EDU 776 Blog post #5: Research

Staying Relevant 

Nothing keeps me more humble about my age than when my students learn a new Tik Tok dance or when they start talking about what is “bussin” or “slaps.”  Although I am in the group of younger educators at my school, I feel a HUGE generational gap between my 4th graders and myself, and the impacts of technology have a lot to do with that.

Image Source: Giphy.com

It’s important for teachers to know more than just our classroom content and educational theory, we have to know our students.  Really knowing them goes beyond knowing their personal interests and individual needs; We need to understand what’s relevant to their generation, and within that category, how their generation is impacted by and responds to educational technology.  Therefore, I’ve been exploring all about that!

What Does the Research Say?

There are a lot of great websites and organizations that have research reports on educational technology and students.  Although I browsed multiple, my favorite was absolutely Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Reports .  On their website, it says, “Each year, the Speak Up Research Initiative asks K-12 students, parents and educators about the role of technology for learning in and out of school.”  The many different infographics and reports they show prove it.  I loved how many of the reports that I browsed were surveyed results right from students.  When we are trying to understand and connect with their generation, those are the voices we need to hear from! 

I could see these reports being helpful every year, but especially after/during how learning abruptly shifted to primarily online because of the pandemic.  I was interested in looking at some of the reports specifically related to that. “What is the future of virtual learning for students?” is the infographic and report that stuck out to me the most.  Both positive and negative aspects of virtual learning were brought up and weighed in on by students, and there are a lot of different categories that were interesting to unpack.  You can view the infographics below.

Image Source: https://tomorrow.org/speakup/

Image Source: https://tomorrow.org/speakup/

Image Source: https://tomorrow.org/speakup/

Something that really surprised me is that I thought the overwhelming majority of students would say it helped them improve technology skills, and it was interesting to see that wasn’t the case!  I was happy to see, though, that many students said virtual learning taught them to be more responsible for their own learning, and I hope that is an impact of the pandemic that will stay.  Overall, only 17% of students in grades 6-12 said they prefer learning online, and 65% of the students in those grades surveyed said they prefer face to face.  This statistic both surprised me and did not at the same time.  Although there are some positives that came from virtual learning, I personally never want to see the day where it replaces face to face learning, and it was cool to see right from students that many of them prefer in person learning as well.

What Comes Next?

Regardless of what types of things the research says, I think one of the most important points to be made is that the past year and a half or so of education shows us we NEED to check in with students about what’s working for their learning experience and what’s not, and how technology is a factor in that.  I know organizations like Project Tomorrow will do that, and it’s such important work.  Even with learning resuming in person, I think these next few years will still include a lot of change and movement in educational technology, so it will be interesting to continue to follow that research.