Angela Elkordy, Ph.D.
Research Statement - updated 2018
Introduction
Internet communications technologies (ICT), digital media and tools now impact almost all learners, directly or indirectly. In the recent past, learners accessed knowledge through a relatively narrow range of expected knowledge conduits such as teachers, printed materials and audio/visual media. In the past, an educator could successfully develop expertise and significant understanding of how students conceptualize and build knowledge because the mechanisms of knowledge acquisition and production were limited. Now, however, through digital media, learners have access to worlds of knowledge via ICT through which they pursue self-motivated and self-directed learning. Importantly, learners may now participate in myriad communities and cultures virtually, exposing them, not only to new ideas, viewpoints and perspectives, but also leading to new processes and models of knowledge co-construction through interactions. ICT and digital media not only change the methods of teaching and learning, they shift the paradigms, necessitating new understandings, leading to new possibilities and challenges to educators’ practices, much more than new tools or technologies in the recent past.
In the past five years, a distinctive conceptual shift has transformed the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) highly influential standards. This has necessitated a deep look at how educator preparation and in-service professional development support teachers’ learning of competencies in learning technologies in order to meet these new challenges. The changes may appear to be technological in manifestation, but they are actually ways of thinking and conceptual frameworks which require design solutions for meaningful professional development, to understand appropriate leadership supports and to motivate hardworking and overextended teachers.
My research interests are contextualized within this shifting context and within a social justice/equity framework: 1) designing innovative teaching and learning experiences for digital age learners 2) applications of instructional technologies in schools and associated teacher learning trajectories in pedagogical content knowledge, 3) design for the development of important skills and ways of thinking, e.g. creativity, metacognition, computational and design thinking, 4) instructional design for modes of learning, particularly online contexts 5) teacher inquiry. The foci of my research interests are the learning sciences, design, and technology, teacher learning and instructional design.
Current Research Projects
2017-2018
1) Teacher candidates’ preparedness for instructional technologies
Research: participant in a study to understand the instructional technologies approaches of teachers in the field both in general (phase 1: Future Readiness) and by National Louis University teacher candidates in particular (phase 2, 2017-2018).
2) Teacher Educator Technology Skills
Research: Leading a collaborative study looking at teacher educator technology skills, knowledge and competencies.
3) Maker Education and Design Thinking for Teachers
Research: Leading an on-going project studying teacher learning of STEM and Making concepts. Our work is primarily with elementary and middle school teachers. The goal of the study is to create a replicable model of teacher learning in STEM, design thinking as well as engineering concepts and practices to effectively implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Work in this area is conceived as a Researcher Practice Partnership, including schools and interdisciplinary faculty. For example, we collaborate with the Academy of Urban School Leaders, teachers working in urban, often high-needs contexts. A key concept of this work is to share low or no-cost activities that teachers may successfully implement in their under-resourced contexts.
This work was supported by funding from a Teacher Quality Program grant. Early-stage findings were reported at the Illinois Computing Educator (ICE) and ISTE annual conferences 2015- (publication, forthcoming).
Prior work
Future Readiness – Learning Technologies, (2016-2017)
The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of how teachers in the greater Chicago area are using learning technologies in support of the Future Ready initiative. Our team goal was to explore this topic to inform our educator preparation and advanced preparation programs. A mixed methods approach, using surveys, classroom observations and focus groups with teachers was implemented. Our preliminary findings indicate significant support and understanding of the importance of teaching 21st century skills, but notably, only 47% of respondents reported that schools were specifically assessing the attainment of these skills. Teachers reported concerns about the way in which instructional technologies were implemented and supported despite school emphasis on using these tools to prepare students, suggesting teachers need more personalized support.
This study is significant in that it seeks to provide regional support of the Office of Educational Technology’s (U.S. Department of Education) Future Ready initiative. The findings and ongoing research contribute field-based application knowledge in the development of innovative, new Learning Science programs that feature digital technologies as transformational tools associated with distinct pedagogical approaches.
Student voice and continuous improvement are essential aspects of my professional practices. To that end, I regularly use short surveys for student reflection and feedback in courses – particularly where an ongoing dialog is important for student success. Part of the instructional routine includes sharing non-identifying data in aggregate, for student reflection. It is particularly effective in research courses where initially, teachers may not have high self-efficacy.
My dissertation research studied the development and use of a digital badge learning intervention to promote student motivation and engagement for STEM learning in grades 7, 10 and 12. Teachers integrated the digital badges into their existing curricula in Math and Social Studies in an urban, high-needs student population comprised of 90%+ English as a Second Language learners and a high incidence of poverty (90%+ free and reduced lunch eligible). Using a mixed methods approach, I collected and analyzed data using surveys, focus groups and reviewed student artifacts of learning. I adapted the Students’ Adaptive Learning Engagement in Science Learning (SALES) (Velayutham, Aldridge, & Fraser, 2011) to measure student motivation (including constructs: self-efficacy, (learning) goal orientation, task value, self-regulation, learning behaviors). In particular, the premise that digital badges will affect participant motivation has been asserted, but “there is little research that examines how badges interact with student motivation” (Abramovich, Schunn, & Higashi, 2013, p. 218).
The study was conceptualized as the first phase of a design-based research project and was exploratory in nature. Through the study, my primary question was “How does the use of a digital badge intervention for STEM learning impact student 1) motivation and 2) learning behaviors and strategies, including self-regulation and persistence-at-task?” The Connected Learning model (Ito, M., Gutiérrez, Livingstone, Penuel, Rhodes, Salen, … Watkins, 2013) was used as a theoretical framework because students (digital age learners) were invited to integrate their out-of-school learning into this project.
Digital badge ecosystems may be used to scaffold, assess, recognize and communicate knowledge and skills acquisition as well as academic achievement in a variety of learning environments; badges may be particularly useful when measurements of learning present challenges, for example, in higher order thinking skills, specific skill sets or socio-emotional competencies. For the study, I designed and implemented three sets of related curriculum documents which outlined learning trajectories and assessments aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practices of “Analyzing and Interpreting Data” and “Obtaining, Evaluating and Communicating Information.” The badge series consist of five levels of increasing cognitive difficulty and in addition to alignment with NGSS practices and appropriate CCSS (Math and ELA) standards, they are aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy, NETS-S and P21 framework. The content of the digital badge learning trajectories focuses upon problem definition, creative problem solving, research and design thinking, which are essential for 21st century learning, or data and statistics. The learning trajectories are designed to incorporate activities and aspects which make game-based learning successful, such as challenge, choice, and individualized learning paths. In addition, I developed a practitioner implementation guide, several versions of the digital badge documents and a project web site.
To complete the assessments and successfully earn badges, learners provided evidence of mastery learning by creating products or artefacts of learning which are subsequently attached, electronically, to the digital badges. The purpose of the research was to collect empirical data of the impact of a digital badge intervention on student characteristics or attributes such motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), self-efficacy, engagement and persistence at task. In addition, the research seeks to inform instructional practice as well as to gain insight into teacher learning as well as leadership behaviors and decisions that support the implementation of the intervention.
The goal of this work was to inform educational practitioners and policy-makers in addressing authentic problems of practice–to enhance learning of STEM knowledge, concepts, and practices to all youth, particularly learners in underserved communities.
References
Abramovich, S., Schunn, C., & Higashi, R. M. (2013). Are badges useful in education?: It depends upon the type of badge and expertise of learner. Educational Technology Research and Development, 61(2), 217–232. doi:10.1007/s11423-013-9289-2
Ito, M., Gutiérrez, K., Livingstone, S., Penuel, B., Rhodes, J., Salen, K., … Watkins, S. C. (2013). Connected learning: An agenda for research and design (p. 99). Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub. Retrieved from http://dmlhub.net/sites/default/files/ConnectedLearning_report.pdf
Velayutham, S., Aldridge, J., & Fraser, B. (2011). Development and validation of an instrument to measure students’ motivation and self‐regulation in science learning. International Journal of Science Education, 33(15), 2159–2179. doi:10.1080/09500693.2010.541529