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- All Subjects: Technology
- Creators: WPC Graduate Programs
The research begins with the history of standards, starting with traditional outcome-based standards. It then delves into the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), which highlights the type of skills 21st century students are expected to develop and master by the time they enter college and careers. Next, it explores the hot topic of Education to this date: Common Core State Standards. In the midst of educational reform, these standards seek to add consistency across the nation in regards to what students should know at each grade level and also encourage teaching of the 21st century skills. This section briefly details the content of Common Core English Language Arts and Mathematics standards.
After summarizing P21 and Common Core, this report shifts into its focused 21st century skill: collaboration. As one of the 4 C’s that P21 and Common Core emphasize in their standards, it is imperative to research critical elements of collaboration as they relate to groups and teams of all ages. Even more specifically, collaboration is a practice that is becoming more and more standard in business across all industries, so it is a skill that is highly in demand for students to acquire. In regards to collaboration, Executive Vice President of Verizon, Bob Mudge, states, “companies are able to innovate much more quickly and even create solutions to problems that may not be prevalent issues yet” (Mudge 1). The standards expect that students will be prepared to collaborate in college and careers, so key elements of collaboration in those settings—in-person or virtual—need apply or be simplified to K-6 collaborative environments. This section also analyzes a case study experiment on young children about how technology functionality and design enables, encourages, or enforces collaboration.
Next, this thesis reviews three case studies that represent evolution in our understanding of technology’s role as a support system in teaching and learning collaboration. The first case study shows how simple handheld devices assisted in correcting weaknesses in a variety of collaborative and organizational skills. The second study utilizes interactive tabletop technology to realize the idea of tracking collaborative ability in real time through synchronized audio and touch recording. Finally, researchers assess the effectiveness of one student to one device (1:1) initiatives by gathering student-reported data before and after the program’s implementation, which largely speak to the direction of many schools’ technology strategies.
To supplement all of the secondary research above, the researcher of this thesis conducted interviews with nine K-6 teachers to gather their insights on collaboration and how they facilitate it. They explain how they use technology in their classroom to enhance the learning environment. Additionally, they give opinions on what could be done to make collaboration more easily taught and facilitated, as well as what would better develop their students’ collaborative skills.
The compilation of this information then leads to implications of what needs to be present, from a technology standpoint, to more effectively teach collaborative skills to our schoolchildren. This includes a brief industry analysis of a program that already exists, as well as recommendations for new technology that considers the research conducted throughout the paper. Another implication addressed centers on the instruction and facilitation of technology and the digital divide that can result from varying competency among teachers, which brings to light the need for proper technology development programs for educators.
GENDER DIVERSITY IN STEM: Investigation into Gender Implication in Pursuing Computing-related Majors
The results suggest no indication that female students are necessarily less interested than male students in studying computing-related majors, despite that female students find working with computers and coding more difficult. Female students have diverse and varied interests that are non-computing-related, which could be an underlying factor that contributes to their “lower” participation in those majors. While self-interest is the key factor that influences students’ decisions in pursuing STEM majors or non-STEM majors, they also consider job market outlook an important factor. Compared to female students, male students tend to cite family influence in deciding whether to study STEM majors. Furthermore, showing positive attitudes toward working with computers, learning new computer skills, and even coding indicates both male and female students’ potential desires to pursue computing-related majors or careers.
In today's business environment, customer service is more critical than ever. It is a major factor when consumers decide where to take their business. However, consumer choice is not applicable to all businesses for example, public utilities. Consumers do not have a choice in picking which utility company provides them service; the choice depends upon local jurisdictions and predetermined service territories. This lack of choice creates a "forced relationship" between consumers and public utilities. Because the nature of this relationship can have a negative impact, public utilities need to reevaluate their approach and invest in effective customer service as a valuable tool to achieve their organizational goals. This study investigates the need for public utilities to expand their investment; explores the available avenues to expand their investment; and offers a recommended pathway with the features and interface to expand their investment. Technology is the key in achieving organizational goals as it can reengineer internal and external operations. Self-service technology (SST) along with the features of gamification enable an organization to reengineer both its internal and its external operations. Companies can shift work from employees to customers and develop new mediums for customer service interaction. Overall, three investments are analyzed: traditional call centers, online, and mobile. The analysis focuses on available features and how those features affect the achievement of organizational goals. Two studies comprise interviews with utility representatives and a customer survey completed to reinforce findings. Based on the research, a smartphone application is the best option to enhance customer service while addressing all organizational goals.