Future Research on Media and IT

1. Future Research on Media and IT MEDT 8484 – Virtual Research Poster Bret Greene

2. Introduction to Research Idea • Students at any age, especially when their school attendance is mandatory, often struggle with motivation. The rebellious part of human nature, that tells them to balk against that which is required or expected of them, often increases in the pubescent and adolescent stages of life. As an educator, I believe it is crucial to help motivate students. How can this be achieved when there are so many facets in the picture? Both students and teachers often bring baggage into the classroom arena, from home, family, career, peers, etc. How then can this be overcome so as to create the optimum learning environment for students? A key factor of motivation is creating relationships and keeping students actively engaged, interested, and involved in their own learning.

3. Research Question(s): How to motivate students in today’s technology age? What instructional techniques will best serve the needs of the 21st century student? (i.e. maintaining motivation and continued educational growth)

4. Research Design: • For this activity, I chose to concentrate on the research area of Instructional Strategies. I like all four areas, especially the section about Design and Development of Instruction, but I decided that researching instructional strategies would be more beneficial to the work I’m doing now. At first, I thought about design and development, since I am on a design team at my school right now, but after reading further I decided that I really am interested in the specific strategies that I can incorporate into my design work. • The studies I chose are those which I have perused, read, and believe to be resourceful to me as a 7th grade science teacher who must make sure my students master the Georgia Performance Standards. The challenge in finding the research reports proved to be not so much in finding the information but rather in narrowing it down and discerning what would actually be relative and would interrelate with each other. 

5. Time Line: • Over the course of the academic year. • Utilizing testing data and research based instructional methods • Holding frequent department meetings to analyze data and discuss/research new methods

6. Methods: • I plan to follow a similar plan of action as the report I found by Cheryl C. Frye, collecting data using a mixed-methodology of both quantitative and qualitative data. The type of research next needed for the topic of engaging and motivating students really should be research that shows the importance of implementing district led, data driven school improvement. It is so crucial that school systems put into place the research and proven practices that are out there. The study that I found by Ms. Frye is important because it is a primary example of a state which has and uses data driven instruction to improve its student performance and learning. This California school district has the tools available for teachers to implement sound data driven instructional practices. Since Georgia has taken steps to implement standards based education, it is imperative that teachers learn to use technology and data driven tools and strategies in their classrooms, all to the advantage of creating students who get lost in the engaged learning process and want to become life-long learners. And this is where I find myself in the research of my own students, trying to uncover their interests and then using the testing data that I have to then develop and implement the best practices to achieving optimal engagement and motivation for my students.

7. Participants and Setting: Participants: Setting: • Dalton Middle School • I feel that a study of student motivation and instructional strategies to improve motivation and engagement would be beneficial for all teachers, administrators, students, and parents. I feel that that getting students, especially at the younger ages, to take ownership in their own learning experiences is crucial to keeping them motivated and interested in school. Identifying strategies that achieve this is critical for achieving this goal.