Post date: Sep 29, 2016 3:21:10 PM
When talking about educational technology research, what normally comes to mind is software and hardware to help students in knowledge acquisition, literacy and numeracy, or as with my research, support students’ collaboration and higher level thinking skills. The more work we do with students and the more studies we run I am getting more and more interested in two other aspects that are at the boundaries of such learning activities, mainly motivation and evaluation.
If, to begin with, a student is not motivated to engage with an activity, then no technology no matter how great will be of any use, unless the use of the technology becomes the motivation. From this perspective, I started getting more interested in the idea of exploring the potential role of technology in increasing students’ motivation and engagement. That is, motivation/engagement becomes the key (or at least a key) design objective with learning happening as a result of students engagement, rather designing for learning, hoping that student will be engaged enough to benefit from the technology at hand?
On the other end, evaluating the outcome of any technology intervention, or any innovative teaching approach, has always been a challenge for teachers and researchers. Post-test and pre-test measures are fine for tasks that only require memorising information or basic numeracy/literacy skills, but not when developing skills such as collaboration, critical thinking and reflection. Worries about students’ attainments in standardized assessments is, in many cases, a limiting factor to creativity in teaching or to adoption of new technologies in the classroom. From this perspective, I am also getting interested in the idea of exploring the role technology can play in recognizing and evidencing students’ development when engaging in such activities.
If students are motivated and engaged in a learning activity, and teachers are freed from the burden of having to worry about assessment and evaluation, then…well, anything can happen!
While my current focus on commissioning in education can play a significant role in motivating students by engaging in activities that are more relevant, and my work on tools to help teachers recognize and evidence students development is showing promising results, I am still curious to look into ways were technology can play a more direct role at both ends of learning activities: motivation and evaluation. Just thinking!