In Which is Related the Data Collection Plan and Other Interesting Matters
After a two month hiatus for exams, holidays, and cross curricular projects, this education scientist is back and ready to collect data. For those of you who just joined, I am dreaming the impossible dream of helping my high school students self-regulate their technology use so that I don’t have to police them and they are ready to manage this responsibility when they go to college. It’s a new year, but I’m stuck on the same question. How can I use coaching strategies to cultivate a system where students take ownership of their technology use and work toward self regulation? Allison and I have already started collecting data. The first step is to assess the current situation. How often are students off task with their technology use? Allison designed an awesome chart and has been popping into two of my classes for 10 minutes to do discrete incremental screen checks every 2 minutes. When the student is on track, they get a blue mark and when they are off track, they get a green mark. We haven’t kept her data tracking a secret, but we also haven’t announced that that is the reason for her visits. It’s important to note that some of the students appear to be aware of the data tracking when Allison is in the room and do not deviate from class activities until after she leaves.
The next step will be to survey the class to find out what their definition of “on task” technology use and what they currently do to monitor themselves while working online. From there I will use coaching strategies to help each student set a goal related to improving their productivity with technology use. My goal is to not have to police their technology use, but for this experiment to work, they need to have a goal. Once goals have been set, the students can track them and report the results.
In the next few weeks I will be collecting data and using coaching questions to help students develop personal goals for technology self- management. Check back to find out if I am setting students up for technology mindfulness or if I am freeing Gines de Pasamonte and his gang. Follow my unheard of adventures on Twitter or here on Medium.
