CEP 812- Part A: Description of Need or Opportunity

The educational need that I plan to address in my WICKED problem project is providing students immediate feedback to promote achievement. I have noticed that many lectures tend to be one sided with teachers closely followed a detailed lesson plan that doesn’t allow much room for experimentation. I have also noticed by walking down the hallways that many teachers have stacks of papers that pile up on their desks; myself included. What does this lack of immediate feedback do for our students? When students are provided with immediate feedback, especially during instruction, I think they are more likely to remain engaged in the material and motivated to learn. Providing immediate feedback is two fold. When teachers provide immediate feedback to students pertaining to learning, this gives teachers an insight to student performance. Teachers are able to make course improvements and re-teach areas where students may be struggling.

            I plan to address this issue in my WICKED project by finding educational technology tools that will aid both students and teachers in providing immediate feedback to one another. I plan on presenting both Web 2.0 tools that are available because of their low cost to the classroom. I also want to look into the use of Student Response Systems in the classroom. SRS’s may have some cost attached to them depending on the type of technology purchases, but the benefits are plentiful. By implementing these tools, students and teachers will benefit from the immediate feedback they provide each other as far as learning and achievement, course direction and improvement. It will benefit the school as a whole and promote long term achievement among both students and teachers. It also eliminates many of those pesky papers that have a tendency to pile up!

The scope of this solution will eventually be a school wide solution. I will start the implementation into my own classroom. Then, I would like to train teachers to use these tools in their classrooms so the benefits can be far-reaching. The tools that I plan to use can be incorporated into each teacher’s classroom. They can decide which of the tools presentation will work best for them and more cohesively with their curriculum.

During my research I was able to find some websites that focus on the issue of immediate feedback. One was called “Turning Technologies.” According to Turning Technologies, “Classroom use of response devices has the potential to create far-reaching impacts, for both students as well as teachers. SRS’s  support both teaching and learning by providing immediate feedback, actively engaging students, increasing student motivation, and providing a variety of interactive assessment opportunities.” The website primarily is a sales site that promotes the sales of the student response systems; however, they do provide data and research to discuss the benefits of these in the classroom. Another website that I found is about a very cool social networking tool called Twiducate. Social networking websites are another way for students and teachers to provide instant feedback to each other on the work they are doing in class. Twiducate allows teacher to create a private social network for their classrooms.

So what do I plan to do in this course to make this solution come to fruition? Well, I would like to develop a system for providing immediate feedback during instruction, independent practice, and outside the classroom. Since the concept of Web 2.0 is so large and seemingly overwhelming, I will develop a list of the best resources for feedback and organize them in a way that a specific system of incorporating feedback into the classroom can be cohesively applied to the current curriculum.

To ensure that my WICKED project is successful I will be implementing these feedback resources into my own curriculum because it is an area within my personal classroom that needs improvement. When my classes begin in the fall, these tools for feedback will be used. I’m also planning on sharing these tools with the rest of my colleagues in hopes that they will be able to effectively integrate them into their classrooms as well.