Hypothesis: The integration of technology derived from a prepared curriculum is more effective in improving students’ retention and performance than general websites integrated into lesson plans.

Proposal Outline:

Introduction (heading not included)

• Prevalence of technology in education: Nganji, 2018
• Integration of technology in the classroom: Ozerbas & Erdogan, 2016
• Technology Effectiveness:
  • Garavaglia et al., 2012;
  • Joshi et al., 2019;
  • Kardanova et al., 2018;
  • Ozerbas & Erdogan, 2016.
• Research hypothesis

Effectiveness of Technology in Education (Literature Review)

• Technology motivates students
  • Joshi et al., 2019
  • Couse and Chen 2010
  • Hilton, 2018
• Increased student performance
  • Hwa, 2018
  • Shin et al., 2012
• Other technology benefits in the classroom
  • Kostaris et al., 2017
  • Varier et al., 2017

Methodology

• 2 teacher groups (equal-sized and aged classroom in each group)
• Both groups conduct training and planning on digital resources to ensure the same standards and content covered with similar activities
• Pretest students
• One group teaches unit integrating various websites; one group teaches unit integrating only the platform built for the curriculum
• Post-test students

Discussion

• Potential for future studies
  • Different middle schools
  • Larger samples
  • Different grade levels
• Weaknesses of study/potential issues: Variable control (different teachers; student variability)
• Strength: Instructional time did not vary
• Important to understand the utility of digital technology in teaching

I reviewed the example with students in class last year:

The example was an ideal submission from Spring 2020. Some of the problems students had with this assignment last semester included:

1. Providing a flowchart of the proposal, not of the proposed study,
2. Including overly vague details,
3. Having contradictions between the hypothesis, flowchart, and outline,
4. Suggesting data would actually be collected and that the findings would be discussed, and
5. Using paragraphs to provide the gist of the study instead of an easy to follow outline.

If you want to see the outline we started in class at our last meeting, that’s an open Google Doc based upon an example proposal.