On the first day of having students back in my physical classroom since March 2020 (almost a full YEAR ago!), I introduced my research project to my students by walking them through the informed consent/permission slip packet I handed each of them. My district has started the return to school in a hybrid A/B Day schedule, so I did this introduction twice. The first time on a Monday (A cohort) with interested students returning their permission slips Tuesday, and the second on Wednesday (B cohort) and then it snowed. I asked students in the Wednesday group who had gotten their permission slips signed to at least show me their signed paperwork through our virtual (Zoom) class on Thursday. I asked this only so I could tentatively add their name to the list of participants, as I am limited to the number of possible participants in my study based off of the need for quarantining headsets I wrote about previously and their general health and safety during this time. Participants from either cohort of students will only be officially confirmed when they hand me their physical paperwork signed when I see them in school next.
I gave every student in the room a copy of the informed consent/permission slip packet to make this an equal opportunity study for any student on my roster to participate, and so they would have a document to reference when I was speaking about it, showing the headset, how/why we have to be concerned with safety, and where everything will be kept during the length of the study (pictured left). Once headsets are sanitized and bagged, I plan to put a plastic covering over the entire front/opening of the bookshelf to add an additional layer of protection. It's currently taped off as a "do not cross" warning. I let all students know I would not be offended if their permission slip did not come back signed. I told them I understood that the idea of using a VR headset appeals to some and not to others. I did make it a point to let students know there are 36 headsets available and 99 students currently on my active roster, so if they truly wanted to participate, their permission slips needed to come back ASAP.
Some students found it funny I need permission from their parent/guardian to teach them vocabulary, as it is something an English teacher does as part of their normal curriculum. I explained it has more to do with collecting information about them, knowing they/their students are being studied, and then writing about it, than it had to do with the actual vocabulary portion. They understood then why their consent and their parent/guardian consent was needed and important. Thankfully, a good sized group found the project interesting, and I even have one student who has their own VR headset they brought in to use for the study, bumping my total number of possible participants up to 37. As of this moment, I have 22 students who have either physically handed me their permission slips or have shown me theirs through Zoom. An official number of participants will be confirmed this week, pending snow/ice days, as I would like to start teaching Unit 1 this week.
I have three reasons for introducing this study on the very first day and starting the research so quickly after asking for consent of all parties:
Snow/virtual days
COVID-19
Time
Snow/virtual days
This is something I thought about when deciding when I should officially launch my research process after learning it would be possible to carry out my research this semester. The spring semester usually brings snow days, or in this new world, virtual learning days. The first week of being "back" in school, we were hit with our first snow/virtual learning day with students. While true snow days might be a thing of the past, and virtual learning days allow for the instruction to continue and leave school calendars unchanged, a virtual learning day does not help much in terms of the flow of this research study. I theoretically could teach vocabulary using the "traditional method" over Zoom because, for this study's purpose, the "traditional method" is defined as vocabulary words given as word, part of speech, definition, and example(s). I would put that information on a Google Slides for students to see. However, I cannot teach the AR units, pre-test, or post-test students through Zoom. Participants are not permitted to take their headset home because I cannot control if it comes back to school or if they would be damaged to the point where they would no longer be useable. I also cannot pre- and post-test over Zoom because I cannot control the testing environment or cheating. Considering the pre-test would happen before teaching the unit's words, and most likely on the same day, doing any part of this research study over Zoom seems not possible. And as luck would have it, they are predicting some kind of snow/ice/freezing mess this week.
COVID-19
This is something that is completely uncontrollable, and there are various routes this could take:
Building closure - If the building closes, instruction will still continue through virtual learning days via Zoom, but as previously discussed, it is not a good environment for accurately conducting the research study
Students - If I have individual students (or potentially a whole classroom) participating in the study who either get sick or have to quarantine, depending on their dates of sickness or quarantine, I could have tested parts of or all of two vocabulary units by the time of their healthy return
Myself - If I get sick, the entire study would be on hold until I would be able to return to work
I am taking every safety precaution within my control to keep my students and myself safe during this time. But, this is something truly unpredictable. I will continue to do my best to keep everyone safe and the project on track, but a virus is something out of anyone's control considering my participating students are not only in my classroom, but a whole school building, their homes, and even their after school jobs.
Time
Because of reasons #1 and #2, I want as much time as possible during the college spring semester to complete the research portion of this project. Four one week long vocabulary units sounds short, but when snow/virtual learning days and the various possibilities of COVID-19 closure and quarantine come into the mix, the more time I have to collect research, the better.
In my next post, I will discuss how the researching process has been going now that I will be taking the next step into the study by starting the teaching and testing portion and begin getting some feedback. My students who are participating are excited about using the headsets, as I think they've never been explicitly taught anything through this type of media before. I continue to look forward to sharing my research through this internship journey. Feel free to contact me through the comments, this site, or email me at mtyson2@ycp.edu.
References
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Informativeness for Vocabulary Learning. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies,
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Nagy, W., & Townsend, D. (2012). Words as Tools: Learning Academic Vocabulary as
Language Acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(1), 91–108. doi:
10.1002/rrq.011
Quinn, J. M., Wagner, R. K., Petscher, Y., & Lopez, D. (2014). Developmental Relations
Between Vocabulary Knowledge and Reading Comprehension: A Latent Change Score
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Schuth, E., Köhne, J., & Weinert, S. (2017). The influence of academic vocabulary knowledge
on school performance. Learning and Instruction, 49, 157–165. Doi:
10.1016/j.learninstruc.2017.01.005