It is the third week in my Lamar University Research course. Please review the draft of my action research plan which answers the following inquiry:
How does the implementation of interactive whiteboards (e.g. Promethean ActivBoards) affect student engagement and achievement? Specifically, given similar demographics, do classrooms with interactive whiteboards produce higher student grades and TAKS scores compared to classrooms without interactive whiteboards? What role can campus principals play in affecting the success of this technology solution?
Your action research plan is good! I especially like that you are comparing student performance in classrooms with and without interactive whiteboards. It will be interesting to see whether and how the whiteboards make a difference.
ReplyDeleteI also think that collecting anecdotal evidence using Survey Monkey surveys is a great idea. It will be interesting to compare teacher and student perceptions about the impact of interactive whiteboards with the data on student achievement.
I don't have any suggestions for improving your plan. I think you did a great job planning your research!
Hi, Brian,
ReplyDeleteYour plan for assessing if the Promethian boards your district has heavily invested in are making an instructional impact is well organized. I can clearly understand the overall procedures and purpose as I look at the activities you have planned for throughout the school year.
One area I have questions in is in regards to the number of classrooms you will be focusing on for the study. In your first action step you mention selecting target classrooms. Do you have in mind a minimum or maximum number? Will you be selecting only Promethian classrooms or will you also select non-Promethian rooms as a basis for comparison?
Another question I have is in regards to the Classroom Walk-Throughs, which are a great source of data collection! According to your timeline, CWTs will only take place in October of 2010. I wonder if another set of CWTs would be valuable in the spring, particularly in the weeks leading up to the TAKS test. It might be a good time to see how a Promethian classroom versus a non-Promethian classroom is functioning in the home-stretch when many teachers hone in on specific test preparation lessons.
My final question is in regards to your Compile, Review, and Analyze Data action step. (It is right under the CWT action step.) The timeline for that step is November 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. I think that might be a typo or copy/paste error, since you are referring to TAKS data and local assessment scores which won't be all be available until the Spring of 2011.
I think your action resarch plan is an excellent idea. So often in education we throw money at the "stuff" and never stop to take a look at whether or not the "stuff" is getting used correctly. I hope your study yields good results for your district, and I will be interested to learn of your results since our district is starting to invest more heavily in IWB technologies.