Native American Representation in Mass Media

Leavitt, P. A., Covarrubias, R., Perez, Y. A., & Fryberg, S. A. (2015). “Frozen in time”: The impact of Native American media representations on identity and self‐understanding. Journal of Social Issues, 71(1), 39-53.

Summarize.  This article takes an exploratory approach to understanding how Native American representation in mass media effects members within the community in terms of individualization, self-stereotyping, and how it impacts their experiences within professional and education environments. The authors spend time reviewing the current representation within mass media and the negative impacts that it has within the Native American community. The authors also suggest that more research be done on this topic, and that those who create media be mindful of how they are representing cultures to ensure avoidance of negative outcomes.

Evaluate. The article itself serves as an informative, yet broad literature review on the topic of Native American representation within mass media. The authors take great care in ensuring the reader is informed and has a basic understanding of this type of representation, what the situation is currently as well as areas of concern. The authors utilize appropriate source materials, which is commendable given the small amount of research that has actually been done on this topic. The authors are also good at explaining bias within their research and being candid about the lack of first-hand research that has been done.

Application. So far in my research I had not considered mass media as an area of study but after reading this article, it does give some foundation information on why Native American students may face difficulty with motivation and self-efficacy within education settings. While this was not a research study, it did get me thinking about how educational technology is a form of mass media, and that it too must create space for representation and consideration of all cultures alike. I would like to continue to find and read articles that are similar in nature to this one to better understand the effects media plays in Native American student motivation.

 

Additional Resources

Covarrubias, R., & Fryberg, S. A. (2015). The impact of self-relevant representations on school belonging for Native American students. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 21(1), 10.

Guillory, R. M., & Wolverton, M. (2008). It’s about family: Native American student persistence in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(1), 58-87.

Reyhner, J., & Dodd, J. (1995, January). Factors affecting the retention of American Indian and Alaska Native students in higher education. In first annual Expanding Minority Opportunities national conference, Tempe, AZ.

Rhodes, R. W. (1988). Holistic teaching/learning for Native American students. Journal of American Indian Education, 21-29.

 

The Big Question – 2 Minute Research Topic Elevator Speech!

For my final project in my EDU 800: Educational Technology Research course, I was tasked to create a two minute video, an elevator pitch of sorts, on my research interest for the program. Below you will find my video and the three questions I hope to answer throughout my doctoral program!

https://www.powtoon.com/c/ex6yaKV9d05/1/m

Video Games, Storytelling, and Education – Oh, My!

Padilla-Zea, N., Gutiérrez, F. L., López-Arcos, J. R., Abad-Arranz, A., & Paderewski, P. (2014). Modeling storytelling to be used in educational video games. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 461-474.

Summarize. This article explores the relationship that storytelling within educational games and student motivation. The authors created a model for educators on how to implement storytelling effectively within educational games as refer to their model as VGSCL (a reference model for educational game development incorporating collaborative activities). The authors were very mindful about trying to find balance between fun and education in terms of the games they were implementing in their study. The authors took an interesting approach to the storytelling aspect of the games, and used it as a reward in that the more students participated and completed, the more story they were exposed to which is fairly common in popular video games.

Evaluate. I felt that this was a well-rounded study in that the authors clearly defined the problem and ideas that they were going to be exploring throughout their article. The authors also created a clear framework with which their study and results were framed. The article itself was broken up into logical pieces that provided the reader with easy navigation. The authors were aware and candid about their small sample size and the age of their participants not necessarily being applicable to broader types of education. However, the authors still worked to give suggestions for broader groups of students even while admitting limited data.

Application. Storytelling plays a crucial role within Native American culture and is primarily how information was passed on throughout the generations. Considering my topic of research for my doctoral program is how to implement technology and culturally responsive pedagogy within online courses, this article was of great interest. While not all courses are appropriate for educational games, I do want to look at all options for implementing storytelling while using technology in a meaningful way. This article provided me some information on what practices are already in place and the impact they are having on student motivation.

MMORPGS & Higher Education – Could it be a ‘thing’?

Anagnostopoulou, E. (2017). Educational Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games as a future technology enhanced learning for adult mathematics. Numeracy: A Critical Skill in Adult Education, 34.

Summary. This article is a literature review on the possible ability of MMORPGS to increase motivation in adult learners within higher education, more specifically when it comes to mathematics. The MMORPG market has already been fairly popular since their creation in the 1990’s but have been steadily growing in popularity more and more with games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV (Anagnostopoulou, 2017). The author of the article argues, that in addition to being fun, these types of games can also be used in educational settings because “players are constantly and willingly expanding their knowledge and skills in many sectors in order to advance, be competent and therefore contribute to more fun” (Anagnostopoulou, 2017, pg. 37). The author then goes on to describe how different aspects of these types of games can be used in education in areas such as history, languages, geography, fashion, management, team-work, leadership skills, problem solving skills, social skills, and mathematics. The mathematics portion, based on the literature review done by the author, is very prevalent as each character has sets of attributes and stats that effect their abilities to be successful within the game, players must have an understanding of calculations to know hot to improve their stats.

Evaluation. This article was written in such a way that not only would academics be able to glean some useful information, but non-academics as well. It was refreshing to see an academic article related to this style of gaming and not lean so heavily on outdated games such as Second Life, which makes it more credible in the eyes of current gamers. The article was brief and did not go in-depth on any particular concept and calling it a literature review may be too kind of a classification as it was so broad. However, despite being more of a magazine article in terms of tone and style, it does provide an interesting jumping off point for someone who may be interested in this area of research.

Application. While I may not use this particular article directly, it did get me thinking about how games such as an MMORPG could be utilized in higher education to enhance culturally responsive pedagogy. The Native American community prefers to teach through oral communication and storytelling, which are major components of these games. I also, believe this area needs to be researched more, in general, how MMORPGS are related to student motivations to learn as well as build communities in an online environment. Is creating an educational MMORPG just an example of “edu-tainment” or just a current niche, or is it something that will continue to grow in the future and become a very real means of education?

Research & Blended Learning

Dziuban, C., Graham, C. R., Moskal, P. D., Norberg, A., & Sicilia, N. (2018). Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 15(1), 3.

Summary. The purpose of this study was to better understanding the impact blended learning has on teaching and learning for faculty and students within higher education. The authors take care to point out that currently there is not a lot of consistent study or research in this area as there are multiple definitions of what blended learning is, and more specifically how to measure it’s effectiveness and standardize it in a meaningful way. The authors narrow their scope on blended learning by looking a student perceptions and access and how blended learning is becoming the ‘new normal’ in higher education. The results of their study found “blending maintains or increases access for most student cohorts and produces improved success rates for minority and non-minority students alike (Dziuban, et. al., 2018, pg. 11). Despite these results, the authors still take care to state that there is still no definitive evidence that blended learning is the new normal, or that it will be the most effective teaching and learning modality.

Evaluation. This offers a very basic literature review that does not overwhelm the reader with information that is not of high value as some other articles I have read tend to do. This study is strong in its ability to be concise and focused on the problem at hand. An obvious disadvantage of this study is the pool of participants was limited to only students attending the University of Central Florida. This study would have greatly benefited, and perhaps more meaningful data could have been exposed had the researchers increased their population. The data was collected from end-of-course surveys which I thought was an effective collection instrument given the population and the context of the research.

Application. I may not utilize the content of this article in my future research, but I may use the data collection methods and the study itself as a foundation for how I may conduct my own research. The goal of my research for my doctoral program is going to involve collecting quantitative and qualitative data on student and faculty experiences based on the specific topic I am researching.

TPAK & Design Thinking

Koh, J. H. L., Chai, C. S., Benjamin, W., & Hong, H. Y. (2015). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and design thinking: A framework to support ICT lesson design for 21st century learning. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 24(3), 535-543.

Summary. The authors of this article define design thinking as “the reasoning process used to manage the various demands underlying acts of creation” (Koh, Chai, Benjamin & Hong, 2015, pg. 535). Using this definition, the authors argue that in order for faculty to achieve twenty-first century learning in their classrooms, they must “construct TPACK using design thinking as a strategy to address the complex factors surrounding information and communication technology (ICT) integrated lesson design (Koh, et. al, 2015, pg. 535). The authors suggest that in order for faculty to use design thinking and TPACK, faculty should make themselves part of the “knowledge-creating culture” to ensure they can develop and grow their ideas and then implement (Koh, Chai, Benjamin & Hong, 2015, pg. 541).

Evaluation.  This article is not a study or literature review, but instead a conceptual paper which contains some bias from the authors in addition to research from studies. The structure of the paper is very compartmentalized in that a read can easily skim through and review headings to read small chunks that may pertain to their own research. The paper itself reads a bit disjointedly in that concepts don’t smoothly transition from one to the next. This paper, like the literature reviews I have discussed in previous posts, may be more better suited to brainstorming and laying foundations for ideas, rather than being explicitly used or cited in an academic paper. This paper lacks any qualitative or quantitative research.

Application. While I would more than likely not use this paper in my writing, it did provide me with a good overview of how design thinking could be paired with TPAK and ICT. The article also provides some broad background knowledge on other common instructional design practices/concepts such as ADDIE and ASSURE which are important for me to keep in mind throughout my doctoral program.

What Can Videos Offer in Modern Higher Education?

Laaser, W., & Toloza, E. (2017). The changing role of the educational video in higher distance education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(2).

Summary. This article takes in the consideration of previous works concerning the usefulness and effectiveness of video usage in the classroom, but moves its focus to how videos are used in environments such as a MOOC and how they can create collaborative learning. The authors argue that video has “become the dominant media” in the online classroom environment (Laaser & Toloza, 2017, pg. 264). The authors then go into discussing the history of video use in classrooms followed by an explanation for different types of videos to be used, such as ‘explainer’ videos to show or explain a process/concept (Laaser & Toloza, 2017). By the end of the article the authors argue that in order for videos to be effective in an education setting they must be engaging, short, and often student produced rather than simply mimicking an in-classroom lecture.

Evaluation. The overall organization of the article provides easy skimming for readers and keeps focus.  While this article is very accessible to someone interested in current research on video in online classroom settings, it does not posses any solid research outside of brief literature reviews and historical analysis. This would indicate that this article is a good jumping-off point for more in-depth research but does not provide much else from a research standpoint.

Application. This article could be utilized as a foundation from which to find similar articles that contain quantitative and qualitative research regarding video use in online classrooms. I can also use this article as a means to brainstorm best practices for utilizing video in my own classroom or creating instructions for faculty on best practices for creating videos. There also seems to be a good bit of information on what not to do with videos in online classrooms, and this could be explored further in my own research.

Designed Videos as a Means for Storytelling?

Schwartz, D. L., & Hartman, K. (2007). It is not television anymore: Designing digital video for learning and assessment. In Goldman, R., Pea, R., Barron, B., & Derry, S.J. (Eds.), Video research in learning science (pp. 349-366). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

Summary.  The authors of this chapter look to explore the effectiveness of designed videos for assessment in classroom learning. The authors define a designed video as a video “where the author of the video decides on its components and features beforehand,” and then the video is used as means of assessment (Schwartz & Hartman, 2007, pg. 2). They then provide a framework that can be used to map various uses of designed video in the classroom. The authors also point out their frustrations of the limited amount of research that has been conducted on video for learning or designed videos. The authors urge educators to put careful consideration on learning outcomes when decided what type of video to design for assessment and learning.

Evaluation. A strong and obvious disadvantage for this chapter is a lack of research in the area of designed videos being used for assessment and learning, and this is a weakness even the authors acknowledge. Another weakness of this paper is that is was more or less a literature review, and the authors never performed a study. The authors mention that the chapter “would have been much more effective if [they] had used video in an interactive multimedia context” during their research (Schwartz & Hartman, 2007, pg. 23). A major benefit of this chapter are the high quality figures that were created by the researcher, particularly, Figure 1, which is a map of sorts to help readers see different types of videos that can be used and the skills or purposes desired when using those types of videos. This figure serves as the framework from which the rest of the chapter is focused on.

Application. This article is applicable to my research, particularly in creating media for online courses with Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in mind. More specifically, the Native American Culture is a culture that puts a high amount of value in oral communication and storytelling – a designed video may be a means of recreating traditional storytelling methods in an online environment. Perhaps I can design videos or create instructions for faculty on designing videos using the framework set-forth by Schwartz and Hartman (2007) while still utilizing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.

Digital Literacy in Higher Ed: A Gateway Towards Technology Acceptance?

Tang, C. M., & Chaw, L. Y. (2016). Digital Literacy: A Prerequisite for Effective Learning in a Blended Learning Environment?. Electronic Journal of E-learning, 14(1), 54-65.

Summary. This article looks carefully at the relationship between effective learning through the use technology and digital literacy within blended learning environments in higher education. The study was performed by surveying students who were currently enrolled in blended classrooms at university. The authors define a blended learning environment as one which has all resources and tools for the course housed within an LMS to allow for online collaboration, but faculty and students also meeting in face-to-face classrooms (Tang & Chaw, 2016).  There study found that “for blended learning to be successful, there is a need for students to be digitally literate,” primarily because it allows students to easily adapt to a variety of tools and learning environments (Tang & Chaw, 2016, pg. 62). The authors then go on to argue that digital literacy can be broken into three constructs: underpinnings experiential learning, and searching, which are all needed in a blended-learning environment (Tang & Chaw, 2016). In order for students to be successful in a blended-learning environment, faculty need to gauge the digital literacy of their students in order to evolve their assessments and tools used to meet students competency levels, according to Tang & Chaw, this is necessary for students to be effective in the classroom.

Evaluation. While this study revealed some interesting data, the pool of participants was small, only 176 students responded to the survey, and only 161 ended up being considered valid responses. Another issue with the study was that many students surveyed found blended-learning environments to be negatively impacting their learning experience, however, they also were students coming straight from high school,  traditionally face-to-face environment. By having students who were more used to face-to-face environments, this could have greatly impacted the results of the survey. The article itself is very accessible and well written in that it would not require a lot of background knowledge to understand it’s contents. While that data pool is small, it is still intriguing data that should not be ignored completely.

Application. This article makes the argument that students need to have digital literacy in order to adapt to classroom technology and online learning environments, and thus this somehow leads to effective learning. If this is the case, this article is interesting jumping off point for asking questions related to digital literacy within Native American communities, and comparing them to non-Native American communities to see if there is some form of correlation. As many Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU’s) do not have online programs, it is an area I am interested in exploring:

• Why is there a hesitation towards online learning?
• Could this hesitation be linked to a lack in digital literacy skills?
• In what ways can this gap in digital literacy be bridged for the Native American community in a way that is culturally responsible?

Researching Educational Technology: Stop Beating a Dead Horse, and Narrow the Scope.

Ross, S. M., Morrison, G. R., & Lowther, D. L. (2010). Educational technology research past and present: Balancing rigor and relevance to impact school learning. Contemporary Educational Technology, 1(1), 17-35.

Summary. The purpose of the study discussed in this article was to take a more focused look on technology usage in a K-12 environment with special emphasis on the following: effective uses of technology in schools “as  topic for research,” “historical trends in research on educational technology,” and “alternative research designs for balancing internal (rigor) and external (relevance) validity,” as well as “suggested directions for areas of inquiry and research approaches” (pg. 18). The authors found that educational technology is a challenging subject to study as those researching must try to sift through the mass of past research, and focus on conducting research that is relevant and addresses contemporary issues. The first step that a contemporary researcher needs to make is identifying topics to investigate that are meaningful and can hopefully apply to the next decade of educational technology. The authors end their article with the recommendation that future researchers should “reduce efforts to prove the ‘effectiveness’ of technology, while focusing on conducting rigorous and relevant mixed-methods studies to explicate which technology applications work to facilitate learning, in what ways, in which contexts, for whom, and why” (pg. 31).

Evaluation. This article, and the literature review study that was conducted was high quality and very accessible in terms of readability and understanding. The authors clearly defined the questions they were going to explore within the study and defended their choices behind their research approach(es). The authors clearly conducted a very detailed literature review and qualitative study, which I believe is often they most effective approach when discussing educational technology.

Application. While I typically review articles that are not part of my assigned reading for my EDU 800 course, this particular piece was very impactful in terms of how I will start to steer my own research. Prior to reading this article, I had focused heavily on the effectiveness of technology, and really I need to be honing in on a specific technology solving a specific problem for a specific audience. We know, as individuals working in higher education and K-12, that technology does have an effect on learning, that is no longer a debate – now we need to focus on more specific technology and how it is being used in a narrower environment. For my own areas of interest, I brainstormed how i would apply the recommendation in this paper, to my own approach to research within this course and my program. For example, I could focus on how certain technologies can allow for storytelling within online classes and how that impacts Native American students in terms of information retention and future application.

Additional Reading
Alismail, H. A. (2015). Integrate Digital Storytelling in Education. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(9), 126-129.