Having chosen a rabbit-hole, I am beginning to wonder what I have gotten myself into.
Selected text and imagery from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll (public domain).
Having chosen a rabbit-hole, I am beginning to wonder what I have gotten myself into.
Selected text and imagery from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll (public domain).
I decided to focus on my fellow teachers as the subject of my inquiry. In my region, classrooms are experiencing high levels of student dependency on educational technology while access to these tools is simultaneously being reduced. This has created a significant gap between the learning tasks teachers expect students to complete and what students are able to do without technological support.
As a result, teachers are increasingly required to bridge these gaps, often teaching well below grade-level expectations because students’ literacy skills — without the technological supports to which they have grown accustomed — are not where they should be at this stage. This places significant pressure on teachers, who must adapt instruction to a wide range of learner abilities while still meeting curricular expectations.
Completing the proposal planning table helped me organize my ideas and clarify the focus of my research. Initially, my thinking about educational technology in the classroom was broad, but working through the planning framework helped me narrow my topic to teacher burnout related to students’ dependency on technology and reduced access to these tools. Reviewing other students’ submissions provided guidance on the level of detail needed and how to structure the components of my plan. Informal conversations with colleagues also confirmed that this is an issue worth exploring.
Overall, this exercise helped me begin shaping a clear direction for my mini-proposal and provides a strong foundation for continuing to develop the study in the coming weeks.