My Action Research Afterthougths

I am now winding down my school year.  As I mentioned in my last post about my AR, I had an awesome idea and experience, but my implementation had some challenges.  I loved this process so much that I would like to continue to make this work.  Since I am at the end of my school year, I am going to start developing this for next year.  I may even stretch this into my next AR project.

The changes that I need to make are to be more deliberate in my planning to include the right steps in my learning targets.  When I formed the targets this time, I just went off of the standards.  Sometimes that was enough, but I found for other math subjects, like long division, there are more steps that I needed to monitor along the way to a high level of understanding.  So I am going to write additional targets that students will need to get to the standard.

I also want to find a way to involve parents in my process.  The idea is that I will know where every student is at with math comprehension, every single day.  Often parents want to know where they can help, so if I create a second checklist, students could take this home and parents would also have a way to know if their student needs support.  I am not sure how I will do this.  My only idea right now is to have them self assess on two checklists.  I feel like I need one in my possession so I have it to refer to and pull students as needed.

The last change I would like to make is to have a plan on what to do when I see that students have rated themselves as not understanding a topic.  I did okay with it this time around, but I would like a more formal procedure.  I am thinking about setting a time aside at the end of the day that will be a math support time.  I currently have a snack break that I intend to change.  I would like to have a menu of options for each topic I teach.  I have been making a lot of games to use for this purpose.

Overall I am still very excited about this research plan.  I am feeling great about starting it, making some mistakes, and then having the chance to make changes and make this a very valuable tool in my classroom.

Vision Statement

This is a vision/mission statement that I wrote after my first year of my master's program.  I am proud of what I have learned and looking forward to making these changes in my years to come as a teacher.

Belief Statement:

I believe that students learn best in an environment that is safe.  I believe that they need to understand how to navigate through their environment and how to get along with others.  I believe that as a teacher I can facilitate this warm, compassionate, and understanding environment which will in turn create a place for hard work and self motivation.  I also believe that students need to be immersed in the same technology that they use in the real world.  Educators are preparing them for work and life and we need to incorporate the tech tools that they have access to.  These technology skills go along with the 21^st Century learning that need to be taught in all schools.  Society is different, jobs are different, and we need to equip our students with tools that they’ll need to get jobs.  I also believe that we need to teach children that they are all great at something.  They are not carbon copies of each other and we need create opportunities for all learners to learn and excel. 

Action Research - A summary of my plan

I started my Action Research implementation at a time in my school year where I was getting prepared for my state testing.  Unfortunately these two things didn't go very well together.  My implementation is in the subject of math, and in my classroom I was reviewing many concepts instead of teaching new material.  The great news is that my testing is now over and I can get some more solid results.

The plan that I developed is to set learning targets for my math curriculum.  I wrote up the objectives that I needed the students to learn and formatted them in "I can" statements.  I put these in a chart for each student.  Each math concept has its own chart.  For example, I have a chart for multiplication, geometry, fractions, decimals, etc.  After I teach and give my students work time, I ask them to rate themselves on a scale of understanding that I gave them.  The scale is...

0 - I don't understand
1 - I am starting to understand
2 - I can do it with an example in front of me
3 - I can do it on my own
4 - I know it so well I could teach someone else

So I have them self assess their level of understanding and record it in the chart.  I collect the charts so I have them to work with.  I look at the self scoring and I reteach and support all of the ratings of 0 - 2.  I am finding that the kids are very honest with this process.  Then I give a problem of the day (like an exit slip) within the concept that I am teaching.  I also ask them to rate themselves 0 - 4 on this single problem.  I collect these and correct them.  Again I work with the 0 - 2 students.  I also make sure that the 3 - 4 scores are accurate by checking the work.  Then once I work with the 0 - 2's, I have them re-rate their level of understanding.

I think that the system works very well in terms of me knowing where they are at.  The downfall as of right now is that I haven't had a unit that I have taught from beginning to end.  I am looking forward to beginning another unit on Monday.  I am moving into a measurement unit.  This will be the first start to finish unit since my implementation.

The kids seem to be very interested in the rating process and are very thoughtfully rating themselves.  It's great for me to be able to support them every day, instead of being surprised by end of the unit testing.  My hope is to be able to work the bugs out of this system and create this as a permanent teaching/learning tool in my classroom.

Action Research - The beginning

I am very excited to be working through my first action research project.  The process seemed intimidating at first, but I am already seeing the value in the research, implementation, and reflection.  My research has to do with monitoring student progress throughout the daily lessons.  I am trying to implement a plan that will allow me to support the learners along the way and not find out at the end of a unit that they didn't understand what I wanted them to learn.

The following is my annotation to an article that I used for my research.

Kenkel, Sue, Steve Hoelscher, and Teri West. "Leading Adolescents to Mastery." Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development April (2006): 33-37. Print.  This article was about a school that adopted an approach called ABCI approach.  In this approach the school as a whole works together to make sure that everyone completes assignments with a C or better.  This approach took a few years to get to work.  All of the school employees were required to change and support the students.  It took many unusual tactics to make this work, such as finding tutors and transportation to teach students in need on the weekends.  This school did see large improvement in work ethic and performance.