Project RITE
Recipients
The Effects of the BlackBoard Virtual Classroom and Journal LX Collaborative Tools on Literature Discussions
launch blog |
Susan Groenke
Assistant Professor, English Education, UT Knoxville
Joellen Maples
Clinical Instructor, English Education, UT Knoxville
The study is an investigation of the effects of the BlackBoard virtual
classroom and Journal LX collaborative tools on literature discussions
between college-level pre-service English education students enrolled in
a "Literature for the Adolescent" course and local middle school
students for the purposes of discovering:
- What kinds of discussions about literature do the BlackBoard virtual
classroom and Journal LX collaborative tools promote?
- Do the tools enhance pre-service teachers' abilities, attitudes, and
skills at facilitating and supporting engaged discussion about
literature?
This research centers around the Web Pen Pals Project, a
university-secondary telecollaborative project incorporated into a
spring semester course Dr. Groenke teaches in the Dept. of Theory and
Practice in Teacher Education entitled "Literature for the Adolescent."
During the spring semester, Dr. Groenke's students (approximately 15-20
prospective teachers) are paired with middle school students from South
Doyle Middle School. The Web Pen Pal pairs read the same adolescent
literature which they discuss over the course of the semester in two
BlackBoard formats: collaborative journals and the virtual classroom.
The college-level students have access to the Web Pen Pals project site
(housed as one of Dr. Groenke's BlackBoard courses) because of their
university student status; students at South Doyle Middle School have
been assigned netIDs and passwords, and thus can also access the Web Pen
Pals site through BlackBoard. Dr. Groenke will serve as principal
investigator of the study. Joellen Maples, clinical instructor in
English education, will serve as co-investigator.
