2015 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Immediate Feedback And The Use Of Polling Systems For EFL Instruction
| Project/Area Number |
26370665
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| Research Institution | University of the Ryukyus |
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Principal Investigator |
マクレイン ジョージロバート 琉球大学, 外国語センター, 特任教授 (90400613)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
Fewell Norman 名桜大学, 国際学部, 准教授 (20577994)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | Immediate feedback / electronic polling / ICT enhanced interaction / peer evaluation / self evaluation / learner-centeredpedagogy / peer collaboration |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This research is evaluating immediate feedback provided to students using electronic polling and other feedback software in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms. There have been many rapid developments facilitating the use of Chromebooks and Google’s Education Suite this year.
We are using the Google Educations Suite and Google Drive with all students. They share documents and collaborate to produce work using all four language skills. Together we are able to consider work, especially writing, together and It is possible to give students immediate feedback. Students have become adept at using the cloud via Google Drive. A recent addition to Google slides is an audience response system that we will use this year in presentation classes. Every student should be able to participate and get feedback. We have also used the polling function in Google Communities to good effect. Socrative was a less viable format because students were not able to change their answers. The impact of these systems in terms of students’ abilities to use such systems and their reactions to the systems are being documented. Ultimately we hope to measure any improvement in their performance by comparing with control groups.
Our research activities have also included disseminating findings via workshops, research presentations, and publications in proceedings and journals (see below).
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
1: Research has progressed more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Chromebooks have proved extremely useful where larger amounts of text input is desirable. The keyboards are highly desirable. It is possible, and indeed easy to build a mobile Chromebook computing laboratory with virtually all the features of a language laboratory for the following amount: One Cart: \105,150; 30 Chromebooks: \1,161,928; One high speed Router: \39,800
We have viably used the mobile laboratory in several classrooms and it is a feasible alternative to vastly more expensive and sedentary computer labs.
A high speed router enabled sufficient bandwidth to accommodate large classes We are completing a study on that compares students’ self-evaluations, peer evaluations, evaluations from four graduate students, as well as four professors. Ongoing results suggest that (1) peer and self-evaluation promote a better classroom culture that fosters learner autonomy, (2) students are amenable to such forms of evaluation; (3) peer evaluation is consistent with teacher evaluation; (4) students’ self evaluation is lower than that of their teachers and their peers.
We have prepared a study on this that compares students’ self-evaluations, peer evaluations, evaluations from four graduate students, as well as four professors.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The relevance of this study has vastly expanded to include not only researchers but also teachers and students. The devices and software we are using are mostly available for free, such as the Google Suite for Education i.e. Google Forms, Documents, Sheets, and Slides, and similar tools. This will result in broader interest and dissemination of research findings as well as give students much-needed skills.
The Chromebooks acquired by this project appear to be effective for the goals of the study and will actually enhance the quality of data we can obtain. Notably, Chromebooks have keyboards so students will be able to generate more writing and which can be displayed on all their devices simultaneously and is available for immediate feedback.
We have created and vetted numerous teaching materials for the purposes of this study. We will continue to give workshops and research presentations about our findings. Workshops in particular have been well attended and much positive feedback has been received.
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| Causes of Carryover |
We decided to carry over funds for other conferences and to extend the warrantees on the Chromebooks.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
Go to several international conferences and extend the warrantees on the Chromebooks.
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