Module 2 Reflection

How I and the students used Google Docs.

This project centred on my teaching a Level 1 Economics class.  The class I was teaching consisted of a group of students who had all failed this and at least 2 other courses previously.  If they failed any courses this semester they would be dismissed from HCT.  They were in a tangible sense sitting in the “last chance saloon”.  It was the toughest course in the semester and the general feeling was that students with weak English or Math skills were lambs to the slaughter.

The premise seemed great.  The students had a 30% project to complete.  10% for the written report.  20% for an oral Q&A designed to ensure they had individually participated and could demonstrate the learning outcomes.  Google Docs seemed an ideal way for them to work together and to enable me to monitor their progress.  There was only 1 problem.  They didn’t use it.  At all.  They didn’t even try to pretend to use it to try to make me think they were using it.

And strangely enough I feel really positive about that and feel that I have learned and understood more about using technology in the classroom from this experience than if the project had worked brilliantly.

Here is my (probably flawed) thinking.  Firstly, I got everything back to front.  The project was designed and run by other teachers the previous semester.  It is a really good project to enable students to apply some basic economic theory but – and it is a big but – it was not designed with an underlying assumption that students would collaborate using Google Docs to put it together.  The students’ grade largely depended on their individual ability to answer questions about any area of the project.  That being the case, on reflection I find it difficult to identify any reason how a student benefits from doing one part of the project whilst someone else does another.  It may be a good way to complete formative assessment but probably not a good way to grade summatively.  If I had been a student I would probably have preferred to complete the project on my own.

Secondly, as I completed the literature review I found there was quite a bit of research where academics had used Google Docs with their students.  But all of the reading that I found indicated that students pretty much hated using it and that there was absolutely no evidence that it was a good collaborative tool which supported student learning.  If I had read this at the outset, I probably would not have used Google Docs as my project!  But that was my own fault.  Another thing that struck me is that I was being pretty disingenuous asking students to use a tool that I had very little experience of using myself.  Google Docs is supposed to be a tool which enables long distance real time collaboration.  HCT is an organisation where faculty and managers could really benefit from using it.  It could even be used by participants on the PGCHE.  But we don’t really use it – preferring to send word document attachments to our emails.

Student Reaction:

At the end of the semester, things got a bit chaotic and I didn’t have the opportunity to get formal feedback from my students about how they used Google Docs.  The best I could do was to ask them informally in a revision session at the end of the class.  A summary of their most common thoughts is as follows:

When they write a project they all sit together and complete it so they didn’t need to use Google Docs.  This makes sense for 2 reasons.  Firstly as their average IELTS writing band is 5.0 they naturally find writing in English challenging.  Their method of collaboration is actually the most effective way for them to complete a written project rather than work on it separately. So instead of helping them collaborate, Google Docs actually made it harder.

As they see each other every day they can work on the project in their breaks or after classes.  Again, this makes sense as Google Docs is a tool for those not physically in each others presence.

Most students complete the project at the last minute so getting feedback from the teacher on an ongoing basis is not going to happen.  I had to admit that was a fair point.

Reflections

So the summary of all of that was that I think in retrospect I learned that Google Docs is not an appropriate format for Level 1 HCT students to collaborate on a project.  To be honest, if I had had thought about it beforehand I probably would have said that anyway!  I could try to make a justification that it is good for them to experience using this tool as it enhances their technological and collaborative skills, but I don’t buy that for a second.  If the tool does not directly enhance their ability to demonstrate the learning outcomes of the course, then they should not be using it at this time.  It’s no use for me as a teacher to say to the student “ Mohamed, you really use Google Docs well.  I look forward to you doing it even better next semester when you retake Economics.”  However, learning that something doesn’t work is not a failure.  It could be even said to be a success.  So here are the main points about what I think I learned – or more accurately here is what I already knew which was reinforced

Everything has to be thought through and put together before the course starts.  The project and rubric was already planned.  Coming in after the event and telling my students I wanted them to do it in a certain way was not appropriate.  If I want the students to use Google Docs or any other tool, that has to be built in to the assessment design

Unless you are grading collaboration (which is not an assessable learning outcome in most courses at HCT) don’t try to force students to collaborate in a specific way.  They should be supported and allowed to work in the way which most helps them to achieve the learning outcomes required.

There are some great tools available to enhance student learning, many of them being used by people at HCT. Examples of some of these are as follows:

Because of the PGCHE (and more specifically because of the encouragement of Manal and Firoz) I used Turning Point in the classroom.  For HCT students it is brilliant.  If I were still teaching HCT students I would use it every day. 

Triptico is also a really useful bit of free software that can really liven up the class room. 

The Khan Academy is really good for economics.  I would use it a lot if I taught that course to those students again.  But HCT students benefit from repeated exposure rather than just seeing it once.

I would use Screenomatic quite a lot to make screencasts.  I would probably also make short videos using the webcam to show in class and put on the course site for revision.

The Economics course has some really good publisher made online materials.  A problem with them is that the language is really difficult – probably unfairly so if I am being honest.  Because they are challenging for the students at first, it is very easy to ignore them.  The first week 4 students had completed the quiz more quickly than I could!  But they each got less than 20% which I thought was statistically remarkable on a 4 answer multiple choice! However, by accident rather than design I persevered with the quizzes.  I noticed that some students were spending a long time trying to understand the material as they completed the quizzes.    After a few weeks these students started getting really good scores.  I could show this to the class – reinforcing the point that students who took time to understand the question before answering it did better than those who just guessed because they had not understood the question.  As the semester developed this had an effect on the grades of the majority of students, as they all spent longer trying to complete the quizzes properly rather than just press any answer to get it done. 

So in summary, looking at the semester as a whole although Google Docs may not have been a successful use of technology in my classroom, overall I feel that I used a variety of technologies to enhance the chances of success of my students.  The results at the end of the semester were not brilliant.  10 out of 17 students passed.  But I would definitely have taken that at the start of the semester.  And the results of all but 3 of the others had improved enough for me to recommend giving them a final chance to retake the course for a 3^rd and final time.  And I am pretty certain that using the technology that I did played at least a part in enabling some students to succeed.  

Which is, as far as I can see, the point.