ASSESSING DIGITAL LEARNING
"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing." - W. Edwards Deming
Action research is a process for improving educational practice. Its methods involve action, evaluation, and reflection. It is a process to gather evidence to implement change in practices. Action Research (Mertler, 2017) is an efficient and accessible research approach. It is immediately applicable and, therefore more engaging. It improves the educator conducting the research because the process forces educators to look at instructional practices with an open mind and a critical eye with the goal of improvement. While it does not fully align with more traditional research approaches, I believe it makes the most sense to use in the context of my Innovation Plan.
DEVELOPING A RESEARCH PLAN
Measuring the instructional impact of the implementation of my Innovation Plan in creating effective digital learning environments.
My Innovation proposal was born with the intent to solve an issue at my school that I have identified for the last two years. As a tutor/interventionist at McMullan Elementary, I had the opportunity to observe 5th-grade students' behavior in the ELA classroom, where students have different levels of achievement. A lack of student motivation in their learning produces low-quality performance in their reading/writing subjects. Advanced students rush out on their work, and the rest struggle to catch up during the class. The students enjoy exploring apps on their Chromebooks, and usually, the advanced ones do this after completing each assignment while waiting for the rest of the class to finish. ePortfolios are student-centered learning tools that allow the learners to work at their own pace, allow choice, students develop a voice, and promote ownership. They also incorporate technology and encourage collaboration and reflection. ePortfolio enables students to assess their own work and helps build students' creativity.
With the shift from teacher-centered instructional environments to student-centered ones, institutions have been responsible for proofing progression and growth in student learning (Wickersham & Chambers, 2006). I hope that with the data collected from this action research, I will be able to analyze and understand the effectiveness of ePortfolios for 5th-grade students in their learning.
Action Research Outline
The first step in the planning stage is to specify the topic of a concern that exists. To clarify the specific issue on which my research will focus, I use the 5 Why Process strategy. It helped me limit my topic and identify the root cause of the original problem. Then, I used the Template Developing a Research Plan to create my complete Action Research Outline.
Literature Review
The literature review is a critical step when conducting action research. It is necessary to know what the experts said about ePortfolios. This literature review focuses on the benefits of ePortfolios as a learning tool. I collected formal information from more than twenty sources, including books, journals, case studies, conferences, articles, etc. It also includes some issues that can occur if there is no correct implementation and ways to prevent them.
Action Research Plan
My action research plan is the strategy I will use to measure the effectiveness of my innovation plan. It includes the specific topic, purpose and research question, methods, data type and instruments I will use, literature review, and a timeline. It explains in detail how I will collect and analyze the data, develop the action plan, share and communicate the results, and reflect on the process.
References
Mertler, C. A. (2022). Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators. Sage Publications.
Wickersham, L. E., & Chambers, S. M. (2006). Eportfolios: Using technology to enhance and assess student learning. Council of Graduate Schools. https://cgsnet.org/eportfolios-using-technology-enhance-and-assess-student-learning.
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