The best place to start is the end....

As we're in our last few weeks of action research class, I'm struck by how much it isn't the end. From here, I'll be moving into the final year of my Masters program. This class is really the beginning of the end because I'll take all that I've learned and apply it to my final project next year.

But I suppose for this to be the beginning, it also has to end. So, the last part of this beginning end is a Web 2.0 presentation of our project. There are so many tools that could be used! Does anyone who has had experience using these tools have a suggesting for which is the most user-friendly AND engaging?

Prezi

PowToon

MovieMaker Video posted on YouTube

Or something else that is fun and exciting! Let me know and stay tuned for my presentation coming next week!

Full Circle

I have an obsession with "loops". I know, loopy. My family often teases me because whenever  I go on a walk or a drive, I am happiest when I can go in one direction and somehow "loop" back home without going the same way I came. This concept is the most obvious geographically when I walk, run or drive; however, it comes up in all areas of life. I love coming back at an original idea or concept in a whole different way. It makes me happy in my classroom- finding those looping themes and concepts in the curriculum and coming at old ideas in new ways. It turns out, grad class is no different.

At the very beginning of this class, we began by analyzing the importance of action research. And now, as I consider how to present my project and discuss the results, I am reminded of those preliminary conversations. Glanz, in the text Action Research, made a salient point that action research is only effective if the results are easily understood and easily replicated and utilized by fellow teachers.

My hope at the beginning of the project was to test some strategies for informational text that would be useful to other teachers, especially those fellow Language Arts teachers who are being asked to teach informational text whereas previously they had primarily been teaching literary text.

As I've recently started teaching the unit that I would use to conduct the research, I've been thinking about how I will integrate the strategies. Part of my presentation of the project will have to be the inclusion of lesson plans that directly teach the strategies. Outlining my whole plan for teaching the strategies will make it much for useful to teachers as a whole so long as the strategies prove to be successful.

It's been nice to have the foundation in the importance of action research as I look at how to apply and present the results of my study.

The End is in Sight...

The final step in my action research is to Apply the Results.  The data that I collected in the previous step will yield one of two results.  Either the students will meet the standard (75% of the students will get an 80% or higher) I have set for them or they will not.  If the students meet the standard then the DPR strategy was a success and I will recommend other math teachers to use this strategy.  If the students do not meet this standard I will let my coworkers know that this program was not successful for me.

If the program was not successful I will be curious to see if there were certain students this program did work for.  I will also want to understand why the program did not work for my class if it had worked to improve a group of students in the original experiment.

The final part will be to decide how I would like to present the information so others can learn from what I have done.  What will be the best way to allow others to learn from me; a PowerPoint, a video, or some other format?

Road Block...

As I continue to work through my action research project I had to decide how to analyze the data.  Do I want to do a norm-referenced or criterion-referenced data collection?  If you would like more information about what these two types of data collection strategies mean watch this video.

Do I want to compare students to each other or would it be more beneficial to set a standard that I want my students to reach?  Which way will give me the most information that I can interpret so I know if the DPR strategy worked for my students?  Let me know what you think.

Connection to PARCC?

Now that my students have completed their first year of the PARCC (Partnership of Assessment for College and Career Readiness) assessment, I feel like I have a more solid understanding of what the test will look and be like. Because it's constantly evolving, and because my students took the test via paper and pencil rather than by computer, I'm hesitant to base too much of my study on the assessment as I saw it.

However, my study has direct implications for the preparation that my students will receive for the assessment. Interested? PARCC Online has posted some sample questions that correlate directly to my study.Scroll down to sample item 5 and sample item 6 to see some examples.

Right now, I just have essay questions on the pre- and post- assessments, but having seen the test, I'm considering adding some multi-step selected response items. Thoughts?

The Methodology

I thought the methodology was going to be the hardest part in writing my action research plan, but it ended up being the part where I was able to see all of my work come together.  Putting the methodology together made this plan seem real.  I feel ready and confident about implementing this action research.

Students will be given a pre- and post-test to determine if the DPR strategy was effective in helping students master mathematics facts.  Below you will find my overall methodology.

Measurement: Pre-test	Treatment:	Measurement: Post-Test
Student Achievement: Mastery of mathematics Facts	Experimental: Students will be exposed to the DPR strategy Control: Students will not get the DPR strategy and only assigned mathematics facts homework on a weekly basis.	Student Achievement: Mastery of mathematics Facts

Do you want to see if you are smarter than a 6th grader?  Take an example of a pre-test the students will take.  This is a shorter version with only 40 questions.  You can use the enter key to move you to the next problem.  Once you are finished please leave a comment with your score and how long it took you to answer all of the questions.

The Hard Part: Methodology

My sister is currently a senior in college studying psychology. I've proofread enough of her lab reports and papers for the word "methodology" to be intimidating to me. However, this week as I've been working of creating my methodology, it's been easier than expected! It can really be condensed into this simplistic chart:

One Group Pre-Test Post-Test Design
Student Acheivement:  Pre-test on RI 7.6 and RI7.8	Treatment:  Direct instruction on informational text strategies.	Student Acheivement:  Post-test on RI 7.6 and RI7.8
		Survey:  Brief survey on strategies student's utilized during post-assessment

Crafting this methodology was helpful in solidifying the steps of my study... what it would look like to actually conduct it. It's real now! It feels manageable. I also wrote my pre- and post- assessments as well as my survey. Something to look forward to next year!