Click on the image to read my Action Research paper.
This study investigated whether a Blended Learning Approach can have an affect on student engagement. Student engagement appeared to be better when Blended Learning was used. Over time students have sustained this engagement. Most students were engaged in all four math stations. While the motivation to work on the Chromebooks was demonstrated by the students through observation and focused discussion, the scores to the online problems on TenMarks Math did not reflect a greater understanding of the subject matter. Student attention was focused more on the desire to use technology, rather than the content of the lesson presented on the Chromebook. According to the opinion of the students, there appeared to be more of a desire to learn the content during face- to- face time with the teacher. Over time the students settled in to the use of the chromebooks as a tool to learn math content.
During a whole group discussion students were asked their thoughts on the new lesson format. Students were asked their opinions to three questions. When asked, “Which lesson did you enjoy the most, the lesson instructed by the teacher or the lesson instructed by the video?”, 60% of the students preferred to have their lesson instructed by the teacher. (See Figure 1) When asked, “Which type of instruction did they enjoy the most, math stations or whole group, 90% of the students preferred the math stations. (See Figure 2) When asked, “Did you feel you were more engaged, less engaged, or the same as before the use of the Blended Learning approach, 60% said they were more engaged, 10% said they were less engaged and 30% felt that their level of engagement didn’t change. (See Figure 3)