Unit 1: Learning Theories and Instructional Design Models

Overview

As you are getting ready to implement your learning design solution and technology plan, you will need to present a case to your supervisors or the school/district board on why you think this solution is important to implement. One way to approach this is as a business case where you gather statistical data on similar or different technology implementations and if possible, the impact of these implementations in terms of improvement in student achievement or success. In this activity, you will do some statistical research for your own learning design solution and technology plan to help you build a case for its importance.

Performance outcomes

• Candidates will research statistics and survey data to assess the impact of technology implementations on student achievement.

What will you do?

1. Work as a cohort or in groups to research comparative studies on technology implementations in school districts, school networks, states or districts or globally. Look for implementations that are similar to and different from your own learning solution. 

2. Create a Discussion thread or folder on the shared Google Drive to collate all the data your team gathers.

3. Study the data your group has gathered and discuss any patterns that you see emerging. Shortlist the data sets that would help you build a case for your own learning solution or technology implementation plan or both. 

4. Organize the statistics in a spreadsheet as well as convert the data to data charts that will help present your case. Remember to be careful of not skewing data to prove your hypotheses, so build in measures for reliability and validity of your data gathering and analysis. 

5. Summarize your findings. Include a description of how you insured reliability and validity of your data analysis.

Report requirements

• Spreadsheet and data charts of the statistical analysis

• Summary of findings including data reliability and validity

Overview

As you are implementing your learning design solution and technology implementation plan at your school, it is always good to review the process through the lens of action research. Maintain a record of what works well, the challenges you encounter and the solutions you tried to overcome these challenges. These records will then be useful for you to compare with any research that exists to help you assess any places where you need to make modifications and finalize the case for implementing your learning solution and technology plan.

Performance outcomes

• Candidates will conduct action research on the initial implementation of the capstone project by reviewing relevant literature while implementing the learning solution technology plan.

What will you do?

1. Begin implementing the selected milestones or project tasks in your learning solution and technology implementation plan as part of your educational technology capstone project.

2. Keep a record of the tasks you complete, as a collection of artifacts. These could be planning documents, pictures, audio or video clips, etc. You will be submitting these as part of your final capstone project submission. Match the artifacts with the milestones as marked on your technology implementation plan and indicate the percentage of completion where possible. Approach this initial implementation phase as an action research phase where you are actively testing your learning solution in a controlled manner such as a pilot or focused group testing. 

3. Conduct a literature review of findings from research studies connected to your learning solution and technology implementation as part of this action research process.  Find and review at least five articles relevant to your own action research. For each article:

   • Highlight the key findings that you can later quote in your own report. Findings should include main claims, themes or concepts, and conclusions by the author.

   • Include a narrative of your personal opinion on the quality of logic, the strength of the evidence provided to support the claims, and if the conclusions make sense and provide direction for implementation or further research.

   • Create a bibliography in APA style with the name of the author, article title, and links to the abstract or summary page.

Report requirements

• Artifacts collected from first week of technology implementation

• Literature review of at least five relevant research articles

Notes

The artifacts submitted in this activity need not be the final submission for your capstone project, just an indication of your progress.