers and education professionals. Teachers would take on roles such as mentor, curriculum specialists and leaders within the school. Yes, our current educational system is broken. But it can be fixed. We just have to get everybody (or at least 60%) on board. |
Tess Giner
This is my 25th year as a public school teacher. I've taught every grade between Kindergarten and 12th grade. I hope to encourage my students to love writing and reading as much as I do. Archives
July 2019
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