Week 17 - Introduction into Research in Education

What is research?

There is much debate surrounding definitions of research and more particularly education research. Here are some useful concepts related to research:
"Educational research is not just a way to come up with new ideas about teaching and learning, but most often it is a way to convince us that the ideas we already have are worth exploring - that they are worth buying into" (Morrell & Carroll, 2010, p.2).

and
"Research is a process of steps used to collect and analyze information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue. At a general level, research consists of three steps:

Pose a question.
Collect data to answer the question. Present an answer to the question." (Creswell, 2011, p.3) For more information on research in education, including how research projects are designed, you could take a look at the first chapter of Creswell (2011) which you can find in the reference list.
The main things you should take away from this reading are:
What research is and the roles that it can play
The basic steps in the research process
The nature of quantitative and qualitative research
Different types of research design in education

How Research can Support Teachers – Evidence Informed Practice

You may have heard the term evidence-informed practice or evidence-based practice used in relation to schools and education. Evidence-informed practice refers to the ways in which teachers and schools use research evidence, in conjunction with other sources of evidence (such as student data) and their own expertise to make decisions and to support their teaching. It is based on the idea that to be their most effective teachers should engage with research and keep up to date with the latest developments in their curriculum areas and in the discipline of education more generally.
For further reading on evidence-informed practice, read Coe's (1999) short but incisive article, available in this week's media, which makes the point that "The only really sound evidence about what works comes from actually trying it." (p.5)

Choosing a Research Topic

This week you should focus on identifying an area that you would like to research and develop for the Teacher Inquiry project. It is anticipated that you will focus on this topic area for the two main assessments. The list below provides possible areas to focus on. You may select a topic outside of this area, however, we suggest that if you do so you get advice from the postgraduate team about whether it will be suitable for the assessments.


Suggested Topic Areas (with links to the first 16 weeks’ topics)
Assessment – Creative Ways of Assessing (DIGITAL Week 9)
Key Competencies of 21st Century Skills (DIGITAL Week 2)
Leading Change (LEADERSHIP Week 8)
Innovative Leadership Practice (LEADERSHIP Week 3, Week 6)
Growth Mindset (LEADERSHIP Week 5)
Design Thinking (DIGITAL Week 14; LEADERSHIP Week 14)
Entrepreneurship (DIGITAL Week 10; LEADERSHIP Week 10)
Blended Learning (DIGITAL Week 7)
Game Based Learning/Gamification (DIGITAL Week 15; LEADERSHIP Week 15)
Inquiry or Problem Based Learning (DIGITAL Week 10, Week 13; LEADERSHIP Week 13)
Agile and/or Lean Concepts in Education (DIGITAL Week 11; LEADERSHIP Week 11)
Collaborative Learning (DIGITAL Week 4)
Technology Practices (Coding, Robotics, 3D Modelling & Printing, Game Development etc.) (DIGITAL Week 3, Week 5, Week 8, Week 12, Week 15, Week 16)
Digital Media Tools and Pedagogies (DIGITAL Week 6)
Innovative Learning Environments (LEADERSHIP Week 12)

Note that it is possible that you might want to focus on a specific aspect of one of these topic areas (e.g. for blended learning you might focus specifically on the flipped classroom model or the station rotation model).
How Your Chosen Topic Maps to the Course Assessment

During this course, you will:
Engage with the research literature to explore your chosen area for the Teacher Inquiry project and what is already known about in the area
Analyse how the research literature could help to support and inform the project and your practice
Identify ideas, opportunities or gaps within the research literature that you could build upon in the project
Use the research literature as a basis to develop and justify an Teacher Inquiry project plan, which engages with your community in addressing the chosen area/topic
Demonstrate how you will utilise evidence from your Teacher Inquiry project in your practice and evaluate the potential influence this evidence will have for you and your community.

How to Select Your Topic Area

Decide on the topic area you want to focus on for this course. You may choose a topic from the list or select your own topic. To help you to decide on your topic it might be helpful to think about:
a question you have about your practice
an issue that you are currently facing
an area of your practice that you would like to develop
a particular initiative or intervention that you would like to trial in your practice.

Pine (2009) suggests some ways to identify your topic:
conversations with your colleagues; professional literature; examination of your journal entries and teaching portfolio to identify, for example, patterns of teacher/student behavior or anomalies, paradoxes, and unusual situations; dissonance between your teaching intentions and outcomes; problematic learning situations in your classroom that you want to resolve; a new teaching strategy you are eager to implement; an ambiguous and puzzling classroom management concern; or your curiosity about testing a particular theory in the classroom.
Caro-Bruce, Flessner, Klehr & Zeichner (2007) suggest some questions that might help you to identify an area:
What would I like to improve?
What am I perplexed by?
What am I really curious about?
What do I think would really make a difference?
What is something I would like to change?
What would happen to my students’ learning if I did _______?
How can I implement _________?
How can I improve _______?

Kaupapa Maori Research

According to the Rangahau website, there are 8 key elements or principles of Kaupapa Māori research:
Tino Rangatiratanga - The Principle of Self-determination
Taonga Tuku Iho - The Principle of Cultural Aspiration
Ako Māori - The Principle of Culturally Preferred Pedagogy
Kia piki ake i ngā raruraru o te kainga - The Principle of Socio-Economic Mediation
Whānau - The Principle of Extended Family Structure
Kaupapa - The Principle of Collective Philosophy
Te Tiriti o Waitangi - The Principle of the Treaty of Waitangi
Ata - The Principle of Growing Respectful Relationships


Manifesto for Evidence-Based Education" Robert Coerefers to an approach which argues that policy and practice should be capable of being justified in terms of sound evidence about their likely effects.
The notion of "evidence" is not without problems. Many will say that one person's "evidence"may be another's opinionated nonsense.
We need a culture in which evidence is valued over opinion, in which appropriate action (or in action) is valued over just action for the sake of being seen to do something. By advocating such a culture, we hope to reclaim debates about policy and practice for the professionals who know most about them. In this way we hope to be able to do justice to the enormous responsibilities and hopes that are attached to education.
The only worthwhile kind of evidence about whether something works in a particular situation comes from trying it out
The results of experiments can sometimes be disappointing, and this has led to some rejection of the experimental method of enquiry. However, this is a version of "shoot the messenger": if the method is sound but fails to demonstrate the success of a particular strategy, then perhaps the strategy is at fault. Educational researchers are often disappointed if they get negative results, but negative results, particularly if they were to prevent us from wasting time and money on ineffective policies, might actually be more useful than positive ones.
There are three main ways in which education could become more "evidence-based". These concern, firstly, the development of evidence-based policies, secondly, of evidence-based practice and, thirdly, the general promotion of a "culture of evidence".

Assignment 1 Digital and Collaborative Learning

20% Identify and analyse the 21st Century skill and/or Key Competency / He Tikanga Whakaaro related area for improvement based on a critical reflection of your practice, considering the viewpoints of the main stakeholders
30% Explain what pedagogical outcomes you hope to achieve by addressing your identified problems / challenges, using supporting evidence (e.g. research literature, policies/guidelines, current practice, quantitative/qualitative data etc.)
10% Use and present suitably cited and referenced source material in APA format, including peer reviewed journals
10% Deliver and present content effectively, considering structure, narrative and presence. Include reflections on your learning.

IDENTIFY AND ANALYSE THE AREA FOR IMPROVEMENT: You have analysed a problem area for improvement, informed by a critique of relevant aspects of practice, skills and competencies. The importance of the area of improvement is future focused and considers different stakeholders.
PROPOSE A PLAN FOR AN INNOVATION: You have analysed a plan that relates characteristics to specific requirements identified in the area for improvement. You have considered alternatives.
EXPLAIN PEDAGOGICAL OUTCOMES: The choice and design of the desired pedagogical outcomes is inforned by relevant evidence from more than one source.
SOURCE MATERIAL: You have provided a good list of references that are cited and discussed.
PRESENTATION AND REFLECTION: Your presentation is well-argued with a narrative structure that relates themes together and explains what has been learned.
Feedback/forward: Thank you for your submission! You identified collaboration as your area for improvement, presented your plan/alternatives and discussed the pedagogical outcomes. Also, well done on reflecting on your current practice and your learning! In order to take your Digital 2/Leadership assignments to the next level you could try to show a more critical approach throughout your video/essay, e.g. by highlighting the limitations in your approach and by debating with your sources. But well done for this excellent video!30% Propose a plan for a digital and collaborative innovation and explain how it addresses the identified area for improvement, compared with alternative approaches
82%

Assignment 2 Leadership

10% Explain and justify the need for your change initiative, with reference to the context
10% Identify your main stakeholders and profile the early adopters and subsequent groups
20% Reflect on your own leadership practice in digital and collaborative innovation and analyse it in the context of this change initiative
20% Develop an implementation plan explaining how you will lead your stakeholders through the milestones of a digital and collaborative innovation
20% Explain the influence that relevant research, current practice, policies and guidelines have had in planning your initiative
10% Use and present suitably referenced source material, including peer-reviewed journals
10% Deliver and present content effectively, considering structure, length, narrative and presence. Include reflection on learning.

EXPLAIN YOUR CHANGE INITIATIVE: You have described a change initiative with explicit links to the context.
PROFILE STAKEHOLDERS, EARLY ADOPTERS AND GROUPS: Your stakeholder groups are described and compared.
REFLECT ON YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP: You have presented and discussed relevant aspects of leadership, linked with the change initiative.
DEVELOP AN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN: You have developed an implementation plan that includes the requirements of stakeholders and milestone deliverables
EXPLAIN EXTERNAL INFLUENCES: You have identified external influences, described some connections between them and related these to leadership of the initiative.
SOURCE MATERIAL: You have cited and discussed a good list of references.
PRESENTATION AND REFLECTION: Your presentation is adequate but largely descriptive.

Thanks for sharing the implementation in gamification in your classroom. I do believe that your students will be far more engaged and have a great deal of fun at the same time. You have provided a very clear narrative that focuses on addressing all elements of the assessment goals, well done. I could suggest two ideas going forward. First, remember to focus your limited time/word count on the immediately relevant. This is a leadership assignment, therefore lengthy discussions of the benefits of gamification in this context might be seen as pedagogy and therefore less relevant. Next, you discussion of the theories around change management started to debate and reflect. These are the skills required at the higher grade boundaries. More of this please.

Assignment 2 Digital and collaborative learning

30% Explain your implementation of a digital and collaborative learning innovation that addressed an identified area for improvement in your practice
20% Document your evidence for the impact of your innovation using methods appropriate to the context (for example student feedback, student work, observations, results, etc.)
30% Critique the successes and failures of your innovation and how you might have done things differently
10% Use and present suitably cited and referenced source material in APA format, including peer reviewed journals
10% Deliver and present content effectively, considering structure, narrative and presence. Include reflection on your learning.

EXPLAIN YOUR INNOVATION: You have described the implementation of your digital and collaborative innovation.
EVIDENCE OF IMPACT: You have documented more than one source of evidence for the impact of your innovation and they are related to one another.
CRITIQUE SUCCESS AND FAILURE: You have analysed successes and/or failures, with direct reference to different options.
USE AND PRESENT SOURCE MATERIAL: You have provided a good list of references, which are cited and discussed.
DELIVER AND PRESENT REFLECTIVE CONTENT: Your presentation describes and combines themes, with a narrative structure that reports on what has been learned.
FEEDBACK/FORWARD: Thanks for sharing your work on collaboration in your classroom. Collaboration permeates everything your students have done, right from the think, pair, share to the co-constructed rubric. The different ideas and tools you have used is very impressive teaching, you have given me ideas that I will use in future work. You may be a little disappointed that your grade here may not match the teaching. Your assignment does move away from the higher level of the TML rubric. For example, you seemed to have selected collaboration through personal choice rather than linking it to a problem in your practice. You also need to evaluate possible solutions to the problems you faced. Looking forward, you need to focus on the demands of the TML assessment rubrics, thinking what would this look like in relation to your initiative. In this case, it seems your focus you have allowed too much time to describe your initiative, leaving less to investigate its impacts in depth. Video
70%

Assignment 1 Leadership

Google Doc Assignment
20% Describe the change initiative, its intended outcomes, your own leadership roles within it, and the leadership of others where relevant.
20% Critically reflect on the success of the overall leadership within a change initiative by evaluating the influences and effectiveness of the different leadership styles and attributes
20% Critically reflect on your own leadership and possible followership within that change initiative(past/present/future idea)
20% Demonstrate a critical understanding of multiple leadership theories and key principles, including their strengths and weaknesses
10% Use and present suitably referenced source material, including peer reviewed journals. Include a Turnitin originality report
10% Deliver and present content effectively, considering structure, narrative and presence. Include reflection on your learning

DESCRIBE INITIATIVE AND LEADERSHIP ROLES: You have described the change initiative, its intended outcomes and leadership roles within it in an integrated manner, and identified links to wider context and practice.
CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING OF OVERALL LEADERSHIP: You have critically reflected on leadership success, styles and attributes with reference to evidence and clearly related these to one another.
CRITICALLY REFLECT ON OWN LEADERSHIP: You have analyzed your own leadership or followership and discussed principles, strengths and weaknesses.
CRITICALLY REFLECT ON LEADERSHIP THEORY: You have evaluated leadership theories in terms of the extent to which their principles, strengths and weaknesses apply to the change initiative.
SOURCE MATERIAL: You have provided a set of well integrated and constructed references that are cited and debated. You provided a Turnitin originality report.
PRESENTATION AND REFLECTION: Your presentation is well-argued with a narrative structure that relates themes together and explains what has been learned.
FEEDBACK/FORWARD: This is a great essay! These are small suggestions, if a chart or table is inserted into the body of the text its relevance needs to be explained. There is a quote from your team leader that has at its end a Hallier reference… where does one quote stop and the other begin? You have stated your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe in the weakness section more explanation around how you envision doing things such as building community could have been helpful.
86%

Week 15 - Gamification

Gamification
Gamification is a concept, which is not exclusive of education. Some researchers generically defined it as “the use of game design elements and game mechanics in non-game contexts” This broad definition has been further refined to reflect the most common objective of gamification: increase user experience and engagement with a system. It is important to note that Games and Gamification are two different things! (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011).
Gamified Services
Huotari & Hamari (2011) outline some ways in which services have been gamified

Core service	Enhancing service	Gamified service
LinkedInprofile	Progress bar measuring progress in filling personal details	The enhancing service increases the perceived value of filling all details by invoking progress-related psychological biases.
Cafe	Mayorship competition in Foursquare	The enhancing service creates a competition between customers where they have to visit the cafe frequently enough → competition
Dry cleaner	Loyalty stamp card - 1 stamp for every visit	The enhancing service invokes the psychological biases related to progress and thus increases the perceived value of using the same dry cleaner service.
Gym	Heya Heya	Gym experience that sets goals and help to monitor the progress of the training.

Game mechanics
In his video (on the portal) Seth Priebatsch described the four game mechanics of appointment, influence and status, progression and communal discovery. Badgeville (n.d.) outline a large number of game mechanics:

Achievements  Appointments  Behavioral Momentum  Blissful Productivity  Bonuses  Cascading Information Theory  Combos  Community Collaboration

Countdown  Discovery  Epic Meaning  Free Lunch  Infinite Gameplay          Levels  Loss Aversion  Lottery

Ownership  Points  Progression  Quests  Reward Schedules          Status  Urgent Optimism  Virality

Professional leadership games
Gamification has been applied to leadership in some organisations One example is the NTT Data Ignite Leadership Game that addresses five key skills for leaders
negotiation
communication
time management
change management
problem solving


Deloitte's Leadership Learning Motivator includes sharing badges on professional networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Meister (2013) provides some more detail on both games, while Bodnar (2014) explores some of the key concepts in more depth, including some discussion around whether the same motivational game mechanics work across cultures.
Seven principles of game-based design
These principles are outlined on the Quest to Learn website (Quest To Learn, n.d.)
Everyone is a participant
Challenge
Learning happens by doing
Feedback is immediate and ongoing
Failure is reframed as “iteration”
Everything is interconnected
It kind of feels like play






Game thinking
Marczewski (2016) explores the following types of game thinking:
Game inspired design: This is where no actual elements from games are used, just ideas such as user interfaces that mimic those from games, design or artwork that is inspired by games or the way things are written.
Gamification: Extrinsic gamification is the sort that most people are used to, where game elements are added to a system. Things like points, badges, progress bars etc.Intrinsic gamification is more about using motivation and behavioural design to engage users.
Serious games: These may be teaching/learning games that teach you something using real gameplay, simulators that provide a virtual version of something from the real world that allows safe practice and testing, meaningful games that use gameplay to promote a meaningful message to the player, or purposeful games that create direct real world outcomes.
Play (games / toys): Play is free form and has no extrinsically imposed goals. It is done for fun or joy. Games add defined goals and rules to play (such as challenges). Toys are objects that can be used in play or games.
Some examples of serious games
Sparx (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pfzCKt0FyA )
Quest2teach (http://quest2teach.strikingly.com/ ).
Tinnitus game (http://www.uniservices.co.nz/Portals/0/All%20One%20Pagers/Tinnitus_game.pdf)
Cancer Research UK's game Play to Cure: Genes in Space (http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2014/02/04/download-our-revolutionary-mobile-game-to-help-speed-up-cancer-research/)
Educational game model
According to Amory (2007), Educational computer games should:
Be relevant, explorative, emotive and engaging
Include complex challenges, puzzles or quests
Be gender-inclusive and non-confrontational
Provide appropriate role models
Develop democracy and social capital through dialogue
Support authentic learning activities
Support the construction of tacit knowledge


Educational games need all the usual qualities of games, plus they should not contain any socially undesirable features (racism. sexism, violence, etc) but provide positive models, plus they have to have some embedded pedagogy. Maybe this explains why successful educational games are so hard to create.
Kupu Hono
You can try out a basic demo of Tyne Crow’s Kupu Hono Maori language learning game at www.kupuhono.co.nz
This is an example of a learning game designed for mobile devices that uses a virtual game world.
Flow theory
Flow experience is widely accepted to be one of the fundamental reasons that people play games. It is the essence of games. For game designers, the question is not whether flow is important, but, rather, how long you can keep your players in flow (Murphy, 2011).
Game creation tools
One of the tools that could be used with students to create their own games is Gamefroot. There is a video in the portal about how one teacher used Gamefroot for assessment.
Mobile Learning Tools
A number of tools have been developed for mobile devices that support game-like learning experiences linked to exploring outdoor environments. They include such features as competing individuals / teams, ‘treasure hunt’ style activities, scores/ badges for achievement and leader boards. Some examples of this type of tool include:
Seppo
Wikitude
ARIS
ActionBound
Layar 

Week 14 - Digital Design Thinking in the Classroom

Change by DesignTim Brown, CEO of IDEO, has written the book about Change by Design (2009). According to him Design Thinking is Human-centered: ‘The basic problem is that people are so ingenious at adapting to inconvenient situations that they are often not even aware that they are doing so. Our real goal is helping people to articulate the latent needs they may not even know they have’.
Observation is important too: ´When we observe people going about their daily lives, what is it that they don’t do or don’t say?´ as well as empathy, or as Brown calls it: 'Standing in the shoes of others'. Brown talks a lot about the importance of prototyping, because:‘Like every other kid, I was thinking with my hands…’. If you want to hear him talking about his book, we recommend you listening to this radio show.
Teaching Practices that encourage Design ThinkingImmersion:Have students work together in small collaborative groups to do a deep dive into the subject/topic area. Ask the students to undertake research, observation and develop questionnaires or evaluate data to gain a technical, personal and community views on a topic.
Inquiry-based Feedback:Instead of value-based feedback, inquiry based feedback coupled with observation encourages a more open-ended and in-depth approach to learning. Students are encouraged to minimise expressing their likes and dislikes, and encouraged to first spend time silently observing, and then asking questions prefixed by phrases such as "I noticed that...," "why," and "how."
Before this process begins ensure students brainstorm ways to gather information. For example:
Research that includes eBooks, case studies, experiments, data, academic papers etc
Observation that includes personal viewing, filming, online videos, documentaries, recorded interviews
Questionnaires that includes personal questionnaires, online surveys, research and data including census, government agency information, non-government organisation data, OECD reports etc.
Synthesis:
Have students deduce interesting gaps to explore, problems to solve or opportunities to solve, using the information they have gathered from their immersion process.
Ideas on how to gain a new perspective
Put visuals on the wall which relate to the topic but at the fringes of the core subject.
Ask new questions. Create a how, when, why, what, who question and define the answers.
Note: Ask "thinking" questions – don’t make suggestions. Instead of asking questions to which there is a correct answer, ask students to create the problem. For example instead of saying"Does your girl need ears?" A thinking question would be, "What kind of music does your girl like to listen to? How can she hear the music?"
Students should pose their problem by first tapping into their own wishes and goals that might have real-life results or be largely theoretical and in end in the modeling stages. Such questions such as "How can we grow vegetables without using pesticides?" And, "How can we feed the world's population in a sustainable way?" Both encourage students to think divergently.
Questions, not suggestions, allow personal ownership based on observing, on experiences and on the imagination.
Zoom out:Put the subject/topic in the centre of focus and scale out to the next logical layer. For example if the topic was endangered tigers of India, scale back and look at the life of poachers, the local communities, the black market skin/medicine customers etc. Explore each logical layer of influence as you scale back from the heart of the topic to develop a macro view of the subject.
Ideation, Prototyping and Feedback:Have your students test ideas, solve a problem and extend their understanding without focusing on the ‘right’ answer. This part of the Design Thinking process
helps student to 'hold their ideas lightly' in order to review and gain feedback from other student groups and their teacher/s.
The emphasis is on thinking skills and mindsets that allow students to create early and often, adjusting the course of their learning and applying an iterative approach to outcomes that is tweaked from the input of feedback.
Note: Nurture a culture of divergent thinking. Encourage students to be choice makers. Ask students ‘what their work needs’. If a student asks for help, assist by asking the child to give several of their ideas to discuss..
Implementation or Display:As ideas and defined the Design Thinking process moves to the celebration stage where concepts are shared. In this stage have students talk to the group about the changes they applied in their approach, what they reflected on, what evidence they found to support their findings and what new knowledge they gained or shared.