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Action Research

My partner and I used the desire2learn web chat program to conduct our interview. I was off by an hour for the start time, as I thought my partner was 2 hours different when she was actually only one hour difference. Aside from that we worked together quite well. I started using radio lingo, which is very common here in Northwest Montana, not very common in Chicago. That was fun, we learned to say OVER every time we were finished, so that our partner knew they could ask another question. I did type a very long response initially and the chat program limits the number of characters, so we learned early to post in short chunks, a sentence or two at a time. I was the first to be interviewed, which was nice as I was able to get my ideas out on paper, and worry less about interviewing. I think there might be an advantage to going first for that reason. I was able to actually narrow in on the actual activity I have been wanting to try, the Lab Report Blog. In reflection I found some other interesting trends and I will explain more fully what a Lab Report Blog is all about.

So here is the transcript of the interview itself:

Megan: So I read a little bit about what you were thinking of doing in terms of technology and creating a discussion board which sounds great. Is this your main idea so far?

Jasper: I think sometimes I think I have to go big. I will probably lean towards something that has to do with technology integration. That is a really big deal right now, as the information age goes full tilt. I have had some other ideas too that I have been very interested in. One that came to me in the weary hours was the how simply changing the arrangement of the room can improve student perfo

Jasper: that is not very cool, it cut off like half my response... lame

Jasper: over half

Jasper: so from there I said effect of room arrangement on student performance

Megan: Oh that is a pain...

Jasper: also how to improve class discussion, and look at the effects of having students keep a science journal

Megan: And now it sends my responses twice apparently! Was there more after the arrangement of the room?

Megan: So it sounds like you have a number of ideas. How are your class discussions now? Is participation a problem at all?

Jasper: Discussion is a very regular part of my classes. It is like pulling teeth at times but I usually get a majority of my classes buying in and participating. I could always improve on this

Jasper: I made a modification of the desks in my classroom last week

Megan: Really? What did you do?

Jasper: I made them into a horseshoe shape two rows deep

Jasper: I moved my podium right into the middle of the two horseshoes

Megan: Wow. Did you see any changes with the new set up?

Jasper: I am about an equal distance from every student in the front horseshoe and the same could be said of all kids in the back horseshoe

Jasper: sure, the seats hiding back in the corners are gone, and the two desks front and center are gone, I smashed the "learning T"

Megan: What class did you do this in?

Jasper: there are still some small "blind spots" but most every kids gets the same amount of face time, and most every kid can see each other

Megan: I'm back to a double message...how did you students react?

Jasper: all of them, Chemistry and Environmental science

Jasper: they thought it was cool, they like that I am always doing things different. I kind of am known for and pride myself for doing things differently than most

Jasper: the kids know about my classes, and I share a lot of pedagogy with them

Jasper: They have known all year that my main emphasis has shifted away from lecture and exclusively into discussion

Jasper: OVER

Jasper: like a CB

Megan: I wish I could make that switch! That is really great. So is it safe to say that you definitely want to focus your action research on some kind of plan that would improve discussion?

Jasper: Not necessarily just on discussion, maybe bring more full class collaboration into my labs.

Jasper: To be honest I have worked so hard the last couple years on improving class discussion that by the end of the year I might want to shift my focus somewhere else

Jasper: OVER

Megan: Off the subject, but I am a fool... I just realized why you kept saying over....I need to get more sleep, that is sad.

Jasper: 10-4 good buddy

Jasper: another CB radio reference

Megan: haha thank you! That would make sense to switch the focus though. What are you thinking for full class collaboration?

Jasper: I am thinking of having my students post their lab reports on one wiki page for the whole class. Then have each student comment on at least two other lab reports. The owners of those individual lab reports would respond to those comments and make necessary changes to the reports. We could show the changes made in the second draft thanks to the students' comments on one another's lab reports.

Jasper: does that make sense?

Jasper: This is the idea I get the biggest kick out of, but I always think that Action Research has to be changes made to me, not the kids...of course Walt mentioned that we didn't have to be so rigid

Jasper: OVER

Megan: Yes, definitely. I could definitely see quite a few benefits to doing that. What would your main goal be? See in my opinion I don't think action research has to be you changing yourself always, it could be as simply as you changing your way or doing something.

Megan: I think it is a really good idea. OVER :)

Jasper: Cultivate deeper understanding of lab techniques, the purpose behind investigations, construct better conclusions, better graphs, better data tables, all by allowing them to collaborate and evaluate one another's work critically.

Jasper: sorry had to start the kids in a bath

Jasper: So maybe we limit me at this point and get some interviewing the other direction on paper, we have two pages already...

Megan: That's fine, but I defintely think, if I were you, I would go with your last idea.

Jasper: OVER

Jasper: you think I gotta winner?

Megan: I think you could definitely write a good action statement and research questions using the last paragraph you wrote...For example, what impact does full class collaboration have on student understanding? Yes definitely a winner.

After reading the interview again I made a list of what the major themes were in this interview.

• technology

• discussion

• student class involvement

• classroom management

• use of a science journal

The fairly dominant theme of where I have been thinking has been in the realm of technology use. I really think the idea of integrating a free internet technology such as blogging and wikis. I kind of would like to help my students create lab reports online using a blog. I also use the internet a lot and have found improvements whenever I have added the use of internet and computers. I have some programs I have used with students with decent results on average, with some really successful ideas, and some that were not much better than the activities they replaced. The wiki my students and I work together to maintain has been moderately successful.

I had kind of a different idea just this moment, a notion that I could do a reverse AR project where I compare lecture with powerpoint to the current content delivery where I have students journal at the beginning of class followed by a class discussion, with some guided instruction. That really isn't that good of an idea if I want to always move forward ever improving. I know that moving away from powerpoint, accept for in little chunks, has been an improvement for the science content delivery in my classroom. I basically have my objectives that are covered in a unit and I come up with a good prompt that relates to that objective. After giving students time to respond, which often involves referring to their textbook or earlier lessons in their notebooks, I call on different students to share. After quick feedback to the student that shared, based on a students response I will either ask a question of the student or that is open to the whole class to direct the discussion, or call on another student to read what they wrote. I can usually deliver several powerpoint slides worth of material in a sit down discussion with my class. I couldn't imagine that going back to direct instruction (lecturing) will improve my students learning, so to do that type of action research would not be what I think of as action research.

I am always trying to find a way to get my students more involved. In the interview I mentioned that it was like pulling teeth to get them to participate some days. “Jasper: Discussion is a very regular part of my classes. It is like pulling teeth at times but I usually get a majority of my classes buying in and participating. I could always improve on this”... I have been thinking about how to get students more “into it.” It seems like getting them to journal has been a bit of a challenge at times. When they don't work as hard during the warm-up period of class when the students are supposed to be responding to the question of the day, they aren't as productive in the discussion. I have thought about putting the discussion into some sort of online computer based discussion model. If students are more into the discussion then they are more involved in what's going on. My second and third issue are tied together, and my first bullet might hold the key to improving both.

I did mention my seating arrangement change.

“Jasper: I made a modification of the desks in my classroom last week

Megan: Really? What did you do?

Jasper: I made them into a horseshoe shape two rows deep

Jasper: I moved my podium right into the middle of the two horseshoes

Megan: Wow. Did you see any changes with the new set up?”

I did see some changes, in fact I believe that the new arrangement and the results of using it could be made into an action research project. There is much more to seating arrangement than many give credit for. I have taken a quick survey of my school building and out of twenty classrooms, there are fifteen that the desks set up in in straight rows facing the front. If I really want my classroom to be less lecture geared and more discussion driven it was natural to move the setup so that the students are all facing in the direction that they can see each other and myself. I believe that I could gather data and conduct a good action research project on the effects of seating arrangement with student success in a discussion setting.

I currently use a science journal. It is my second year of having my students keep a journal, but the process was simply called the warm-up notebook. This year it is referred to as a journal and used for more than just answering the warm-up question. This year I have been having students use the journal more and more prominently in the lab as the year has worn on to this point. I also have students make notes in their notebooks to be used on homework assignments, and specific things I tell them to jot down in there in short pieces of direct instruction. As was mentioned earlier, there is much more discussion than direct instruction, and when I do use direct instruction I keep it under fifteen minutes at a time without changing gears to more discussion or an activity.

I have had to do most of this without aid of much analytical discourse but the due date for this assignment is measured to this time right now with minutes.

“Jasper: I am thinking of having my students post their lab reports on one wiki page for the whole class. Then have each student comment on at least two other lab reports. The owners of those individual lab reports would respond to those comments and make necessary changes to the reports. We could show the changes made in the second draft thanks to the students' comments on one another's lab reports.”

Thursday of this next week I will be giving my idea a test run. I had students conduct a lab starting Wednesday of last week. They had some pre-lab questions they needed to answer so they had a good understanding of what chromatography was before they began the lab. They also needed to explore what type of solvent of the solvents available to them would be the best solvent. I encouraged students to use the ideas of electronegativity and polarity to explain their prediction. This information was recorded in the students' lab notebooks. They then conducted the lab, which came in two parts, the exploration of four different liquids and see which one did the best job of separating the pigments in a black Expo wet erase marker. The second part of the lab was to look at different colors of wet erase markers and test them against each other in the same solvent. Students were guided through the lab, and asked to transfer all information into their journals. I also had students make drawings in their lab journals of the lab setup and the results. Using a digital camera students took photographs of their lab setups and results.

I hope to have students do a full writeup for this lab, then post the write up, scans of their journal pages, and digital photos to a blog. I want to then have students view their classmates blogs and make comments on a number of them. Students then can go back and read the comments left for them by their classmates. The students will then go back and make revisions to their lab report blog and make their own comments in response to the feedback they were given. I am hoping that this experience is greeted with a percentage of the optimism I have for this project by the students.

I hope to “Jasper: Cultivate deeper understanding of lab techniques, the purpose behind investigations, construct better conclusions, better graphs, better data tables, all by allowing them to collaborate and evaluate one another's work critically.” If this first run makes it and I don't find it necessary to scrap the whole idea I hope that I can perhaps measure the effectiveness of this new technique to make students better at labs, and make labs a more valuable experience. I think that often in the race to the standards, perhaps we don't take the time to look back and really reflect enough on the work. Students could hopefully benefit as much as I find myself benefiting when I look back at my work. Perhaps such a long term project could allow students to begin to look more long term at the science classroom. Kids in my science classroom will know that keeping a journal and keeping up with the discussion will pay off after completion of a multi-step process like this. By looking at their fellow students' work they hopefully can understand better what the goals of labs were, and there is also some ownership with putting ideas out there for others to read. All this could be accomplished while using a free resource such as blogging, not including the computers and the internet connection.

My project idea actually covers this checklist almost in it's entirety!

Special Assignment 2

Jasper Howell

Foundations of Action Research

I chose to look over the Lua Olsen capstone. I met her in two of my summer classes and I was impressed with her on many levels, especially her compassion for her students, and the note (note: This capstone was checked by a committee and viewed as a model capstone in terms of formatting, etc). If I want to do it correctly this is the one to look at.

overall purpose

The effects of differentiated instruction in individual and group work settings in seventh grade Earth Science. (Primary question) Just the title of her study shows that her main study question is actually two questions, the effects of differentiated instruction on individual work setting and on the group work setting. She was also interested in student attitudes about group work, and if they were changed after she applied her treatment. Specifically did attitudes change when group work was differentiated for learning profile. Did attitudes change when individual work was differentiated for readiness. Of course she wanted to see if grades improved. (secondary questions)

reasons provided by the author for this study.

In Lua's school it was made a goal by the whole school (staff and administration) to become a differentiated school. They voted as a group to “gradually become a differentiated school by redesigning curriculum and instruction to better meet the needs of individual students, thereby maximizing their learning.” Lua served on a committee to set this up at her school and she felt it was important. She really felt that this approach would benefit her student because of the mix of strengths she had in her heterogeneous group of students at her school. This would benefit Lua tremendously as this was an undertaking her school was committed to, and she would be spending countless extra hours on this undertaking, so why not work it into her master's program. That part made perfect sense. No doubt that this helped other faculty at her school as she certainly did a lot of the ground-work for this venture. The administration must have certainly benefited by having a faculty member completely on board with such and undertaking, and the benefit of someone with extra vested interest in this process working out, and of course more data, administrators love data. For students having a good teacher involved in the changes as well as the students helps the students with the transition.

conceptual framework

The five classroom elements were focused upon; content, process, product, learning environment, and affect. Content refers to what is taught and how it is taught. Process is the means by which the students learn the content, whereas product is akin to summative assessment. Learning environment focuses on how time, space, and materials are utilized, and affect is a focus on student attitudes. In here obvious literature review she focused a lot on publications that had the name “Tomlinson.” I understand that Tomlinson is a leading authority on differentiated instruction after reading through her literature review which was headed the “Conceptual Framework”. She used Tomlinson's guiding principles of differentiated instruction to frame her treatments. She had a number of concepts as her guide, and she explored each with a solid paragraph where she clearly and coherently lined these ideas/finding/theories out. The basic ideas were an understanding of learning style, intelligence, and culture. What she covered in the order in which she did is: worthiness of group activities compared with those being replaced, promoting positive interdependence, team-building activities, reflection, assessing similarities and differences, assigning competences, multiple abilities through use of heterogeneous grouping, triarchic theory of intelligence, and a concise summary of what differentiation is.

treatment

The use of scaffolding involves the teacher modeling the desired learning strategy or task, then gradually shifting responsibility to the students. She focused on the use of learning profiles, which focuses on the six areas; sensory, perceptual, cognitive, personality, and personal talents to help give every member in group work settings value. She used student readiness to guide her research and decision making in setting up groups and giving individual help when needed. After finding the strengths and weakness of her students she went ot arranging heterogeneous groups around competences. She focused on the transition between group and individual work where student were encouraged to identify their own unique strengths. She used flexible grouping where where students work in groups that have both shared and varied learning profiles.

In doing here homework so thoroughly I think she did an excellent job of using a nice variety of techniques to bring her students to a great group work setting. The idea was to use group work to improve the learning of all. Using so many introspective techniques with students allows them to better understand themselves and that is a skill they will use long after their school years. The fact that they probably did better in science class that year seems like almost a side note to me, as they were probably better people after this experience.

data collection method(s)

She used her direct observation and kept a journal during the whole process and reflected upon it often. She also used student interviews, attitude surveys, and journals as well as her sources of data. Whe did a wonderful job of arranging her data in a Triangulation Matrix with displayed three sources of data for each of her primary and secondary questions. For her primary question she used direct observation and journaling for one data source, student interviews as her second, and attitude surveys coupled with student journals and reflections as her third. For the first secondary question related to attitudes about group work, she used student interviews, pre and posttreatment attitude surveys, and student journals for her data. In the second secondary question pertaining to students attitudes about individual work, she used instructor observations and journaling, pre and posttreatemetn attitude surveys, student interviews. For the question about the increase of student grades (secondary research question three) she was able to compare lab grades on the same unit from year to year. Because of her questions being about attitudes her use of attitude surveys was, I think, very effective. In any research there is a question about the validity of data when we have high hopes for a certain outcome. I wonder about using scores on a lab graded by you to measure the effects of changes you put in to improve grades. Was it the improved instructional techniques that produced the grades or just a better presentation of material that led to the increase? Could some defining features matrixes have been used as data collection tools at any point in this, and would the data have been useful?

key findings

Lua found that the techniques she used did contribute to positive group learning experience. Student attitudes did become friendlier towards group work as a whole. Some students that had a poor attitude towards group work early on had positive comments at certain points later in the study. She found overwhelmingly positive results in attitudes following all of the team building activities. The emphasis on her strategies led her to conclude that many students did better in the individual work portions of their school day as well. Two out of three of the projects that were to be looked at for grades showed an increased average score, but that means in one unit the scores went down. She found some great areas to improve on to better build groups in the future among students. I loved that there was a section on interpretation and conclusion, but also a section called value. She was more at length in the value section of her write up, as she found out a lot about herself as a science teacher, and that is where we are hoping to gain the most with this experience.

"next steps"

The obvious road ahead is for a continued look at the areas that she found to be weaknesses. The data collection should stay just as it is if time allows. As always in teaching we want to throw out the things that were a waste of our and our students' time. Obviously there was some hard numbers that showed a decrease in scores on some lessons. Finding out what might have gone wrong, what was missed, and inevitably what can be done to help students score better the next time around. There are very few specific next steps, but the process must never end. As long as improvement happens while “standing put” never sets in, we will always be better the next year than we were the year before. Action research is not really a means to an end, but an open door to become better and better at our craft every year. In Lua's class she needs to continue with what she is up to, these students no doubt became more self-aware as a result of her efforts and early adolescents just can not become more self-aware fast enough. I would love to see what other primary teachers saw from year to year (those who will teach the same kids in the next couple years that she taught this year during this study) and see if performance improves for years to come as a result of the training they received as 7^th graders.