Mitosis Project & Explain Everything Student Reflection Survey

As many readers of iPaddiction know, I have been in a three week process of learning with the Biology teachers and integrating the Explain Everything app.

All of which have been documented:

Step 1 - Teaching Teachers

Step 2 - Teaching Students

Step 3 - Exporting the Project 

Step 4 - Lesson Reflection

Step 5 - Student Reflection

An additional piece of data needed to come from the students.

I utilized Google Forms to acquire information to students on the final day of production with the Explain Everything app.  Students completed the survey on the iPads.

I was in the process of using Piktochart to create an infographic of the details but realized I didn't have the time to create a detailed infographic of the data.  Instead, I used screen shots of the "Summary of Responses" from the spreadsheet in Google Forms and placed them quickly on a Google Draw palette.  The information is here or below.

Some thoughts after viewing the results:

• Students REALLY enjoyed using the iPads and Explain Everything
• Three questions had over 63% of the students liking/enjoying the Explain Everything learning experiences over a traditional lecture/multiple choice test.
• Students may not have "learned the content better" because they didn't feel like the teachers spoon fed the information in a lecture format.  Students were given the basic information of mitosis with the option to become "proficient or advanced" via self learning while creating the Explain Everything product.  This was different for students.

Some free response from students to the question "In what ways did you feel you used your brain more to know the content using the iPad versus a multiple choice test?:

• The iPad gets kids interacting with technology.
• You have to know how to present the information instead of just filling in blanks and bubbles.
• I had to put things into my own words.
• I feel like in order to create this presentation we really had to be educated and know what we were talking about.
• You had to find things out for yourself, as well as figuring out how to do some of the things you wanted to do.
• You got to be more creative and think more about the topic.
• Personally, I am a hands on learner so using the iPad and explaining it to someone else helped me more than just memorizing and forgetting.

While it may have taken a few minutes to have the students complete the form, it certainly provided some insight in moving forward.