Classroom Action Research

Educational technology and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Proposals are now being sought for an edited collection tentatively titled Educational Technology and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Asking Questions about our Practices.

This book is intended to serve as a foundational text on educational technology and SoTL, and will aim to support both educators and SoTL scholars in (re)examining their practices through a scholarly lens. Chapter proposals should address one of the three sections of the book:

1. Theory: Chapters focus on different theories and/or how and why you have used them to investigate your practices with educational technology and why they may be useful to others going forward; each chapter should have a final section that offers suggestions/ideas for other SoTL questions that align effectively with the theory(ies);
2. Designing and Conducting SoTL on Educational Technology-supported practices: Meta-level reflections on your design and implementation of SoTL inquiry(/ies); rationale for methodologies chosen, how your study(ies) was/were designed and actioned, how results are situated in the context of existing literature, “mistakes” never reported, with personal reflection and recommendations for practitioner/scholars new to this topic;
3. Scholarly Teaching with Educational Technology: SoTL case studies (i.e. inquiring into your practice) of teaching with educational technology

Additional details can be found on this site and on the attached PDF.

Authors are invited to submit a chapter proposal as an email attachment in Word or PDF to [email protected] on or before June 10, 2022. When submitting, please include “Ed Tech SoTL” in the subject line. Authors will be notified by July 8, 2022 about the status of their proposals and will be sent chapter guidelines if accepted. Completed chapters are expected to be between 4,000-6,000 words, although shorter or longer chapters are negotiable. Full chapter drafts are expected to be submitted by January 31, 2023 with revisions completed after peer review and copy-editing.

Editors:
Lauren Hays, Ph.D.: Assistant Professor of Educational Technology, University of Central Missouri
Brett McCollum, Ph.D.: 3M National Teaching Fellow, Professor of Chemistry, and Board of Governors Teaching Chair in Educational Leadership at Mount Royal University
Janice Miller-Young, P.Eng., Ph.D.: Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta

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Lauren Hays, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Educational Technology

School of Professional Education and Leadership
University of Central Missouri

Lovinger 4107
Warrensburg, MO 64093
660.543.8615
http://www.ucmo.edu/edtech

Hello Classroom Action Researchers. You may be interested in presenting your work at the Action Research forum advertised below.it also has an online means of presenting. Best wishes.

THE ACTION RESEARCH NETWORK OF THE AMERICAS 10TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

CELEBRATING ARNA’S 10TH ANNIVERSARY!

CEDAR CITY, UTAH, USA | JUNE 28-30 2022

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Conference Theme
Expanding the Frontiers of ARNA: History, Possibilities, and New Actions
“I research because I notice things, take cognizance of them…I research so as to know what I do not yet know and to communicate and proclaim what I discover.” Paolo Freire
The 2022 ARNA Conference team invites submissions from individuals and groups who want to share their work using action research. We encourage proposals from all disciplines, and in languages other than English.
In keeping with the theme, we encourage proposals aligned with the following 4 Strands:

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)

Teacher Practitioner Research

Social Justice

Knowledge Democracy

» VIEW STRAND DESCRIPTIONS
NOTE: While we are planning on a face-to-face conference, we recognize that circumstances may prevent or limit in-person gatherings. Regardless, we will have an online component to the conference for those who cannot travel as well as for those who wish to present at a distance. In your Proposal, please indicate whether you wish to present in-person, online, or both.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE & DEADLINES

The Conference team for the 2022 Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) Conference in Cedar City, UT is calling for abstract submissions. To present at the conference your proposal will go through a double-blind peer review. A rubric is available on the ARNA 2022 website for reference as you prepare the proposal. Upon payment of registration fees, your accepted presentation at the conference will be confirmed.

November 15, 2021: Early Bird Abstract Submission

April 1, 2022: Final Deadline for Abstract Submission

April 30, 2022: All presenters confirmed

May 15, 2022: Presenters’ conference registrations due

TYPES OF PROPOSALS

Presentations will be organized in 90 minute blocks using the following formats:
“Round Table” Paper Presentation Sessions

Either 3 or 4 paper presentations. The Conference Committee will group papers and assign a Moderator for each session.

Presentation time for each paper and questions is as follows:

25 minutes for each paper and 5 minutes in between

15 minutes for each paper and 5 minutes in between

Panel Sessions

Each panel discussion can accommodate up to 5 people. Panelists should identify a Chair for the session.

A panel session is recommended for presentations based on research in progress or a more general thematic discussion of work in one or several related areas, such as discussions of community action research initiatives, publicizing action research, or action research in a particular field (e.g., medicine; social services).

Panel participants may want to distribute handouts online prior to the presentation.

Workshop Sessions

Workshop sessions will include facilitators and participants.

Unless otherwise approved, workshop sessions will be a 90 minute period (presenters can request more time in the proposal).

The workshop session should provide an interactive learning experience.

The proposal will outline learning outcomes, strategies for workshop engagement, and workshop capacity.

Poster Sessions

Two poster sessions of 90 minutes each will be held on Wednesday and Thursday.

Poster proposals will include a visual summary of the presenter’s study that includes the Problem/Concern, Research Question(s), Method, Findings, and Conclusions and Next Steps.

Presentations can use physical or electronic media. Physical posters should not exceed dimensions of 3’ x 5’.

GENERAL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Proposals will be submitted using this Google Form
Read the Submission Reviewer’s Rubric
PLEASE NOTE: Paper Presentations may be proposed individually or as a group. If the submission is a proposal from a group, then a contact member of the group should be identified. Sessions can be presented in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French. Preferred language should be indicated in the submission. A session organizer who is submitting but not presenting may act as chair and/or discussant.
Paper proposals will follow this general format:

Briefly outline the research and action aims of your work and the presentation

Explain what has been done to achieve the aims of the action and/or research (e.g., methodology, theoretical framework and methods) and the progress made (or goals you have set) towards research and action aims (e.g., findings, results, outputs, program changes, community action changes, events, or perspective changes)

Panel proposals should first describe research in progress or more general thematic discussions of work in one particular area or several. The proposal will then describe how the panel will be structured, identify any target participant group, and describe how the audience will be included for questions.
Workshop proposals should describe the overall aims/objectives of the workshop; the structure of the workshop (including a general flow of activities); workshop capacity and the target participant group (ex. Community Based Organizations, New Action Researchers, educators/teachers), if it is not designed for a general audience of action-researchers.
Poster Proposals should provide an Abstract of the project or research conducted, then Problem/Concern, Research Question(s), Method, Findings, and Conclusions and Next Steps.
Incomplete Proposals will be returned to the submitter!

Please remember to use the form to submit your proposal, and read the rubric that will be used to review your submission.

Thank you!

Working memory and its basic components and how that informs what we do in the classroom.
Educational psychologist Peter Doolittle
It allows us to store some immediate experiences and a little bit of knowledge.
• It allows us to reach back into our long-term memory and pull some of that in as we need it, mixes it, processes it in light of whatever our current goal is. Now the current goal isn't something like, I want to be president or the best surfer in the world. It's more mundane. I'd like that cookie, or I need to figure out how to get into my hotel room. Now working memory capacity is our ability to leverage that, our ability to take what we know and what we can hang onto and leverage it in ways that allow us to satisfy our current goal.
• People with high working memory capacity tend to be good storytellers. They tend to solve and do well on standardized tests, however important that is. They're able to have high levels of writing ability. They're also able to reason at high levels.
• Now, a central issue with working memory is that it's limited. It's limited in capacity, limited in duration, limited in focus. We tend to remember about four things. Okay. Now we can remember those four things for about 10 to 20 seconds unless we do something with it, unless we process it, unless we apply it to something, unless we talk to somebody about it.
• We need to realize that working memory has a limited capacity, and that working memory capacity itself is how we negotiate that. We negotiate that through strategies.
• We need to process what's going on the moment it happens, not 10 minutes later, not a week later, at the moment. So we need to think about, well, do I agree with him? What's missing? What would I like to know? Do I agree with the assumptions? How can I apply this in my life? It's a way of processing what's going on so that we can use it later. Now we also need to repeat it. We need to practice. So we need to think about it here. In between, we want to talk to people about it. We're going to write it down, and when you get home, pull out those notes and think about them and end up practicing over time. Practice for some reason became a very negative thing. It's very positive.
• We want to take all of our existence and wrap it around that new knowledge and make all of these connections and it becomes more meaningful.
• We also want to use imagery. We are built for images. We need to take advantage of that. Think about things in images, write things down that way.
• We are meaning-making machines. It's what we do. We try to make meaning out of everything that happens to us. Organization helps, so we need to structure what we're doing in ways that make sense. If we are providing knowledge and experience, we need to structure that.
• And the last one is support. We all started as novices. Everything we do is an approximation of sophistication. We should expect it to change over time. We have to support that. The support may come in asking people questions, giving them a sheet of paper that has an organizational chart on it or has some guiding images, but we need to support it.
• the take-home message from a working memory capacity standpoint is this: what we process, we learn. If we're not processing life, we're not living it.

Hello Classtoom Action Research friends. I am planning to present a Zoom session on Classroom Action Research for members of this group. What aspects about Classroom Action Research would you think would be great to talk about? Would you be interested in talking briefly about your Classroom Action Research? Let me know by posting here.

The Theory Behind Action Research Practice
Action research is grounded in a constructivist paradigm that proposes that people acquire knowledge by constructing it on the basis of prior knowledge and experience. The major purpose of action research is to gain greater clarity and understanding of a question, problem, or issue rather than determine objective, generalizable truths explaining aspects of human conduct.
Action Research
Ernest T. Stringer; Alfredo Ortiz Aragón (p.43)

Now that we are assessing on-line it's worth reflecting about the varied questions you can ask students.
Asking Questions: Six Types
Both asking and answering questions are important parts of effective learning and teaching. The types of questions you ask should capture the students’ attention, arouse their curiosity, reinforce key points, and encourage active learning. Here is a list of question types based on Benjamin Bloom’s six cognitive levels:

Knowledge
(identification and recall of information):
“Who, what, when, where, how …?”
“Describe

Comprehension
(organization and selection of facts and ideas):
“Retell …”
"Summarize …"

Application
(use of facts, rules and principles):
“How is … an example of …?”
“How is … related to …?”
“Why is … significant?

Analysis
(separation of a whole into component parts):
“What are the parts or features of …?”
“Classify … according to …”
“Outline/diagram …”
“How does … compare/contrast with …?”
“What evidence can you list for …?”

Synthesis
(combination of ideas to form a new whole):
“What would you predict/infer from …?”
“What ideas can you add to …?”
“How would you create/design a new …?”
“What might happen if you combined …?”
“What solutions would you suggest for …?”

Evaluation
(development of opinions, judgments, or decisions):
“Do you agree …?”
“What do you think about …?”
“What is the most important …?”
“Place the following in order of priority …”
“How would you decide about …?”
“What criteria would you use to assess …?

Reference

Asking Questions: Six Types | Centre for Teaching Excellence Both asking and answering questions are important parts of effective learning and teaching. The types of questions you ask should capture the students’ attention, arouse their curiosity, reinforce key points, and encourage active learning. Here is a list of question types based on Benjamin Bloom.....

How to create a culture that values student questions.

Teaching Students How to Ask Productive Questions Improve engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking by teaching students the process of asking insightful questions.

Will reducing class size provide benefits to improving learning? https://evidenceforlearning.org.au/toolkit/reducing-class-size/

Small reductions in class size (for example, from 30 to 25 students) are unlikely to be cost-effective relative to other strategies.

Reducing class sizes for younger children may provide longer term benefits.

Smaller classes only impact upon learning if the reduced numbers allow teachers to teach differently. Have you considered how you will adjust your teaching strategies and what professional development will be required?

The gains from smaller class sizes are likely to come from the increased flexibility for organising learners and the quality and quantity of feedback the students receive (see Feedback). Have you considered how you will organise learning in smaller classes and how you will improve feedback to your students?

As an alternative to reducing class sizes, have you considered changing the way you deploy staff (both teachers and teaching assistants) so that teachers can work more intensively with smaller groups

Reducing class size What is it? As the size of a class or teaching group gets smaller it is suggested that the range of approaches a teacher can employ and the amount of attention each student will receive will increase, improving outcomes for students. How effective is it? Reducing class size appears to result in arou...

ARE YOU WORKING ON AN ACTION RESEARCH IDEA?

Educational Action Research is seeking articles that explore the contribution of action research to teaching or learning practice, orthe student experience, in higher education. In this respect, there would be a clear link to SoTL. We are particularly interested in articles that push at the boundaries of HE pedagogy, such as students as partners, inter-disciplinary challenges, and articlesthat show the impact of action research on a variety of stakeholders. We would welcome specific accounts of action research studies, and studies which are about action research and its impact. Methodological rigour in action research and rich reflective insightswill be more important than scale, which can be local or cross-institutional. We would particularly welcome international contributions. For further guidance, we would draw attention to the article by Convery & Townsend (2018). Submissions will be welcomefrom tertiary education and, while we are looking for submissions that focus on the development of practice within the sector, we would encourage submissions that challenge and question established practices as well.

Convery, A. & Townsend, A. (2018) Action research update: why do articles get rejected from EARJ? Educational Action Research, 26(4) 503-512

Process and time scales

In the first instance, please send a 500 word abstract to the journal office [email protected] (copying in LA and LN) no later than 12 noon on Thursday 25 April 2019. Decisions will be notified by 23rd May 2019. Colleagues who have been invited to submit full papers should do so by 12 September 2019, when they will be sent outfor peer review.

Action Research at its best. La Trobe University academics engaged in the process. A range of questions are being explored.

1. How does the use of 'small group feedback' affect student participation?
2. What happens to students' undertaking set class readings when I implement small assessment activities?
3. What happens to student engagement when I emphasise the use of student learning support services?
4.What happens to students' accuracy in tests when I introduce short peer reviewed writing excercises to class.

Just preparing for an Action Research workshop for university academics. Here are a range of steps we will be using to eventually get a paper published per action group. Keen to know how useful this plan is for your action research.

Stages of Action Research
Stage One: Decide on need/issue/problem in your classroom and which, if addressed, could enhance learning in your classroom.

Stage Two: Identify some causes of the problem (need). What are some of the variables that affect student learning which you can change to address the problem? Peer relationships, student self-concept, motivation to learn, seating arrangements, lesson pacing, patterns of classroom interactions, content, classroom management, teaching style, resources, feedback.

Stage Three: Brainstorm a range of possible practical solutions to the problem, to address the problem and the cause(s).
Examples: Implement peer feedback. Start the class with an open ended question that gets the students curious about the topic. Start class with 5 quick poll questions about the readings to establish their understandings. Last 5 minutes get students to write down their 3 takeaways and a question that they still have and share. Leverage student hand held devices to increase in-class engagement.

Stage Four: From the range of possible practical solutions decide one of the solutions to the problems, perhaps what you consider to be the most suitable or best solution to the problem that is practical for you to implement in your context and time frame.

Stage Five: Identify the specific research question and ask your colleagues to review it.
Underline the key specific words that will help you locate the literature that is relevant to your study. E.g. if x is the variable and y is the condition you wish to change then this may be the way you can express your question.
What happens to ‘y’ when I implement ‘x’? How does the use of ‘x’ affect ‘y’ in our first year cohort? How is ‘y’ affected when I assign ‘x’. How can I use ‘x’ to improve ‘y’. How can we improve ‘y’ through ‘x’. What happens to ‘y’ when I emphasize ‘x’?

Stage Six: Undertake a literature search. Distinguish what has been done. Understand the structure of the problem, discover other variables that may be causing the problem, identify the methodologies and research approaches used by others. Identify how your issue and/or solution is different to those described in the literature.

Stage Seven: Identify ‘success criteria’ by which you will be able to judge whether the solution has worked to solve the problem,

Stage Eight: Collect baseline data– consult with your collaborators. What baseline data you will collect. Who will collect the data and when?

Stage Nine: Identify ‘the type of methodology you will use: Quantitative, qualitative, both – consult with your collaborators. Who will collect the data and when?

Stage Ten: Identify the procedures you will follow and your time frame – consult with your collaborators

Stage Eleven: Seek Ethics approval.

Stage Twelve : Put the plan into action; monitor, adjust and evaluate what is taking place.

Stage Thirteen : Analysis of the results – use collaborators – validity and reliability of interpretations are important. There is potential for bias if only you collect and interpret the data.

Stage Fourteen: Evaluate the outcome to see how well it has addressed and solved the problem or need, using the success criteria identified

Stage Fifteen: Review and plan what needs to be done in light of the evaluation.

Stage Sixteen: Write up your plan.
• Define your topic – research question- why is this important?
• Background – context, rationale, background to the issue that produced the intervention
• Resources-collaborators, literature review
• Justification for the intervention
• Methodology- what was the research plan? What data was collected by whom? What methods were used
• Reliability
and validity discussed in collecting and analyzing the data
• Findings
• Discussion of findings
• What did you learn? What next? How can the data be useful to others?

How do we build understanding in the classroom and make thinking visible? A great resource from 'Making Thinking Visible'.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2001489853235993&id=232080106843652

Because not everyone has fancy color printers, this version of the understanding map prints well both in color and black and white/grayscale. This link should also allow you to download a higher resolution of the map: https://spark.adobe.com/post/TVpOWheVhrUZd/