Re-thinking classroom studies during a pandemic
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms? How has the change affected students on their emotional and engagement aspects? How do teachers cope with the drastic change to the new classroom environment? In this project, we are qualitatively exploring these questions and exploring how “participating in classroom studies” can potentially benefit teachers and students during and after a pandemic.Â
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We conducted interviews with teachers in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic and found some benefits and challenges regarding participating in school research during this time. Based on the findings, we developed a framework for remotely conducting educational technology research.
We first categorized possible types of researchers’ involvement in remote classroom research. In this figure above,e “S”, “T”, and “R” represent Student, Teacher, and Researcher, respectively. Solid lines indicate the interaction is in-person and synchronous, and dotted lines mean the interaction is synchronous and remote. Double dashed lines mean remote asynchronous interaction. Gray squares show that stakeholders inside the square are in a school classroom environment.
Based on the interview finding, we developed this framework that educational technology researchers can use when planning and remotely conducting classroom research. “Dimension & Objective” column shows the important aspects that researchers would want to care about when planning and conducting research. “Question for” columns show sample questions that researchers can explore with teachers, students, and researchers themselves. We hope to extend this framework further — so if you are interested in this, please reach out!Â
Relevant Publications
- Nagashima, T., Yadav, G., & Aleven, V. (2021). A framework to guide technology-based educational studies in the evolving classroom environment. In Proceedings of the Sixteenth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL2021). [Preprint available]