Technology and Learning

Using Technology to Teach and Learn

Here is a project I did that disuses the benefits of using technology and computer programs to teach students with ADHD, other attention disorders, and regular students as well. In this project I discuss the benefits of using technology and computer programs to teach literacy, but it works across all subjects and fields for both children and adults. Technology is forever changing; these computer programs for example started as early as the 1980's. I am not sure about you, but I imagine that the computer programs of the 80's are much different than now. I can only imagine what they will look like 10, 20, 30, or 40 years from now. Remember the 80's were 20/30 years ago. Picture how much technology has changed since then and imagine now, after that short amount of time, what it will be like in the future.

ADHD and Literacy: How to use computer-based programs to expand literacy skills.

• According to the CDC, in 2016, 6.1 million kids have had ADHD at some point. There is a steady incline
• Average age of diagnosis; 7
• 6.1% of American children are being treated for ADHD using medication
• There has been a 42% increase in ADHD in the past 8 years
• Males are 3 times as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than females (possibly why more males may have a more difficult time reading than females) 
• A child with ADHD is more likely to experience other conditions such as learning disabilities, anxiety, and depression.
• 80% of students with ADHD have learning problems, 20-30% are classified as “learning disabled”
• Children with ADHD tend to struggle with literacy skills

Symptoms:

• Difficulty paying attention to tasks such as remaining focused during lessons, conversations, or lengthy reading
• Easily distracted by other things, including unrelated thoughts
• Not listening when spoken to directly, their mind seems elsewhere, even in the absence of obvious distraction
• Forgetful, often losing/misplacing belongings such eyeglasses, paperwork, school supplies, etc...
• Lacking organizational skills such as having messy work and having disorganized personal spaces 
• Difficulty sitting still, often moving around a room or shuffling/fidgeting in their seat.
• Careless mistakes and lacks attention to details in work
• Fails to follow through on tasks such as chores or schoolwork; starts tasks but quickly loses focus and becoming sidetracked

How do we expect a child who has ADHD to sit and read a book?     Strategy: Alternative mediums such as Computer assisted                               reading Instruction

Computers first entered schools in the 1980’s, but the use of computer-based instruction is growing rapidly. Examples: Headsprout Reading Program:  “Making Learning to Read Fun” “One of the best ways to ensure reading success is to make reading fun for kids. Headsprout’s online episodes were designed to establish critical early reading and comprehension skills in a way kids connect with. Throughout the program, kids are motivated to continue to improve their reading abilities by built-in animations, online puzzles, and the satisfaction of clearly seeing how their skills grow and improve after each episode. “  Headsprout builds fluency, phonemic awareness, letters and sounds.  The program also teaches segmenting and blending skills, punctuation skills, and vocabulary. The program encourages the reader because it is designed so that the reader will have a 90% success rate.  The program also encourages the reader by the computer saying phrases like, “YEAH”, or “YOU DID IT!”  The program also makes corrections if needed. It uses 10-30 second movies between activities, keeping the student engaged.  Results:  In a study conducted in 2003, there were 3 male students who were assessed before and after using Headsprout program: “The average number of words read correct (WRC) per minute for Tim increased from baseline to intervention from 6 to 18. Similarly, Kevin's average WRC increased from 14 to 33, and Joe's increased from 10 to 24.” “Tim's estimated weekly gain in WRC increased from .77 before intervention to 2.31 after the introduction of the intervention. Similarly, Kevin's weekly WRC gain increased from .77 to 4.06. Finally, Joe's weekly WRC gain increased from .28 to 1.05 words per week.”

By encouraging the reader in this way, it creates an autonomous motivation for the reader to want to do better, so that they can move up levels in the game.

FAST Forword Program: 

Fast Forword is a computer-based program designed by neuroscientists, used to target the underlying literacy struggles. Fast Forword suggests that struggling readers need 10-30 times the amount of reading.  The program claims to provide more practice opportunities than any other reading intervention program. Practices are unique to each learner, based on their needs. 

Results:  

"Statistically significant improvements were demonstrated for nearly 98 percent of the children who completed the training," said Ms. Rhelda Ball, Principal of Cornelius Elementary School. "On average, this group moved from the 13th percentile to almost the 50th percentile in these skills. Some of the children returned after the summer and reported that they are now reading because of the program. We found that Fast Forword enables children with language and reading problems to begin to process information more quickly, so that the barriers that prevented them from becoming good readers come down."

Electronic Storybooks:

 Online books, or Ebooks are stories that are comprised of the traditional book format, but have added multimedia sensory features like sound effects, audio narration, and animated illustrations. The books also used highlighted text to help struggling readers. Electronic storybooks represent choice in the Reading Volume Program, and it represents a read aloud, since it is read to them. Electronic storybooks come in the form of a physical book, or a book published online. The teacher may ask the student motivational questions like if they liked the book, how it relates to them, or if they would recommend the book to others. This would allow book talks, to encourage the reader to read outside of the classroom (RVP). An Electronic book be treated just as any other book, but children have access to it at all times, as long as there is a computer available. 

Results: 

“This study has shown that online reading software, motivational aspects, and constructivist methods of instruction can promote reading motivation among beginning readers. Of particular importance was the effectiveness of these programs in decreasing off-task behaviors and increasing sustained levels of attention, competence and engagement for three students who had reading and attention difficulties during the components of their classroom's reading program.” Decreasing off task behavior is a benefit for children with ADHD, because they often lose attention, and can show these behaviors. 

How can this be implemented?

In the classroom setting, computer-based learning strategy would best be implemented during centers and during quiet reading times, as the children can use headphones. All students would have access to it, and it would benefit all students, both with and without ADHD. This computer-based learning strategy can also be implemented in a home setting since parents can log in to the program at home whenever they want. The convenience of these programs is what makes them so viable in the everyday lives of children, especially for busy schedules where a parent/teacher cannot devote all their time to a single child. As long as the student has access to a computer, they will have access to reading programs (Reading Volume Program) and electronic storybooks. By getting students motivated to read they will not only enjoy it, but develop the skills needed to succeed. Having fun, interactive methods of learning is one way to help all students become motivated, especially those with ADHD. By introducing and implementing various ways of teaching and presenting material, parents and teachers can put their students/children on a path toward success.

Citations:  

C., J., & G. (2004, November 30). The Effects of Computerized Reading Instruction on the Academic Performance of Students Identified with ADHD. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ788202 

Ciampa,K (2012) Electronic storybooks: a constructivist approach to improving reading motivation in grade 1 students. Canadian Journal of Education. 35.4 http://www.csse-scee.ca/about/ 

Erickson, J. D., & Wharton-Mcdonald, R. (2018). Fostering Autonomous questions Motivation and Early Literacy Skills. The Reading Teacher. doi:10.1002/trtr.1750  

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2018). Raise Reading Volume Through Access, Choice, Discussion, and Book Talks. The Reading Teacher, 72(1), 89-97. doi:10.1002/trtr.1691 

Imfeld, C. (1999.). PR Newswire. Encyclopedia of Public Relations. doi:10.4135/9781412952545.n322 

http://www.prnewswire.com/ 

Online sources:  

Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). (2018, September 21). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html 

ADHD by the Numbers: Facts, Statistics, and You. (n.d.). Retrieved from  

https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/facts-statistics-infographic#treatments 

Fast ForWord for Elementary. (2018, May 09). Retrieved from https://www.scilearn.com/products/fast-forword/elementary 

Headsprout Grows Kids' Reading Skills! (n.d.). Retrieved from  

https://www.headsprout.com/ 

Certificate of Achievement

A Recognition of Success

Here is the Certificate of Achievement that I made for the students who completed the after school science program. Although they may not mean much to us, they mean the world to our students. They will hopefully be saved by their family for future viewing. What I hope for is that, one day, they look at the certificate and be reminded of the fun they had and what they learned. What will be even better would be for them to reflect upon this program as an adult and remember the fun they had and even spark interest in a new subject or spark conversation. Sometimes inspiration comes from the smallest of places. I hope this course did that for these students. I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. This program was fun, interesting, and different. I learned a lot from these student, both how to teach in science and in general. This was also a great learning experience and practice of classroom management due to the age gap and behaviors of a few students. Overall, the program, I believe, was a success and I feel the students learned a lot. Hopefully they will carry this knowledge into the future and become great scientists (or teachers) themselves.

Fieldwork: Group 4

The Final Group and Last Day With the Students



This was a bitter sweet day because it was the last day of fieldwork with these amazing young scholars. Group 4 had an amazing lesson that definitely topped all the others. They learned from all our mistakes and made the best lesson possible. The students were so excited to build windmills and talk about renewable energy. I was so glad they chose this topic because it is so essential for students to know. I would love to combine this with a lesson on electricity or motors. My favorite part of your lesson was that they got to actually build a working windmill which was very successful. It was fun to give the students their "goody bag" and Certificate of achievement for the program. I hope I can work with these wonderful students again in the future. Overall, Group 4 had a nice closure for this afterschool science program.

Fieldwork: Group 3

The Lessons Just Keep Getting Better



Group 3 did an amazing job learning from group 1 and group 2 (my group). I saw pieces of each of our lessons mixed into theirs along with some of their own ideas. They took the idea of using 4 stations in separate rooms and time management from other groups. The added their own twist and made a poster presentation at the end instead of a discussion/worksheet which was enjoyable and a nice change of pace. The students responded really well to the lesson. Who doesn't like extreme weather. I liked how you had students do their own research for their poster and let them be creative in their own way while still guide them to present the information uniformly. MY favorite part was when a student began to share information with the class that was not on the board, he must've responded really well to the experiment to be that enthusiastic to share more and not be timid at all. The confidence while presenting was so strong, the students really understood the material. Group 3 did an amazing job, I am looking forward to see how Group 4 will do. They have observed every group so far  so their lesson will have them most resources to pull from. I cannot wait to see this next lesson.

Engineering

My favorite Field of Science, Engineering

Students love engineering, period. I have yet to see a student who does not like to build, design, or draw some sort of invention or project. I am 100% biased toward engineering, but I do not care. The reason why I love engineering is because it is so vast and there is so much to learn. When I think of modern civilization, I think of one field that made humanity advance Engineering. Although it took much more to advance humanity, engineering put everything together and advanced us at an exponential rate. I view engineering as the "builder" who puts the puzzle together. Each piece of that puzzle is a different field of science. You have physics and chemistry and you have batteries or chemistry and medical and you have medicine, but engineers put it all together. Engineers are the practical scientists that put science to work. When I become a full fledged teacher, I want to be able to promote engineering and show students that the field is so vast to choose from and can peak anyone's interest.

Food Web and Rubric

Here is a small Food Web project I created.

Objective: Given a food web diagram, the student will present an animal's role in a food web following the rubric with at least a 9 out of 12.

Prompt:  Let's look at this example of a food web. We will focus on the mouse; where is it located on the food web? Is it a producer, primary consumer or a tertiary consumer? How do you know? How can we find out?

Task: Create a poster, powerpoint, or other presentation method to provide information on an animal of your choice and their role in the food web. Each presentation should include the name of the animal, the habitat of the animal, what it eats/what eats it, and at least one animal for each level of the food web with labels (decomposer, producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer).

Standards: 

P-LS1-1. Observe familiar plants and animals (including humans) and describe what they need to survive.

P-LS1-2. Plan and conduct an investigation to determine how familiar plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive in the environment. 

Objective	1	2	3	4
Presentation	Student did not create a presentation	Presentation lacks images and information	Presentation has images, but  lacks the required information or it is not clearly presented	Presentation has images the information is presented clearly and uniformly
Categories	Categories are missing	Some categories are present but information is inaccurate	Most categories are present and most information is accurate	All categories are present and the information provided is accurate
Food Feb	Student did not create a Food Web Diagram	Food Web Diagram lacks animals/plants or information if presented inaccurately	Food Web diagram has most of the required animals/plants but some information may not be accurate	Food Web Diagram has the required amount of Animals/Plants and the information is accurate.
Creativity and Bonus Information (Extra Credit)	Student presented information in a creative way	Student included more information than required	---------	Student presented information in a creative way and included more information than required

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