Semester+3+Portfolio+2009

Semester 3 Portfolio - Field Study #1

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=Field Study - Classroom Website=
 * [|http://fcweb.sd36.bc.ca/~dumouchelle_m/]**

=Field Study Report=

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=Research and Responses=

The Effect of Teacher Communication with Parents on Students' Mathematics Achievement

This study analyzes the impact of teacher-parent communication on students’ achievement in mathematics compared to students whose parents are not in regular communication with the teacher. I found this article particularly relevant to my own field study because my goal is to improve communication between myself, the students, and the parents. Moreover, my study group is two grade 8 mathematics classes. While my study aims to improve communication, the ultimate goal is that student achievement will increase as a result of increased communication. Sirvani’s study “showed that students in the experimental group significantly outperformed the students in the control group.” Test scores, homework completion, and exam scores were all significantly higher for students whose parents were in regular communication with the teacher. Parents monitored homework frequently and students became more motivated to succeed because parents were informed of grades twice a week. Sirvani’s study also showed that increased parent involvement had a similar positive impact for both student genders. Finally, the results of the study showed that “lower-performing students in the experimental group outperformed lower-performing students in the control group.” This is particularly intriguing considering that our school has a higher incidence of lower-performing students with learning disabilities. The evidence from Sirvani’s study simply validates my goal to increase communication with parents so they can become more involved in their sons or daughters education.

Parent-Friendly Web Pages

While this article focuses on the role librarians can have on parents’ web-literacy, Farmer suggests that having a parent-friendly web page at school will encourage parents to become less fearful of getting involved. She suggests that parents’ participation in PTA meetings or “parenting” workshops is lacking for various reasons from being intimidated to time constraints. Yet, having a web page provides parents with “interactive, professional information available anytime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even if parents don’t have access to the Internet at home, they usually can get their hands on a machine at work, in a public library, or at the school itself.” This article also provides a few common sense, but perhaps overlooked, suggestions about making web pages “parent-friendly.” The first impression on the home page of the website is the “hook” that draws the parents to the search further. Something as simple as an introduction like, “Welcome to Mr. Dumouchelle’s classroom website for students and parents” can make parents feel comfortable exploring the website. Farmer reminds web designers to enhance pages with images and graphics that will not cause web pages to download too slowly. Another suggestion that I will probably add to my classroom website is a “For Parents” section that provides helpful tips to become more involved in their sons or daughters education. In this section, I can upload a copy of the “homework check sheet” that students use in class to record homework marks. Something that I had recently added to my website that was also suggested in this article is a translation program for parents that primarily use a language other than English at home. I have added a link to Google Translator. Overall, this article simply reiterates some key website design considerations.

Helping Parents Help Their Children Succeed in School

In this article, Boers draws on results from a survey of 86 randomly selected teachers about one open-ended question: What do you hope for from the parents of your students in providing and effective and successful school experience? He analyzed the teachers’ responses and grouped them into nine related areas. Of particular interest for my field study is the suggestion that teachers want parents to initiate communication with the teacher. If this is the way I approached our relationship, I don’t think I would ever hear from a parent. However, my classroom website can encourage parents to make this brave first step towards initiating communication even though I am technically initiating the communication by raising awareness of the website. I find that parents feel encouraged to email me first when they have access to the website. The second suggestion by teachers is they want parents to “monitor their children’s homework.” While each student has a school agenda that they are supposed to write their homework in daily, parents rarely see the agenda. With my classroom website, parents can visit the “Homework” tab and see what has been assigned for work. Boers’ findings also suggest some helpful tips that I can include in the “For Parents” section of my website. I can suggest study habits that help “create a work ethic” like “establishing study times, study places, and study materials at home.” I can encourage parents to ask their children what they are doing in school and show that they value learning and education. Parents can help their children work on basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. While this article does not relate to the use of technology in education, it does provide a number of helpful suggestions for improving parent involvement in their child’s education.

Teacher Web Pages That Build Parent Partnerships

The author of this article is a parent who was discouraged by a teacher who seemed to want to avoid communication with parents. The author urges teachers to have teacher websites in order to foster a working relationship between teacher, student, and parent. As a parent, the author suggests that parents can be an asset to the teacher in increasing student achievement. While I completely agree with this, I know that most parents in our community are not nearly as dedicated and involved in their childrens’ education. The author, Johnson, suggests a variety of purposes for classroom websites including description of the course, outline of the units, information about individual units and projects, and information about progress of individual students.

Design vs. Content: A Study of Adolescent Girls’ Website Design Preferences

This article was vaguely insightful about the preferences of girls towards the design of various websites. I was hoping that a comparison of girls and boys preferences would be made. Instead, Agosto studies how girls can be divided into two different groups, feminine and masculine. She then compares the preferences between the feminine and masculine group. The results of the study reveal that the feminine group prefers websites that promote social connectivity. In other words, these girls wanted the ability to communicate with other people. I might infer that girls would use my website for communication with me about homework, deadlines, and projects. However, the masculine group prefers websites for the content that it contains.

=Capacities=

=My Learning Theory and Technology=

The underlying philosophical views of traditional and constructivist models are objectivist and constructivist theories of knowledge. **//Objectivists//** believe that knowledge and truth exist outside the mind of the individual and are, therefore, objective. Learners may be told about the world and be expected to replicate its content and structure in their thinking (Jonnassen, 1991). An instructional developer who uses traditional design models analyzes the conditions which bear on the instructional system (such as content, the learner, and the instructional setting) in preparation for achieving the intended learning outcomes. **//Constructivists//**, on the other hand, believe that knowledge and truth are constructed by the learner and do not exist outside of his mind (Duffy & Jonassen, 1992). Therefore, according to constructivists, learners construct their own knowledge by actively participating in the learning process. Constructivist instructional developers value collaboration, learner autonomy, generativity, reflectivity and active engagement. []

Constructivist models, on the other hand, are based on a set of philosophical assumptions and provide designers with a set of very general guidelines and principles that can facilitate designing a constructivist-learning environment. While several models embody constructivist concepts (e.g., cooperative learning, project-based or problem-based learning, reciprocal learning, etc.), all models utilize the following concepts, as these are central to the constructivist instructional design (Wilson & Cole, 1991):
 * 1) Learning is embedded in a rich authentic problem-solving environment;
 * 2) Authentic versus academic contexts for learning are provided;
 * 3) Provisions for learner control are incorporated;
 * 4) Errors are used as a mechanism to provide feedback on learners’ understanding; and
 * 5) Learning is embedded in social experience.

A New Learning Theory - Connectivism []

Social Constructivism