Survey Results

Some interesting results were discovered. After analyzing the results from 101 students in grades 9-12, the following results were found: (click Survey Results for complete analysis) 54% of students reported they were visual learners, while 34% reported kinesthetic. Most students in my experience think they are kinesthetic, so I was somewhat surprised. 47% said they preferred to work with a partner on assignments while 35% said they like to work alone. I would have thought that most students like to work in groups. They usually tell me during class that they prefer this method. I was shocked by how many people like to work alone. It is nice to see that we have so many students that have a working computer (94%) and internet (93%) available at home. The lack of using a computer for podcasting and blogs by students is eye opening. 71% of students report never using Excel, yet 78% of them reported using a computer to make a graph. I wonder what program they were using to make a graph, did they not know or did they just copy a friends? I was not surprised that 46% of students say they use their phone over 6 hours a day. I have a teenager at home and she would probably report the same. I was happy to see that students reported that their teacher always uses technology 65% of the time and 31% reported some of the time. I was glad to see that only 2% of students reported their teachers never use technology. It makes me wonder what students consider technology. Did they think of projectors,computers, or Powerpoint? I know all of our teachers have computers and many of them use Powerpoint to give notes on an overhead projector. Overall some of the data collected was different than I would have thought, yet other data was just as expected.

All of my planning, preparing, and work has been a trying experience. I really wanted to work with another teacher that I know is unsure of her skills with technology. Well, she basically avoids it, except her laptop which she uses to store grades, surf the web, and shop. I wanted to work with her to show her how beneficial technology could be in her classroom not only for her students but also for her. But it was not going to work out. This teacher is always gone right after school do to family commitments and we do not share a common prep time. So on Friday, I asked another teacher, Mrs. Mertes, if I could work for her. She was very excited. She had been hoping that I would ask her, even when she heard me ask the other teacher. We met immediately after school to start discussing how I could help her. She began looking over what units were coming up in her classroom. We decided on a unit for her Biology I class focusing on photosynthesis and respiration. She would like to focus on problem-based and inquiry-based learning. This will be something new for her, but she is willing to learn and try. Two good skills needed in a good teacher. I told her I would start looking at some possibilities and she told me she was going to get some objectives ready for me. We will meet again later this week. We hope to being working on some details soon and I hope to start designing a lesson plan for her right away. I will be using the NTeQ method.