Final Reflective Practice Portfolio (Research Presentation and Analysis)
Research Presentation and Analysis
Description
For ArtEd 7606 Technology and Digital Texts, we were tasked with creating a digital learning tool to be used in our classes. We had been working on collaborative ideas and I created a presentation (Lawrence, 2017) to be used in a new project I had been working on for my Advanced Digital Art class called D’Artopia. I had used different pieces of this before in previous courses but using the ideas from this course really pushed it to become what it is now. D’Artopia has become a classroom management, organizational, and creative thinking mechanism. It overlays into the Advanced Digital Art class and gets the students involved in the class.
Advanced Digital Art is a choice based course in which students choose big ideas and then make decisions on how to represent those ideas. Students have already gone through Digital Art 1 and have a basic understanding of Photoshop. In Advanced Digital Art, it is much more about meaning making in their art. D’Artopia helps in this endeavor by giving them practice in play, creative and critical thinking, and problem solving. It also rewards the students and motivates them as they participate in class and turn in assignments.
In D’Artopia, students make up characters and get presented with challenges that test their problem solving, creative, and imaginative skills. It becomes a meta-game that allows students the ability to step outside of reality so that they can participate limit free in a fictional world. We create the story and imagined reality together. Players determine the actions of their characters based on the environment described and goals of the character. Actions succeed or fail according to basic rules and guidelines. They also gain rupees (monetary units within D’Artopia) throughout the rest of the class, promoting a clean classroom management system.
Student Interview Questions
For student interviews, I followed a semi-formal to informal interview approach. While the below questions show a general direction and pace of the interview, the actual questions were adjusted based on the interview participant and their answers. This emergent design approach became important to my research because “the flexibility to make adjustments as situations evolve is incredibly helpful ...[but it] requires a little faith that all the parts will fall into place.” (Buffington, McKay, & Bergh, 2013) I broke down the questions into sections that led the conversations from a generalized understanding into their own personal thoughts and critiques of the system.
Understanding D’Artopia
In your own words, describe D’Artopia.
What was the intent behind D’Artopia? Why did we do it?
Personal D’Artopia Description
Tell me about your D’Art Avatar.
Tell me about your D’Art Team.
Can you remember and describe one session of D’Artopia?
Personal Interpretation
What was interesting or impactful about that session?
Describe one time you got frustrated in D’Artopia. How did you move past it?
What is something that you learned in D’Artopia that you can apply in the real world?
How did D’Artopia affect your Digital Art experience? How did the rupee (monetary) system affect the amount that you accomplished?
Moving Forward
What was the best thing about D’Artopia?
What would you change in D’Artopia?
Give one piece of advice to a student that is just about to start D’Artopia.
Student Interviews
For the interviews, I provided 9 students with the opportunity to join me in being co-researchers about Layered Realities and D’Artopia in specific. They each received an invitation and were asked to complete a participation form. (Lawrence, 2018) The made the conscious choice of bringing in my students as co-researchers in this project so that they might have more input and a bigger impact on the findings. I received five of the forms back with intent to join in the research. Three were returned but decided not to participate at this time. One form was never returned. It was interesting to me because the three that turned back in their forms electing to forgo the interviews were all males (leaving the gender of my interviewees disproportionate to my student population) and almost all of the students I had selected to represent students that were disengaged were not participating. I am worried that those two things might throw off my results and I would like to make sure I identify those issues in my research statements.
My first interview went very well but it also brought up all kinds of logistical complications. I originally just used my iPhone Voice Memos. After my first two interviews, I went back to write the transcript of the first one. It was very difficult and time consuming. Immediately I started researching dictation apps. I finally settled on Google Docs Voice Typing. I also realized that by playing the original iPhone memo, I was able to still get use out of Google. It was far from perfect but cut down the time it took to write out the interviews significantly. I also quickly saw that any time I had to stop the recording or there was a significant interruption, the student completely lost their train of thought. Moving forward, I made it a point of reducing those as much as possible. I was unable to remove all distractions because I am limited to a small homeroom time or directly after school. However, because of my awareness, I felt like I was able to really reduce the distractions and interruptions. After listening to the first interview a billion times, I also realized that I talked too much and needed to be conversational but still allow for much more time for the student to tell their story.
Early findings were very positive. While I’m aware that my interviewed group might be skewed toward students that were actively engaged in D’Artopia, the interviews came up with a lot of things that are working in the layered reality.
The top three early findings that I began to explore in these interviews:
Teamwork dynamics
Rupees and the effect on turning in assignments
Creativity and its effect on Path Projects
The most surprising was the repeated occurrence of teamwork and cooperation. While it was one of my goals with D’Artopia and Layered Realities, I wasn’t expecting it to be the most important thing for a lot of the students. One of the biggest advantages (in the student’s minds) was the comradery that working through challenges creates.
A few quotes from the interviews shaped how I proceeded in my research:
“We loopholed our way around your loophole.” (Student Interview; Bailey)
“I thought it was a very creative way to express creativities in art and positive thinking and a way to work as a team together.” “...to help us unlock our creativity” (Student Interview; Sabrina)
“We got to discover new things.” “In my head there is a picture but I can’t really explain the picture.” “Thinking outside the box... It makes you think more creatively when you are in situations. You’re obviously not going to be in the same situations as D’Artopia but you can learn to think outside the box when you’re in other situations.” “Think bolder...or you’re going to get your arm eaten.” (Student Interview; Mackenzie)
“Listen to other people. I know before I’ve wanted to use my idea because I thought it was good. I wanted to be able to explain my idea and have other people realize that it was good. But then when you hear other people’s ideas you realize that those people’s ideas would work really well and that maybe mine wasn't the best for this certain situation.” (Student Interview; Annabelle)
Analysis of Interviews
For my analysis process, I started with listening to the interviews intently multiple times and then writing out the transcripts of a couple of them (man that takes a LOT longer than I anticipated). Once I felt like I had a grip on the interviews, I started listening to them while doing other things. They would play on a loop while I rode my bike or did the dishes. I wanted to get the overall feeling of the students and make sure that I could really show their ideas correctly. Next I started coding the interviews. I took notes on what seemed to be important to the students and why. Taking those notes, I created sticky notes so I could arrange them better. Once I had my sticky notes, I contacted my student co-researcher so that they could add sticky notes. They suggested we gather more sticky notes from others that participated in D’Artopia, so we gathered even more. My co-researchers put out a call to a lot of other students in my classes and had them write anonymous notes, saying, and insights on D’Artopia (Student Images). Once I had a bulk of notes and ideas, I arranged them into an idea artwork (Figure 1) similar to the ones that I created to begin the research (Figures 2 & 3).
Major themes that emerged out of my early findings:
Collaboration
Creativity
Motivation
Collaboration:
This was something that was a stated goal of the original project but it was surprising how important it was to the success of D’Artopia. The collaboration and teamwork aspect was talked about by all five interviewees and for most of them, it was the main strength.
“It’s very interactive and when I did it, I got along with more people” (Student Post-It; Anonymous)
“Getting closer to my group” [on the best thing about D’Artopia] (Student Interview; Bailey)
“We learn more about each other and how our minds work.” (Student Interview; Corbin)
“Listen to other people. I know before I’ve wanted to use my idea because I thought it was good. I wanted to be able to explain my idea and have other people realize that it was good. But then when you hear other people’s ideas you realize that those people’s ideas would work really well and that maybe mine wasn't the best for this certain situation.” (Student Interview; Annabelle)
As middle schoolers, students are trying to figure out who they are, and D’Artopia gives them a space to figure out who they are within a community. The community is free from a lot of the social constructs that limit social interactions in the real world.
Creativity:
Again this theme was a little surprising. My original expectation were that creativity would be important to the way students interacted and understood D’Artopia. What I wasn’t expecting was the direct way that D’Artopia created creative meaning making in the student’s artwork outside of D’Artopia. A lot of the students used the time as a way of testing “outside the box” thinking and a way of thinking about, or rethinking about, their artwork.
“A very creative way to express creativities in art and positive thinking and a way to work as a team together… to help us unlock our creativity” (Student Interview; Sabrina)
“Problem solve in certain situations that you weren’t expecting.” (Student Interview; Annabelle)
“D’Artopia isn’t just a game, it makes you think really hard. It makes you become creative.” (Student Post-It; Anonymous)
“Thinking outside the box... It makes you think more creatively when you are in situations. You’re obviously not going to be in the same situations as D’Artopia but you can learn to think outside the box when you’re in other situations.” (Student Interview; Mackenzie)
“Let your mind relax by thinking about an unrelated problem.” ((Student Interview; Corbin)
“Sometimes it gave me inspiration to make artwork, that I figured out things through the challenges.” (Student Interview; Bailey)
A large objective in my course is to inspire my students to think outside the box and be able to apply critical thinking skills. My views on creative thought and imaginative thinking in my classroom were seen through this medium. Students are using the layered reality of D’Artopia to create connections of meaning across the realities. I wanted to give them skills that transcend the realities. They are creating meaning that cross the two as well. Both are incredibly valuable but the meaning became more exciting to me as it was unexpected.
Motivation:
Before D’Artopia became D’Artopia, I was searching for a classroom management system that would help take care of what I feel might be one of the biggest problems in school right now, Urgency and Agency. A lot of students don’t feel connected to their work and they don’t see the need to attend to it. Missing work is the most common way a student does poorly in my class and a lot of other classes. D’Artopia was created out of a need to address these issues. While it has had many other uses as well, it began as a classroom management system. On that front, it appears to be serving its purpose at least moderately well. It has become a motivator for students in the course and a way of keeping students on task.
“I did turn some things in late that I missed rupees out and I was always sad.” (Student Interview; Bailey)
“Think bolder… or you’re going to get your arm eaten.” (Student Interview; Mackenzie)
“Get people’s creativity working.” (Student Interview; Annabelle)
“D’Artopia is a fun class reward game that encourages creativity” Student Post-It; Anonymous)
Positive reinforcement is an amazing motivator and we see examples throughout research, business, and everyday teaching. In D’Artopia we are able to see some of the same motivations. I would argue that by introducing the layered reality of D’Artopia we have the potential to provide a bigger reward within the reinforcement. The reward is only limited by the engagement of the student. How much do they value their character? Are they saving up for the next item to purchase? It isn’t feasible to give a student $5 every day for completing their work. However, I can give them spendable rupees. Five rupees for turning stuff in, so they can save up for the Pink Elephant, increases in value depending on how much the student is engaged to get that elephant. B. F. Skinner said, “the way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.”(Skinner, n.d.) D’Artopia allows us to control both the way and the amount.
