Mr. Derek Lea
Principal
George Elliott Secondary School
10241 Bottom Wood Lake Road
Winfield, BC
V4V 1Y7
Dear Mr. Lea,
As you are aware the mathematics department at George Elliot Secondary School has been working hard at meeting the department goal of providing powerful and purposeful learning for all students in the building. This year the department has narrowed their focus and as a result much of the department’s collaborative time has been spent on assessment. While the department is moving in a positive direction to improve student learning, they recognize that there is still a lot of work to be done. As we move forward with our goal, we value the work the district has done around “best practice” and the urgency for students to gain our districts’ attributes: contributor, collaborator, learner, innovator and thinker. We have come to the understanding that students will acquire these attributes when we design our instruction to focus on tasks that incorporate these characteristics.
One of the challenges we face is ensuring that all students have equitable opportunities to meet these goals. With many of our high performance athletes (Pursuit of Excellence students) this has been a challenging obstacle which we have struggled to overcome as they are regularly pulled away from the face-to-face classroom setting. Many of these students miss out on the collaborative learning that takes place in the class, and the construction of knowledge. As Brownlie, Fullerton and Schnellert state, “instructional strategies that enable students to construct understanding help move students beyond the limit of their own experience” (P. 7, 2011). As you know this is a powerful aspect of learning for students and we recognize this is a barrier for them reaching their full potential. As a department we would like to propose an action research project which would incorporate the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle. This LMS will allow students to participate in online collaborative discussions, access course materials and tutorials, participate in formative assessments and receive feedback and learn to their full potential in a flexible manner (Perkins and Pfaffman, 2006).
Below you will see the theory of action that will guide our action research, the rationale and selection method and costs associated with this action research.
Theory of Action:
If we use the LMS Moodle to support our face-to-face classroom then we will be able to provide alternative learning opportunities that honor best teaching practices to students who are unable to benefit to the face-to-face learning experience on a regular basis.
Rationale and Selection Method:
In selecting Moodle we chose to look only look at open-source LMS. Moodle was found in comparison to Sakai and My Big Campus to be our overall top choice, in particular because of its ease use and district support. Bates and Poole’s 2003 SECTIONS framework was used to inform our decisions in developing the criteria for selection. As a department we felt there were non-negotiable criteria that the LMS must have in order for us to consider it. These criteria support our beliefs in pedagogy. The table below shows our findings from investigating Moodle.
|
MOODLE |
FM |
MM |
NYM |
|
|
Access |
LMS is accessible by a wide variety of devices |
|
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| LMS navigation is intuitive for learners of all technological abilities |
|
|||
|
Cost |
LMS has minimal cost to district and/or school |
|
||
|
Assessment |
LMS supports formative assessment (including free-form feedback) |
|
||
| LMS supports summative assessment |
|
|||
| LMS allows for peer and self-assessment |
|
|||
|
Instruction |
Supports Instructional Frameworks such as:
|
|
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| LMS has the ability to embed or link video |
|
|||
| LMS provides student with multiple ways to show their understanding |
|
|||
|
Communication |
LMS supports the interactions among peers and instructors |
|
||
| LMS provides a variety of collaborative tools/forums (whole class to small group) |
|
|||
| LMS provides embedded communication tools |
|
|||
|
Structure |
LMS has a community of supporters (internal and external) |
|
||
| LMS has reliable backup or external hosting options |
|
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| LMS is secure and protects student information |
|
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(FM = Fully Meeting, MM = Minimally Meeting and NYM = Not Yet Meeting)
In summary while there was some concerns with the usability of the assessment tools (having to download students work to a computer to embed feedback), Moodle fully met the non-negotiable criteria the majority of the time. One of the clear advantages we learned of was that Moodle was fully supported by our district. Currently the team lead of the data center, Jim McMahon, maintains the districts’ Moodle server. His role is to provide system backups, server security and teachers support. In addition through the exploration of the LMS’ all members of our department felt that the LMS was easy to use and had the ability to meet the needs of our department goals.
Cost:
Much of the cost that the district will incur will come in the form of time. The table below, informed by colleagues at our distributed learning school, outlines the predicted amount of time that will be spent to ensure that the LMS meets the course goals.
| Task | Predicted Time |
| Mapping of LMS Course Site |
10hrs |
| Refining Learning Activities and Tasks |
20hrs |
| LMS Set Up |
10hrs |
| Uploading of Course Documents |
20hrs |
| Creating Assessments |
10hrs |
| Testing and Revising |
10hrs |
| Importing of Student Information |
2hrs |
|
Total |
82hrs |
Currently the district policy is to contract out the building of the course. Over the summer or outside of the school hours precedent has been set for a two week contract to cost $2500.00. However, because I am on a secondment to the districts Instructional Leadership Team with time available to develop curriculum, there will be no cost to the district.
Conclusion:
As action researchers, we will monitor progress and collect both qualitative and quantitative data to inform our work. We will commit to adjusting along the way and sharing our learning with the school community and district. As educators, we will be modeling what we ask of our students and embody our districts’ attributes of a contributor (sharing our work), collaborator (working together to develop this), learner (trying new things), innovator (coming up with unique solutions) and a thinker (reflecting and revising our work).
Thank you for your consideration. We welcome further questions to inform your decision and look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Michelle Relova
Mathematics Teacher GESS
Instructional Leadership Team Member
References:
Bates, A. W. and Poole, G. (2003). Effective teaching with technology in higher education: Foundations for success. New York: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated.
Brownlie, F., Fullerton, C., Schnellert, L. (2011). It’s all about thinking: Collaborating to support all learners in mathematics and science. Winnipeg, MB: Portage & Main Press.
Monarchmedia outstanding e-learning (2010). Open-source learning management systems: Sakai and moodle. Stanta Cruz, CA: Monarchmedia. Retreived from http://www.monarchmedia.com/enewsletter_2010-3/open-source-lms-sakai-and-moodle.pdf
Perkins, M. and Pfaffman. (2006). Using a course managements system to improve classroom communication. Science Teacher, 73(7), 33-37.