Key Concept 6: Educational Technology Research

In ED 776 with Dr. McGinn we worked as a collaborative group to select a topic of interest in educational technology and complete a Literature Review. Our group focused on blended learning in secondary settings and the impacts to students, teachers, and on student achievement levels. We specifically wanted to select a topic that would allow us to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative studies. The most recent qualitative research that we found closely followed our own anecdotal experiences in terms of adaptations that teachers and students need to make to be successful in implementing blended learning. The quantitative research seemed to show that there were no downsides to implementing blended learning in secondary classrooms, but that definite increase in student achievement might be highly dependent on the subject matter of the course or content as well as the background of the students in volved. Surprisingly, we found very little research focused on schools in the United States, especially at the quantitative level.

While I have spent several years using video assignments with my various Chemistry classes, I had never heard the term "Blended Learning" until ET 631 with Susan Monthie. One of the things that I realized is that blended learning really goes far beyond simply "flipping" your classroom and encompasses many different combinations of content delivery and instruction. A like minded group of teachers in our program joined together in our ED 776 class to write our Literature Review on Blended Learning across different content areas at the secondary level. Since we were all from different content areas it made sense for us to focus on the different impacts that the application of blended learning has in those content areas. Not surprisingly, we did find that not all content areas seem to show the same achievement gains from the use of blended learning, with science and math content seeming to have the largest positive impact One of the things that struck me when reading studies was that the quality of the materials used did seem to have an impact, and that students seemed to prefer the voice of their own instructor, even on videos, as opposed to someone they did not. In the videos I have been using in my classes, I have typically selected from a small handful of known teachers or creators of video series for chemistry. What this research led me to try was creating my own videos to use with EdPuzzle. This would allow me to use the same terminology in class and at home as well as present the material in exactly the manner I want.