CYCLE 3
If I use Edmodo as the main form of communication between a co-teacher and myself in my Digital Media class, will I be able to successfully manage communication and collaboration between teachers and with the class?
ACTION:
Cycle Three somehow presented itself to me with the inclusion of a new co-teacher in my elective Digital Media class. A professional photographer, Mr. Hall, joined my class as a teacher one out of the three days of the week the class met. I had approached him at the beginning of the year for some help asking him to come in as a guest speaker, but that idea somehow evolved into him being a co-teacher at the start of the second semester. I was very excited about this change, but a little unsure of how we were going to maintain an organized and cohesive curriculum throughout the rest of the year. Communication was key and the students needed to always know that we were on the same page and following the same guidelines for the class.
I decided to use Edmodo as our main form of communication because it would not only serve its purpose of keeping correspondence with each other and letting each other know what was happening next in class, but it would definitely let the students see first hand what we were communicating, what the other teacher expected, and they would not have any way of spinning the truth or playing teachers against each other.
We decided that we were going to do the following:
· Step 1: Add Mr. Hall to our Edmodo group as a teacher who would be able to administer assignments, add grades, and assign badges.
· Step 2: Both Mr. Hall and I would use Edmodo to clearly state and assign all assignments so the other teacher would always be aware of what was going on and expected of the class. The first few classes, I joined Mr. Hall during his lectures, but after a few meetings, I was unable to go to every class. As a result, it became increasingly difficult to keep track of what he did in class and what he expected. So he began to post a recap and the assignment on Edmodo, not only to remind the students of what they had to do, but to also keep me in the loop. I would use this information the next class meeting to remind students and to continue off of his lesson and somehow incorporate it into my own lessons. In turn, I would do the same and he would be able to decipher exactly where the students were in my class.
What is more, students saw this interaction and knew for a fact that we were both on the same page. A lot of times students like to spin situations around and say “but that is not what was said”, “I didn’t know”, and so on. By having our communication via Edmodo, it was there for students to see and know that the other teacher was always aware of what was going on.
· Step 3: We would use Edmodo to track student progress by commenting on assignments, adding grades in the gradebook, and using another feature of Edmodo which I had not used up until this point, assigning badges.
The use of badges has gained popularity in recent years and it seems to work well with students who are so used to social media sites. The assignment of badges became a fun addition to the class that the students enjoyed and competed for, and it helped both teachers know how each student was doing in the other’s class.
EVIDENCE:
As Mr. Hall and I proceeded with the class, we realized exactly how different our curriculum actually was. His portion of the class concentrated on photography only. He gave lectures about composition, lighting, shutter speed, etc. and gave students a chance to take some pictures at the end of each class meeting to experiment with the lessons he covered. In the end, he also assigned the class a final project that was not part of any project or assignment I had planned out for them.
My assignments were more hands on and things they had to figure out for themselves. In addition, my assignments during the second semester were all geared toward the completion of our yearbook. Even though Mr. Hall and I were teaching one class, it started to feel like we were teaching two different classes. This became an issue when we started to administer grades. So we made sure that we would communicate even more via Edmodo to ensure we maintained some sort of correlation between our classes. The posts we made were anything from class assignments, to reassertion that work would be collected, to critiquing work if necessary. Figure 3.1 is one example of our communication with each other.
Cycle Three somehow presented itself to me with the inclusion of a new co-teacher in my elective Digital Media class. A professional photographer, Mr. Hall, joined my class as a teacher one out of the three days of the week the class met. I had approached him at the beginning of the year for some help asking him to come in as a guest speaker, but that idea somehow evolved into him being a co-teacher at the start of the second semester. I was very excited about this change, but a little unsure of how we were going to maintain an organized and cohesive curriculum throughout the rest of the year. Communication was key and the students needed to always know that we were on the same page and following the same guidelines for the class.
I decided to use Edmodo as our main form of communication because it would not only serve its purpose of keeping correspondence with each other and letting each other know what was happening next in class, but it would definitely let the students see first hand what we were communicating, what the other teacher expected, and they would not have any way of spinning the truth or playing teachers against each other.
We decided that we were going to do the following:
· Step 1: Add Mr. Hall to our Edmodo group as a teacher who would be able to administer assignments, add grades, and assign badges.
· Step 2: Both Mr. Hall and I would use Edmodo to clearly state and assign all assignments so the other teacher would always be aware of what was going on and expected of the class. The first few classes, I joined Mr. Hall during his lectures, but after a few meetings, I was unable to go to every class. As a result, it became increasingly difficult to keep track of what he did in class and what he expected. So he began to post a recap and the assignment on Edmodo, not only to remind the students of what they had to do, but to also keep me in the loop. I would use this information the next class meeting to remind students and to continue off of his lesson and somehow incorporate it into my own lessons. In turn, I would do the same and he would be able to decipher exactly where the students were in my class.
What is more, students saw this interaction and knew for a fact that we were both on the same page. A lot of times students like to spin situations around and say “but that is not what was said”, “I didn’t know”, and so on. By having our communication via Edmodo, it was there for students to see and know that the other teacher was always aware of what was going on.
· Step 3: We would use Edmodo to track student progress by commenting on assignments, adding grades in the gradebook, and using another feature of Edmodo which I had not used up until this point, assigning badges.
The use of badges has gained popularity in recent years and it seems to work well with students who are so used to social media sites. The assignment of badges became a fun addition to the class that the students enjoyed and competed for, and it helped both teachers know how each student was doing in the other’s class.
EVIDENCE:
As Mr. Hall and I proceeded with the class, we realized exactly how different our curriculum actually was. His portion of the class concentrated on photography only. He gave lectures about composition, lighting, shutter speed, etc. and gave students a chance to take some pictures at the end of each class meeting to experiment with the lessons he covered. In the end, he also assigned the class a final project that was not part of any project or assignment I had planned out for them.
My assignments were more hands on and things they had to figure out for themselves. In addition, my assignments during the second semester were all geared toward the completion of our yearbook. Even though Mr. Hall and I were teaching one class, it started to feel like we were teaching two different classes. This became an issue when we started to administer grades. So we made sure that we would communicate even more via Edmodo to ensure we maintained some sort of correlation between our classes. The posts we made were anything from class assignments, to reassertion that work would be collected, to critiquing work if necessary. Figure 3.1 is one example of our communication with each other.
Figure 3.1 A screenshot of Mr. Hall communicating with a student and me. I intervened and made sure a student turned in the work on a day that Mr. Hall would not be present.
Mr. Hall really took to Edmodo, using it often to ask the students to bring materials to class and reminding them of assignments. This was especially important for him as he only met with students every Monday and they would forget what needed to be done in one weeks time. Figure 3.2 shows Mr. Hall communicating with the class and asking them to come prepared the following week.
Figure 3.2 Student responses were quick and many at the start of Mr. Hall's inclusion into the class.
In addition to communicating with the class, we began to use Edmodo to keep track of behavior and progress of students in each other’s class. We did this one of two ways:
1. Through tracking posts.
We could see what the other was writing to the students and knew how those students were performing overall. For example, in Figure 3.3, a student tried to pass off a Google link as an assignment for Mr. Hall’s class. The same student was trying to get away with the bare minimum in my class as well. Seeing his carelessness in the photography class only reasserted the fact that this student was not taking the class seriously and was not working the way he should have been.
1. Through tracking posts.
We could see what the other was writing to the students and knew how those students were performing overall. For example, in Figure 3.3, a student tried to pass off a Google link as an assignment for Mr. Hall’s class. The same student was trying to get away with the bare minimum in my class as well. Seeing his carelessness in the photography class only reasserted the fact that this student was not taking the class seriously and was not working the way he should have been.
Figure 3.3 A screenshot of a posted assignment by a student trying not to do the assigned work.
2. Through the use of badges. Each of us would assign a badge to students who deserved it for performing certain tasks or achieving certain goals. Some received badges for their great performance, asking a good question, being a hard worker, being a participant, etc. This would show the other teacher, which students were active in the class and which were not. Also, those students who did not get any badges would be singled out as the students who were not participating or contributing enough to the class.
After awhile, receiving a badge became a sort of game with the students, which in turn made them more and more competitive, trying to do certain things in class and performing at what seemed at a higher level to receive more badges. Figure 3.4 and 3.5 are examples of two different students who received badges for a variety of reasons. Figure 3.6 is an example of a student who did not receive any badges as he was not working properly in class.
After awhile, receiving a badge became a sort of game with the students, which in turn made them more and more competitive, trying to do certain things in class and performing at what seemed at a higher level to receive more badges. Figure 3.4 and 3.5 are examples of two different students who received badges for a variety of reasons. Figure 3.6 is an example of a student who did not receive any badges as he was not working properly in class.
Figure 3.4 A screenshot of a student who received 5 badges for her exemplary work in class. I gave some of the badges and the photography teacher gave some.
Figure 3.5 A screenshot of a student with three badges. She did an overall good job, but did not really work as hard as she could have. There was no extra effort, therefore, she did not receive any extra badges.
Figure 3.6 A screenshot of a student who did not earn any badges.
EVALUATION:
The integration of a new teacher in the class was both a pleasure and a challenge. Having a new perspective in the class was a great addition, but maintaining organization, communication, and consistency definitely was something to be dealt with.
We utilized Edmodo greatly, conveying to each other what we expected from the class, the students, and setting up guidelines that were not only clear for all to see but consistent between teachers.
However, that was my impression. After a short interview with Mr. Hall, I managed to receive some feedback on Edmodo and his impression of it in accordance to the class. Mr. Hall said, “I thought Edmodo was really a neat tool. It reminded me very much of Facebook, which the kids are all so used to. But I have to say I really think it helped us out in the class as teachers. How else were we going to convince the class that we meant business and were going to track their work? Thanks for introducing me to it! If we teach this class again next year, I definitely think we need to use it again, especially the badges. Those worked out great!”
While Mr. Hall’s impression was very positive and encouraging, I also needed to get the students impressions as well. I administered a survey at the end of the year to the students to get their feedback. I decided to ask some general questions about the class to see if they mentioned Edmodo on their own or not, and then I asked more specific questions about Edmodo and its use in the class.
I asked the following questions:
1. What is your future area of interest? (Medicine, Law, business, technology, design, etc?)
2. Since this class is an elective, why did you pick this class over the others offered this year?
3. If you could, would you take this class again next year? Why?
4. What was your favorite thing about this class?
5. If anything, what would you definitely change about this class?
6. What would be one recommendation about this class for next year?
7. Did you like the introduction of Edmodo into the class?
8. Did you find Edmodo useful as part of the class? If yes, how? If no, why not?
9. Do you think you would have performed differently or at a different pace if Edmodo was not part of the class?
10. Did you consider the addition of Mr. Hall’s photography class an asset to the Digital Media class? If yes, why? If no, why not?
11. Did you feel Mr. Hall and I communicated with the class effectively and consistently about what was expected?
In order to properly analyze the responses I received from these questions, I had to first code the data and set up guidelines that would help validate my interpretation of the data.
· I wanted to focus on students’ responses, however, there were students who participated in the use of Edmodo far more than other students. So I went back and manually counted the number of times each student posted, responded, or turned in an assignment. I wanted to focus on responses from the students who actually took part in the use of Edmodo in a substantial way. I split the data into two groups, students who participated in activities on Edmodo over 40 times and those who participated less than 40 times over the span of one academic year. With a total of 24 students in the class, 19 of them participated over 40 times and 5 of them had less than 40 posts.
· I then set up criteria to look for in their responses. I thought about what words or phrases would demonstrate students’ acceptance of Edmodo as a viable tool for communication and its usefulness/importance as part of the class. I decided to look for the words Collaboration, Communication, Simple/Useful, and Share.
· After reading all the students responses, it was evident that Group 1, the group that used Edmodo more than 40 times found Edmodo far more useful than the group that did not utilize it as often.
The integration of a new teacher in the class was both a pleasure and a challenge. Having a new perspective in the class was a great addition, but maintaining organization, communication, and consistency definitely was something to be dealt with.
We utilized Edmodo greatly, conveying to each other what we expected from the class, the students, and setting up guidelines that were not only clear for all to see but consistent between teachers.
However, that was my impression. After a short interview with Mr. Hall, I managed to receive some feedback on Edmodo and his impression of it in accordance to the class. Mr. Hall said, “I thought Edmodo was really a neat tool. It reminded me very much of Facebook, which the kids are all so used to. But I have to say I really think it helped us out in the class as teachers. How else were we going to convince the class that we meant business and were going to track their work? Thanks for introducing me to it! If we teach this class again next year, I definitely think we need to use it again, especially the badges. Those worked out great!”
While Mr. Hall’s impression was very positive and encouraging, I also needed to get the students impressions as well. I administered a survey at the end of the year to the students to get their feedback. I decided to ask some general questions about the class to see if they mentioned Edmodo on their own or not, and then I asked more specific questions about Edmodo and its use in the class.
I asked the following questions:
1. What is your future area of interest? (Medicine, Law, business, technology, design, etc?)
2. Since this class is an elective, why did you pick this class over the others offered this year?
3. If you could, would you take this class again next year? Why?
4. What was your favorite thing about this class?
5. If anything, what would you definitely change about this class?
6. What would be one recommendation about this class for next year?
7. Did you like the introduction of Edmodo into the class?
8. Did you find Edmodo useful as part of the class? If yes, how? If no, why not?
9. Do you think you would have performed differently or at a different pace if Edmodo was not part of the class?
10. Did you consider the addition of Mr. Hall’s photography class an asset to the Digital Media class? If yes, why? If no, why not?
11. Did you feel Mr. Hall and I communicated with the class effectively and consistently about what was expected?
In order to properly analyze the responses I received from these questions, I had to first code the data and set up guidelines that would help validate my interpretation of the data.
· I wanted to focus on students’ responses, however, there were students who participated in the use of Edmodo far more than other students. So I went back and manually counted the number of times each student posted, responded, or turned in an assignment. I wanted to focus on responses from the students who actually took part in the use of Edmodo in a substantial way. I split the data into two groups, students who participated in activities on Edmodo over 40 times and those who participated less than 40 times over the span of one academic year. With a total of 24 students in the class, 19 of them participated over 40 times and 5 of them had less than 40 posts.
· I then set up criteria to look for in their responses. I thought about what words or phrases would demonstrate students’ acceptance of Edmodo as a viable tool for communication and its usefulness/importance as part of the class. I decided to look for the words Collaboration, Communication, Simple/Useful, and Share.
· After reading all the students responses, it was evident that Group 1, the group that used Edmodo more than 40 times found Edmodo far more useful than the group that did not utilize it as often.
Table 3.1 Student Impressions of the usefulness of Edmodo
Looking at the above responses in Table 3.1, it is clear that students overall saw Edmodo as a good tool for communication and also thought it was simple and useful. A little more than half the class also saw it as good way to share ideas and files. What was interesting was the word collaboration was not mentioned as much, only 42% of Group 1 mentioned it and 0% of Group 2 mentioned it. After further analysis, I hypothesized that the reason why it was not mentioned too much was because students of this age are not too familiar with the word, thus did not mention it. When I went back and read their responses again, I noticed that a few more described the idea of collaboration without actually using the word. They used phrases like “we worked together,” “we came up with the idea, “ etc. When analyzing those phrases in the context of the work we did in class, it is obvious that students were referring to collaboration. In the end, the number rose to 16/24 students who mentioned the idea of collaboration bringing the total percentage to 67% of students who saw Edmodo as a collaborative tool.
REFLECTION:
In Cycle Three, the use of Edmodo shifted from just teacher/student to teacher/teacher/student. The idea of using Edmodo as a communication tool and a place for collaboration in a class was expanded to include another teacher, administrator on the Edmodo group, thus adding another dimension to the Action Research.
If the new co-teacher did not join my class, I would not have explored the idea of adding more teachers to the group. The idea would probably have been something I explored at a later time, in a 4th or 5th cycle. During this process, I was able to see how Edmodo could serve as a pretty powerful tool not just between teacher and students, but between two teachers. It was used in many ways, as a tool for communication, collaboration, planning, organizing, keeping track of assignments and grades, and even functioned as a shared reward system by the teachers for the students.
In Cycle Three I wanted to see how effectively two teachers could manage a class with somewhat different views and ideas of where the class should be headed. It is not that we had a difference in opinion, but that we had different visions of what our end project would be. Therefore, the class content for both of us was quite different. Students actually felt like they were taking two different classes because of the content; however, we managed to maintain solidarity and not confuse students with different levels of expectations, rules, and guidelines. Edmodo really helped clarify and map out to students, and even the two teachers, what the class was about and what was truly expected of the students.
I was eager to see how Edmodo, what seemed like a simple social media site, could actually serve different purposes at different times in the class. At the start of Cycle One, we used it mainly for communication and assigning and turning in assignments; then during Cycle Two, it evolved into a collaborative tool for group work; in the end, during Cycle Three, it became more of a management tool between two teachers trying to maintain a consistent and organized class.
The end of Cycle Three marked the end of the Digital Media Class for this year and the end of my Action Research. However, this is anything but the end. It seemed to me that every time I thought this was all Edmodo had to offer, I would discover another aspect of it that added more depth and dimension to my research and opened up more possibilities of how students can learn and communicate with each other. I am eager for the start of next year as I am more accustomed with Edmodo and can jump in headfirst and begin to discover new and exciting ways it can contribute to student learning.
REFLECTION:
In Cycle Three, the use of Edmodo shifted from just teacher/student to teacher/teacher/student. The idea of using Edmodo as a communication tool and a place for collaboration in a class was expanded to include another teacher, administrator on the Edmodo group, thus adding another dimension to the Action Research.
If the new co-teacher did not join my class, I would not have explored the idea of adding more teachers to the group. The idea would probably have been something I explored at a later time, in a 4th or 5th cycle. During this process, I was able to see how Edmodo could serve as a pretty powerful tool not just between teacher and students, but between two teachers. It was used in many ways, as a tool for communication, collaboration, planning, organizing, keeping track of assignments and grades, and even functioned as a shared reward system by the teachers for the students.
In Cycle Three I wanted to see how effectively two teachers could manage a class with somewhat different views and ideas of where the class should be headed. It is not that we had a difference in opinion, but that we had different visions of what our end project would be. Therefore, the class content for both of us was quite different. Students actually felt like they were taking two different classes because of the content; however, we managed to maintain solidarity and not confuse students with different levels of expectations, rules, and guidelines. Edmodo really helped clarify and map out to students, and even the two teachers, what the class was about and what was truly expected of the students.
I was eager to see how Edmodo, what seemed like a simple social media site, could actually serve different purposes at different times in the class. At the start of Cycle One, we used it mainly for communication and assigning and turning in assignments; then during Cycle Two, it evolved into a collaborative tool for group work; in the end, during Cycle Three, it became more of a management tool between two teachers trying to maintain a consistent and organized class.
The end of Cycle Three marked the end of the Digital Media Class for this year and the end of my Action Research. However, this is anything but the end. It seemed to me that every time I thought this was all Edmodo had to offer, I would discover another aspect of it that added more depth and dimension to my research and opened up more possibilities of how students can learn and communicate with each other. I am eager for the start of next year as I am more accustomed with Edmodo and can jump in headfirst and begin to discover new and exciting ways it can contribute to student learning.