Collaborative: Reflective and Critical Thinking

Lead: Laurie Grupp
Dept: Education
Phone: (401) 865-1211
Email: lgrupp@providence.edu

Name: Junean Gourley
Dept: Education
Phone: (401) 865-1211
Email: jgourley@providence.edu

Name: Lynne Ryan
Dept: Education
Phone: (401) 865-1211
Email: lynnryan@providence.edu

Experiences with Instructional Technology

Laurie Grupp has attended one workshop on Angel. She has utilized Powerpoint and email for instruction and course assignments. She is currently exploring possibilities for using Angel to facilitate small group discussions among students in her classes.

Junean Gourley has utilized Powerpoint for instruction and has been introduced to Angel. She intends to participate in an upcoming Angel workshop.

Lynne Ryan has attended one workshop on Angel and this is the third semester she has used it to support her course work. She has primarily used it for posting student work, assignments and notices. She has not used it for discussion groups. She teaches in a level three classroom and uses powerpoint daily. She has taken the element K powerpoint course and has had an introduction to using video clips in PowerPoint from Michael Fimian.

Project Resources

How might you use any purchased materials after you finish this Project? 
QSR N6 can be used to analyze students' discourse after the project has been completed. It will be available for other departmental faculty to use once the project has been completed.

Project Timeline

Start Date: January 2004
End Date: December, 2004

Milestones: May 2004 – Focus group to discuss emerging themes, relevant topics, and suggestions for improving the process.

Project Objective

To encourage prospective teachers to engage in meaningful and reflective discourse about their teaching through the use of ANGEL discussion groups and chat rooms. Asynchronous computer-mediated communication has the potential to promote reflective and critical thinking: two essential skills for future educators.

This project is designed to not only develop Providence College students' ability to participate in professional discourse about their student teaching and practicum experiences, but also develop the faculty's ability to encourage complex discourse in such a way that asynchronous computer-mediated communication is an effective learning medium.

Previous research on pre-service teachers' participation in listservs and discussion groups suggests that there is an art to scaffolding higher-level discussions. Thus, this project is designed as a pilot to determine effective means of encouraging PC students to become a part of a social community of teachers where they publicly express their opinions in a professional manner.

An apprenticeship model in which students at different stages of the program participate will be used. The ultimate goal is to integrate such electronic discourse experiences in a developmental progression throughout the program. This will be accomplished initially by pairing 25 junior Kappa Delta Pi education students with 25 senior Kappa Delta Pi education students. (Kappa Delta Pi is the national education honor society). Currently each junior education student shadows the senior while s/he is student teaching for at least one visit.

The additional components are as follows:

• All participating students will be placed in an ANGEL group and are expected to participate in the electronic discussion board.
• Juniors will post a reflection on the their visit to the senior student teacher on the discussion board.
• The senior will respond. · Other members of the ANGEL group are encouraged to participate and join the dialogue.
• Juniors who are in method practicums will be encouraged to ask questions regarding their field experiences as well.
• As part of the students' Kappa Delta Pi professional responsibility each member of the pilot will be required to post at least three comments/questions/reflections to the discussion.

The faculty members will monitor the conversation to determine topics discussed and issues raised. Faculty will also serve as hosts of on-line discussions in an "Ask the Doc" chat group. Using student queries in the discussion groups, faculty will decide on topics to offer for the chat group (such as: classroom management issues, certification requirements, addressing the needs of the English language learner). From this first semester pilot, faculty will share what they have learned about hosting discussion groups/chat rooms on ANGEL. The intent will be to have faculty and students use ANGEL's discussion capabilities as a way to develop critical thinking and reflective discourse throughout the program, particularly when participating in field experiences.

These practicums and observations provide rich experiences about which students often have many questions. Having a forum in which to talk about these experiences will provide students the opportunity to develop professional discourse. For example Dr. Gourley, who teaches EDU 121, one of the first courses in the program, will ask her students to share examples of observations related to the representation of disability in the K-12 classroom and/or critical issues related to different areas of disability. Dr. Ryan will have students use discussion groups in EDU 385 to describe classroom organization issues students are viewing during classroom observation. Lastly, Dr. Grupp will conduct discussion groups around issues students encounter during their special education practicum in EDU 418 when working with children with special needs.

Project Outcomes

Angel- or Course-Related: Faculty will become knowledgeable about using asynchronous computer-mediated communication on ANGEL as a way to improve students' professional discourse initially in a pilot and subsequently with students in at least three courses and students teaching. It is hoped that in the future students who participate as undergraduates will serve as alumni mentors for the discussion groups, increasing the community of teachers and expanding on the apprenticeship model to provide students with contact with teachers who have wider range of experience.      

Enhancement to instructional practices: Asynchronous computer-mediated communication can be used in a variety of ways throughout several education courses. Each of the collaborators will benefit from this project and will develop skills with technology that can be infused in other courses.      

Conference: Results of the project will be submitted to the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children's annual Conference in November, 2004

Assessment Plan

Both quality of the students' discourse and the faculty's means to develop asynchronous computer-mediated communication will be assessed. Postings will be analyzed in the following manner:

1. Changes in depth and quality of the discourse between January and April will be noted.

2. Number and types of student postings (response, request for materials, question regarding a particular student, etc.) will be recorded.

3. Emerging themes and topics will be identified (this information will be used for "Ask the Doc?” topics as well as further qualitative data analysis).

4. Although data analysis will be ongoing, data will be compiled and topics/emerging themes identified at the end of the spring semester. this information will be shared with faculty and used to inform teaching in education courses.

5. Discourse will be analyzed for critical thinking and reflection, including types of scaffolding provided by faculty and responses given by students.

6. All participants will attend a focus group meeting at the end of the spring semester to discuss the process and provide feedback regarding emergent themes. Suggestions for improving the process will also be sought.

7. In the fall semester we will again analyze the quality of the student discussion groups in each of the courses (EDU 121, EDU 385, and EDU 418) in the first and last months of the course to determine whether quality of discourse has increased.

The usefulness of Angel as an effective means of developing electronic discourse to support student learning at different developmental stages in the program will also be assessed.