Chapter 2: Review of the Literature
When I started teaching 7th grade science the technology in my classroom consisted of 7 desktop computers placed at each of the 7 lab stations. I had access to an ELMO projector that needed to be shared among 6 teachers. I taught by standing in the front of the room and explaining concepts and then the students would get into lab groups and do experiments based on the content taught. If the students had an assignment where they worked on a computer, they needed to work in groups. There was a lot of collaboration due to the sharing of the technology, but I was not able to personalize the learning experience for my students. According to representatives from the Connecticut Board of Education, the Connecticut Associations of Public School Superintendents, the Connecticut Association of Schools and the Regional Education Services Centers, a personalized learning classroom is one where the “instruction is paced to the learning needs, tailored to the learning preferences, and the specific interests of different learners” (Zmuda &Ullman, n.d., p.5). In A Look to the Future: Personalized Learning in Connecticut the representatives of these committees found that there are six roles of a teacher in a personalized classroom which are to be a “Curriculum Planner”, “Classroom Facilitator and Coach”, “Assessor”, “Advisor”, “Connector”, and “Communicator” (Zmuda &Ullman, n.d., p.5). The only personalization I did in my first few years of teaching was to accommodate my special education and 504 students according to their IEP’s which usually consisted of assessment modifications and/or preferential seating, I was not taking on any of the roles suggested for a teacher in a personalized classroom.
Fast forward to today, I am in my 4th year teaching with 1:1 iPad usage and I now have a smartboard instead of an ELMO Projector. The first two years of iPad implementation was rough. I did not see the benefits of iPads besides using less paper. I was spending hours upon hours trying to design lessons that incorporated the use of the iPad and feeling overwhelmed. I felt the administration was pressuring me to use the iPad more than I felt ready to. Then things start to change in my 3rd year of 1:1 devices, I noticed the way I was teaching was evolving. I was spending less time in the front of the room talking. I had amassed a great deal of online resources that were assisting me in my teaching and engaging my students. I was beginning to take on the roles of a personalized teacher. I had turned my entire PowerPoint collection into interactive Nearpod presentations. The Nearpod app alone allowed me to take on the roles of “assessor”, “advisor”, “connector”, and “communicator” with ease. Through the Nearpod app I was able to upload my PowerPoints (no need to retype) and I also added additional slides that asked the students to draw, answer questions, and watch videos all while capturing everything they did on their iPads and making it available to me on my iPad for future reference. When a multiple choice question is asked through Nearpod it immediately produces and projects to the class a pie chart of how many students got the answer right or wrong so as a class we can see in real time how the class is performing. If I see 75% of the class got the answer wrong I can immediately go over the content again to clarify any confusion. Nearpod also allows the teacher to share an answer or a drawing of a student to use as a model and that student’s work will show up on all of the student’s iPads. Nearpod also makes a report for me to look through after class. I found I was using these reports to guide my teaching. I also found that I was using this Nearpod app to personalize my teaching. I would send the Nearpod presentation I did in class to any student I saw struggle with the content through their Google Classroom. I would make the Nearpod presentation available to my students that were absent and missed the lesson. I was also able to identify students that were struggling to understand the content right at the beginning of the unit and could intervene immediately and did not have to wait for them to approach me or wait for a failing assessment grade to realize they were confused and needed help. Not only was Nearpod improving my student’s achievement, but it was much more engaging than my old PowerPoints. Many times students are so proud of their answer or drawing they submit through Nearpod that they beg for me to share theirs with the class. Sometimes it becomes a competition to have the best answer or drawing. A study was done by Stacy Delacruz on using Nearpod in elementary guided reading groups and she found that the students were more “motivated” and “engaged using the app because they were able to remember their vocabulary words and were able to explain them” (Kaur, Koval, & Chaney, 2017, p.116). I too was seeing the benefits of the Nearpod app in my student’s overall science achievement as well as their engagement.
In Continued Progress Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning the key to any “personalized learning strategy is using data-specifically data from multiple sources…to understand student progress and inform personalized learning goals that are discussed with each student (Pane, Steiner, Baird, & Hamilton, 2015,p.16). I found the more apps I was using in my science class the more data I was receiving. Not only were these apps providing me with immediate feedback but they were providing the students with immediate feedback as well. According to the White Paper on Personalized learning it is essential that “the student and the teacher regularly discuss feedback, progress, and the next steps as both demonstrate commitment to learning and growth” (Zmuda & Ullman, n.d.). Research done by Hayden, Hawkins, Dunne, Kimener, & McCoy found that “students with emotional and behavioral disorders benefit from tasks that provide immediate feedback (Quick, 2014). The apps that I was using in the classroom were really “formative” assessments helping me improve my teaching through personalization while keeping all of my students engaged and informed on their own individual progress.
One of the areas I focused on in my research that I believed was truly improving my students academic performance through iPad use was gaming. I have developed close to 100 games using the iPad for learning science content. The games I have been using the past few years are Quizizz, Quizlet Live, and Kahoot. Recently I discovered a new and even more engaging game called Gimkit. Gimkit is an online game created by high school sophomore Josh Feinsilber that is played together as a class. The Gimkit gaming screen projected in the front of the room shows the top performers as well as what each student is currently buying in the Gimkit store. The students receive the questions on their iPad screens. As the students answer questions correctly they amass money. The money is used to buy different things in the game’s store. The students can buy the multiplier which means each of their questions is worth more money. They can buy insurance so they don’t lose as much money per question. They can buy music which blasts throughout the classroom. The students can also spend their earnings to change the color scheme. When the students play Gimkit everyone is smiling and engaged. An Education World article provided 5 reasons we as educators should use games in the classroom and they were that “students learn through the process of playing the game”, “games provide a context for engaging practice”, through games, students can learn a variety of important skills” such as sportsmanship and teamwork, “while playing games, students develop a variety of connections with the content and can form positive memories of learning” and “games grab students’ attention and actively engage them” (Education world, 2013).
I had played games before the iPad like jeopardy but they were very ineffective. When playing games without the iPad only the student answering the question was truly engaged. I remember having a hard time with classroom management during these Jeopardy games because I was busy reading the question to the students whose turn it was and all the other students would be talking. Now when we play games on the iPad every student is playing at the same time. The iPad is immediately telling the student if they got the answer right or wrong. They can track where they are in comparison to the whole class. I try to only put the top five scorers on the board so no student feels embarrassed. In the article Active Learning: Educational Experiences Enhanced Through Technology-Driven Active Game Play, research was conducted on elementary school students in a nutrition class where half the students were taught with video games and the other half were taught conventionally it was found that “the children instructed in the video game condition scored better on the nutritional knowledge test, acquired more knowledge about nutritional balance of main meals and were able to identify different categories of foods significantly better than those in the conventional teaching group” (Mellecker, Witherspoon, & Watterson, 2013). I too was seeing similar benefits. Not only were my science games showing promise in the classroom they were easy for me to place on Google Classroom so that my students who are struggling with content can practice as many times as they would like. In the article Blended 2.0 Shifts Learning the author states “with personalization, students can review the content and take assessments again until they show mastery” (Daddona, 2016). These games I provide on Google Classroom are allowing students the chance to master the content at their own pace in an engaging manner. To personalize even further, the games can use the text to speech feature which will read the students the questions and answers while they are practicing them which is very beneficial to my students who have dyslexia or who are not yet reading at grade level. Science can be a very difficult class for students with reading disabilities and in the past before iPad use these were the students who would struggle so much that many of them would give up. Now with the text to speech function in addition to the games on the iPad, many of these students are feeling more included in the class and are achieving at grade level in science at a higher rate. Additionally, in the article Using a Multicomponent Multimedia Shared Story Intervention with an iPad to Teach Content Picture Vocabulary to Students with Developmental Disabilities the researchers have found that mobile devices such as iPads “are easily adapted to differentiate instruction” and “are less stigmatizing compared to other forms of assistive technology, and provide easy access due to their portability and features” (Rivera, Hudson, Weiss, & Zambone, 2017).
In the article Using a mobile gaming app to enhance accounting education the authors discussed a study done by Connolly, Boyle, MacArthur, Hainey & Boyle that “found that playing computer games was linked to positive knowledge acquisition, perceptual and cognitive skills, behavioral change, affective and motivational outcomes, and physiological outcomes”(Seow & Wong, 2016). This same study concluded that “mobile gaming apps possess appealing designs which are attractive to learners and thus heighten their replay value, translating into better learning outcomes (Seow & Wong, 2016). Also it has been found that when students are gaming dopamine which “plays a role in motor control, arousal, motivation, and reinforcement” is released (David, 2016). This release of dopamine compels the player of the game to keep playing to increase their scores. The more my students play the science games I provide to them, the more they understand the content and therefore achieve at a higher level in science class.
One aspect of 1:1 devices in the classroom I feel I must touch on is appropriate use of the iPad in school. I have many students who are diagnosed with ADHD related disorders and having an iPad at their fingertips can lead to all sorts of distractions for them. I have witnessed these students having multiple game tabs on the tops of their screens. I have observed them double screening the assignment while playing a game on the other half of the screen. In Screen media use and ADHD-related behaviors: Four decades of research the authors state that “research has shown that children who display ADHD-related behaviors typically experience low baseline arousal levels. This is often experienced as an unpleasant physiological state, and to alleviate this state, children with ADHD-related behaviors tend to seek out and engage in arousing activities. Media use, particularly violent or fast paced media, may serve as a sufficiently arousing activity” (Beyans, Valkenberg, & Piotrowski, 2018). Many of these student’s parents have told me that they have found they need to take the iPad away from their child when they are at home because they are unable to control their iPad use. In fact, a study done by Willcocks and Redmond found that the most negative aspect of technology in the classroom was that “parents and students both reported concerns about off-task behaviors or the increased opportunity for distraction, particularly in the areas of gaming and social networking” (Blikstad-Balas & Davies, 2017). Thankfully two years ago our school placed Apple Classroom on all of our student’s iPads. This program allows me to watch all of my students screens at the same time. It also allows me to lock an individual student’s iPad if they are going to websites other than the one I instructed. Additionally, it permits me to lock the entire class’s screens if I need my student’s attention to give a direction or show them something in the classroom. Apple Classroom also allows me to lock my students into a specific website if I am concerned about them roaming around the internet, that way they are forced to only work on the website I have instructed them to use. One of the reasons it is so important to make sure the students are staying on the appropriate screen is that “a growing pile of studies finds that the more students multitask, the lower their grades” (Berdik, 2018). There was also a study done by Dominguez Hill researchers a few years ago which showed how prevalent multitasking has become for students. Researchers in this study “watched hundreds of middle school, high school, and university students” and found that “the students stayed with a single task for less than six minutes on average before switching to something else” (Berdik, 2018). If we as teachers are only getting our students to focus on a task at hand for 6 minutes we need to get control of this technology and Apple Classroom has been effective way to fix this issue. While this program allows me to have total control of my students iPads in the classroom it does not work when they are home doing their homework. There is another promising app called iselfcontrol that I learned about when reading Designing an iPad App to Monitor and Improve Classroom Behavior for Children with ADHD: iSelfControl Feasibility and Pilot Studies which has shown to be an effective tool keeping ADHD students on task and self-reflecting. In the article the authors stated that their study showed 70% of the students indicted that the iselfcontrol app was helpful (Schuck, Emmerson, Ziv, Collins, Arastoo, Warschauer, Crinella, & Lakes, 2016). This app has the students reflect every 30 minutes and earn points. The app also produces a chart of the students on task behavior. I could envision this app being used teachers but also by parents at home to keep their children’s studies on track with minimal distractions.
There has been some research done on iPad use for learning science content. Studies have shown very promising results when it comes to iPad use increasing achievement with younger students in science. The study in Mobile Devices and Apps as Scaffolds to Science Learning in the Primary Classroom focused on 3 to 5 year old low-income preschoolers and it was found that when iPad instruction was integrated in learning science concepts there was significant score improvement between pre and post-test scores. Even more impressive was that the score increase was shown with ELL’s, children with special needs, and non-ELL students that did not have special needs. Also the score increase was shown equally with boys and girls (Lee & Tu, 2016). In Mobile Devices and Apps as Scaffolds to Science Learning in the Primary Classroom the authors researched how mobile apps can scaffold science learning in elementary school. The study researched the Okiwibook app which is designed for 7-12 year olds and consists of an optional quiz, a range of experiments, and an optional video showing how to set up and complete each experiment. The data from this research showed the apps” were very effective for helping students organize, plan, and execute their experiments with minimal teacher support or direct intervention”(Falloon, 2017).
There has been a good amount of research done on how the iPad engages student with special needs, how gaming increases the motivation and academic performance of students, and how personalization of a student’s education leads to increased success. I have tried to incorporate all three of these aspects together in my study to show how the 1:1 iPad use in my science classroom has led to increased academic achievement. My research was conducted during my Plate Tectonics Unit. I will include my pre-test which was given through the Edulastic website and my summative test scores after using the iPad to personalize learning. I will also include data showing which apps the students feel are most beneficial to their learning and why they feel those apps helped them or did not help them to learn the science content. I will also include student feedback on iPad distractions.
References
Berdik, C. (2018). Dealing with Digital Distractions: Solutions Run the gamut-from Tech Breaks to tech Take-overs. Tech Directions, 78(4), 13-15. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ecsu.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&sid=a2eb3817-9cb4-4771-a158-c6588db57a33%40sdc-v-sessmgr02
Beyans, I., Valkenburg, P.M., & Piotrowski, J.T. (2018). Screen media use and ADHD-related behaviors: Four decades of research. PNAS Proceeding of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 115(40) 9875-9881.
Blikstad-Balas, M., & Davies, C. (2017). Assessing the educational value of one-to-one devices: have we been asking the right questions? Oxford Review of Education, 43(3), 311-331. https://doi-org.ecsu.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/03054985.2017.1305045.
Daddona, P. (2016). Blended 2.0 Shifts Learning. Retrieved from https://districtadministration.com/blended-2-0-shifts-learning-in-schools/
David L. (2016). Dopamine, Games, and Motivation. Learning Theories. Retrieved from https://www.learning-theories.com/dopamine-games-motivation.html
Educationworld. (2013). Five Reasons to Use Games in the Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/reasons-to-play-games-in-the-classroom.shtml
Falloon, G. (2017). Mobile Devices and Apps as Scaffolds to Science Learning in the Primary Classroom. Journal of Science Education & Technology, 26(6), 613–628. https://doi-org.ecsu.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10956-017-9702-4.
Kaur, D., Koval, A., & Chaney, H. (2017). Potential of using Ipads as a supplement to teach math to students with learning disabilities. International Journal of Research in Education and Science (IJRES), 3(1), 114-121.
Lee, L., & Tu, X. (2016). Digital Media for Low-Income Preschoolers’ Effective Science Learning: A Study of iPad Instructions with a Social Development Approach. Computers in the Schools, 33(4), 239-252. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ecsu.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=a2eb3817-9cb4-4771-a158-c6588db57a33%40sdc-v-sessmgr02
Mellecker, R., Witherspoon, L., & Watterson, T. (2013). Active Learning: Educational Experiences Enhanced Through Technology-Driven Active Game Play. The Journal of Educational Research, 106(5), 352-359.
Pane, J.F., Steiner, E.D., Baird, M>D>, & Hamilton, L.S. (2015). Continued Progress Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1365.html
Quick, N. (2014) Using iPads to Improve Academic Gains for Students with Disabilities. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1005&context=eatc;Using
Rivera, C.J., Hudson, M.E., Weiss, S.L., & Zambone, A.,(2017). Using a Multicomponent Multimedia Shared Story Intervention with an iPad to Teach Content Picture Vocabulary to Students with Developmental Disabilities. Education and Treatment of Children, 40(3), 327-352.
Schuck, S., Emmerson, N., Ziv, H., Collins, P., Arastoo, S., Warschauer, M., & Lakes, K. (2016). Designing an iPad App to Monitor and Improve Classroom Behavior for Children with ADHD: iSelfControl Feasibility and Pilot Studies. PLoS ONE, 11(10), 1–13. https://doi-org.ecsu.idm.oclc.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164229.
Seow P.S. & Wong, S. P.(2016) Using a mobile gaming app to enhance accounting education. Journal of Education for Business, 91, (8), 434-439.
Zmuda, A. & Ullman, D. (N.D.) A Look to the Future: Personalized Learning in Connecticut. Retrieved from https://www.capss.org/uploaded/2014_Redesign/Educational_Transformation/CAPSS_Whitepaper_FINAL_12-23-14_copy_2.pdf