Thursday, October 1, 2009

Aghh the THESIS( Week 1 post)


I thought I would take the first post this month to focus a little bit on my thesis idea. My initial thesis statement was:Twenty-first Century learners are not engaged in their learning. The use of social networks within the classroom would greatly increase student involvement in their own learning. Now, as stated in the first weeks Wimba, I have been asked how I would prove that students are not engaged. This was not my thought at all when I wrote my thesis statement. The purpose of my thesis was to prove that students are more engaged when using technology and specifically social networks, than when they are taught by "old-school" reading, paper tests, etc. So, now I must come up with a way to state this in a problem-solution format. Joe Bustillos suggested starting with the second part of the statement, which is a great idea!! But I still have the problem of putting it into a problem solution format without making it sound as if I am trying to prove something else. I am having no problem proving that students are more engaged when using technology. We have used several great books throughout the program that have provided me with great statistics to back up my thesis statement.

Thesis Statement:
The use of social networks within the classroom would greatly increase student involvement in their own learning.

Any ideas out there?

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3 comments:

  1. 21st Century learners feel disconnected from their learning, and see no relevance in it. Their use of social networks will increase interest, motivate them with an audience, and provide collaboritive opportunities that will motivate students to be more proactive about their own learning. Problem/solution!?

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  2. Engagement is hard to quantify. Can you change it to achievement? That way you can prove it with tests, etc. I had similar wording in my thesis and Laura expressed the difficulty to quantify things like motivation and interest. Just a thought...

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