Speak up! transforming classroom discussions jan 2013

Editor's Notes

1. This presentation is called Speak Up! Transforming Classroom Discussions. Again, my name is Robert Appino. You can find me on twitter @rappin01
2. Here is a snap shot of where I work in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This is the High School building which is the main entrance to the campus. We have over 35 nationalities with 850 student early childhood to Grade 12. One of our principal is actually waving on the far right. I work as a MS Technology Coach and teacher here at Saigon South International School, Saigon (HCMC) Vietnam. I’m excited to contribute to K12Online this year and wanted to say thanks to those that organized.
3. I want to you to answer the following question(s)
4. Consider this idea? Some students enjoy speaking up in class while others don't? This is a scenario that most educators are familiar with. How can we promote more students to share their ideas? In this presentation, I will briefly present research on face-to-face and virtual discussions. My over goal with this is to encourage educators to try different ways to reach their students through different modes of class discussions. There isn’t a one size fits all model for the diverse needs of every class.
5. Goal post image
6. The research.
7. The research.
8. I conducted an Action Research on Face to Face Whole class Discussions compared to Virtual whole class discussions. There were 21 students that were part of this study.
9. Just to clarify Face to Face discussion is when people have a discussion while occupying the same physical space.
10. Virtual Discussions are class discussions in a virtual space such as a moodle forum, shared google doc, titan pad, a blog or any other virtual space that promotes discussion. In this study, 21 students in my class were participants in both the face-to-face discussions and the virtual discussions.
11. My research questions was : What is the effect of virtual discussions on students’ participation and sense of belonging? I wanted to know if students would feel more comfortable participating in virtual discussions vs face to face.
12. (need image)
13. The reason I chose to do this study was because in my class of 21, 14 were male and they tended to dominate face-to-face classroom discussions. In contrast, I observed that the quietest female student during class discussion was actually the most active blogger in the class and had a lot valuable thoughts to share. So I wanted to see if it was possible to replicate the feeling of comfort to share ideas when writing in her blog. My idea was to give the students both modes of discussion as a way to better communicate their thoughts.
14. In this next part, I would like to give an overview of the literature on Face-to-face discussions compared with virtual discussions
15. We’ve already seen this trend increase in recent years. ((add vw image))
16. ((I was interested in their findings that highlighted that Face to Face interaction resulted in HIGHER frequency of on-topic discussion.
17. Friedman et all (2009) Second Life is a 3D Virtual World which enables users to create their own virtual persona and potentially interact with other virtual personas. This was used to gage on-topic virtual discussions. The limitation of this study is that students wore a “virtual mask” so to speak thus they may have felt that their actions were not as accountable as in the face to face class discussions. So although students were conducting discussions in both settings they were more likely to go off task when adopting their “virtual mask”
18. This study enabled me to realize that virtual discussions were a means of encompassing the broader needs to accommodate students to feel nurtured and valued in the classroom environment.
19. Susan Cain the author of Quiet establishes the fact that extroversion/ or the cult of personality in the US wasn't always valued the way it is today  She demonstrates how this historical change came about /and highlights how the "power of personality" or EXTROVERSION came to be the cultural ideal in the US In her book, she skillfully demonstrates that "introversion" is not a negative quality, rather this is seen as time for careful consideration for example, she details the background of Steve  Wozniak and other so called introverted people who became publicly successful do to their creativity fueled in their ‘Quiet’ moments She also highlights the ways in which Asian American students engage in school and college life. In her research she found that most Asian students preferred the introverted mode of interaction and for various reasons were more comfortable using this mode of communication  The research and underpinnings in her book were interest to me because of the parallels I could see in my own classroom.
20. Read this slide then say that In this way the book Quiet is a breakthrough in understanding that introversion is not a negative quality and that EXTROVERSION is not the ideal.
21. Students writing in a gform,
22. however... Wang and Woo... key point
23. Summarize my results: What I found in my study was that student participation increased in virtual discussions. Also, the Quality of participation increased in virtual discussions meaning students discussion stayed more on topic in virtual discussions.
24. It was interesting what was confirmed in my overall findings. In Virtual Discussions Female students where freed from the constraints they felt from whole class discussions which was dominated more by the male students. In the virtual context they were able to be more active participants in discussion and had a higher frequency of on-topic discussions. Additionally, some male students that reacted without thinking during Face-to-Face discussions had a higher frequency of on-topic discussions in Virtual discussions. This could be due to the fact that virtual discussions have a lasting digital footprint and the students have a growing understanding of the implications of this. Also, virtual discussions require students to reread what they are going to say before they post it. Perhaps because they are writing instead of speaking students were more careful with what they were going to say so they could communicate more effectively. This could be something to follow-up on in a future study.
25. This generation of kids are engaged and feel more comfortable be social “behind the screen”
26. Kids are engaged by
27. I would highly recommend integrating virtual discussions into your classrooms. And suggest that you experiment in finding a balance that fits the needs of your particular class.
28. Of course with anything in the class room there needs to be variety of ways to reach the unique populations within our classrooms.
29. Here are some useful tools to help you integrate virtual discussions into your classroom. All of these tools are user friendly and have variety of advantages. An easy tool to start with is Google Docs because you can include discussion questions in the google doc and use the chat function to discuss while students are logged into the doc.
30. Here are some useful tools to help you integrate virtual discussions into your classroom. All of these tools are user friendly and have variety of advantages. An easy tool to start with is Google Docs because you can include discussion questions in the google doc and use the chat function to discuss while students are logged into the doc.
31. If you are interested in the methods and specific findings from my action research paper please click on the link to the full research paper.
32. References from my paper
33. Image Attributions. You can follow the links and this presentation via rappino.com.
34. Get your students to Speak Up and transform your classroom discussions. If you want to contact me you can find me on twitter or via my website. Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this conference.