Chapter 4 Reflection Blog

Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Interpretation: A lot of uncertainity and challenges take place during this data analysis and intrepertation stage. When it comes to interpretation we must be careful how we do so since often we are quick to judge and make assumptions. Note-taking and Note-making is one way to help define judgements/assumptions verses evidence. In action research interpretation is a deliberate action, requiring preperation and formal processes, when done correctly the data can be turned into evidence. Data Interpretation includes many areas, analysis, synthesis, deconstruction and contextualization. Each of these areas can be broken down into different sections to help you understand the data more fully. The analysis can be Informal ongoing or Formal ongoing. It is extremely important to keep your data organized. Everyone has their own system to keep materials and data organized. Having this type of organization will be very helpful in the end when you go to put the information together. I often struggle with exactly how to analyze my data but this chapter is very helpful in giving details on how to organize, interpret and analyze. I found the charts to be very useful and the material in the book to help me with my research process.

4th grade

Starting next week I will be full time teaching the 4th grade classroom I am placed in. I have a lot of ideas that I would like to incorporate in the classroom eventually. Starting next week I will be adding another job to the classroom jobs. The job that I am adding in, is balloon pop attendance. Balloon Pop is done on the smartboard. Each balloon has a name of a student on it. When they arrive they pop their balloon then they will fill out the attendance sheet. Starting next week I will also be integrating music and movement into the classroom for my research project. I am anxious to see how it will all go but I am nervous about all of the data I will be collecting and will have to keep organized. I have decided that one way I will keep things organized is by dividing each of the 6 weeks into 6 different colored folders and using different colored notebook paper for each week to write the data on. This way I can keep things organized weekly and then in the end it will be easy to identify all of the different weeks of data due to the different colors of the paper and folders.

centers in the fourth grade classroom (Sept. 22)

This week at Valley was a 3 day school week because of the Buckwheat Festival. The Buckwheat Festival is a huge event to the people in Preston County. Many of the students are involved in the festival showing animals, school projects and in the parade. I will be attending the Buckwheat Festival on both Wednesday and Friday to enjoy it and see some of the students and their work. Since this week is a 3 day school week, my mentor teacher has decided that instead of starting new stories and information that we would just make it a review week and work on skills the students have not mastered yet, as well as integrate some fun centers. I thought that this was a great idea! I was asked to think of some fun stations that will help the students in areas that they are struggling in so I decided to look on my favorite site that really inspires me, Pinterest! I found a lot of really awesome ideas and created some of my own from the ideas I found. Below are the stations I created for this three day week. 1.) Subject/Predicate Fries: My students were really struggling with subjects and predicates, even after a re-teach so I decided to create a few stations to help them out.I only needed a few supplies to create this subject and predicate fries station. First off, I used yellow popsicle sticks to create the fries. I wrote subjects on some of the fries and predicates on the others. I stopped at Wendy's and asked for 3 Large fry boxes to put the "fries" into. I labeled the 3 boxes, mixed up fries, subject fries, and predicate fries. The idea was for the students to work in small groups and separate the popsicle sticks into the correct boxes. 2.) Shake-n-spell: Several of my students have difficulty with spelling and I have noticed that they are not doing so well on their spelling tests. I wanted to give them a fun way to practice their spelling so I created 2 shake-n-spell tubes. All it took were two sprinkle tubes, pom poms, plastic eyeballs, beads and small laminated spelling words. I simply mixed all of the items into the two tubes and put the cap on them. I then created a worksheet that went along with the tubes. The worksheet asked for the students to shake the tube, find a word, read it and write it in the first square. In the second square students were to rewrite the word and underline the vowels. The third square asked the students to rewrite the word in rainbow write. 3.) Subject Predicate Puzzle: As I said earlier my students really do not understand subjects and predicates so I thought of this classroom activity where students each get a laminated puzzle piece that either says subject or predicate. Each student must write what their puzzle piece is asking for with a dry erase marker. After students write on their puzzle piece I will start music. THey will walk around the room until music stops. Once it stops they must find someone next to them who has a match to the piece they have. Then they read their sentence they created to the whole class and we can discuss whether they created a complete sentence that has both a subject and predicate in it. I created a few other stations but I think these three will be my favorite =) Guess I will have to see what the kids think!

Action Research Design and Methodology Chap.3 Reflection

Chapter 3 provides a lot of pertinent information for doing research. It discusses data in great depth, which is very important when it comes to research. With out data there cannot be an action research project. Data is the main part of the project that provides evidence in order to prove the research. There are three broad types of action research data that is often associated with qualitative inquiry. 1.) Observations 2.) Interviews and 3.) Artifacts and documents Although data is needed to do research it can look different for each person. All three types of research data can be done differently, some people may take notes, create charts, logs, journals, interviews, video footage and surveys etc. For my action research I will be surveying and interviewing the students, observing them, taking video footage and logging information. I will use all of this data to break down what is going on, what is working, who and how is it affecting students. Data is often difficult for people, they are not sure what they are supposed to be looking for or how it will help them. Teachers may not even know it but they do research every day. They do research in order to direct their planning and make choices that best fit their students. Research also helps teachers to understand their students on a different level or see their students from a different perspective. Any changes made in the classroom was most likely made from data, such as observations of ones behavior or grades. The most important things to remember when doing research is to have a plan for the research, set up a schedule and have deadlines. Do things in pieces so that it doesn't become overwhelming. Doing research will not only help you as a teacher but also your students.

Teaching Reading: Lewis and Clark

Today was my second day of teaching Reading. This week they are reading Lewis and Clark and Me. Yesterday, we made a class KWL chart on Lewis and Clark. Most of the students were unfamiliar with using a KWL chart but they caught on pretty quickly. The students were very engaged in creating the chart. They shared what they knew about Lewis and Clark and things that they wondered. After creating the sections K and W on the chart I had the students preview the book, looking at the pictures and seeing if they had any other questions they wanted to put on the chart. We then read through the story, keeping the questions from the chart in mind. This KWL chart part of the lesson went very well but the reading, not so much. The students were constantly fidgeting, looking around the room, staring off in space, putting their heads down and even falling asleep, they were not following along. I was randomly calling on students to read and most of the time they had no idea where we were. It was becoming very frustrating so today I thought I wold try something new while we read. Today while we read I had the students stand up, face me and hold their books. I told the students that they sit all day so let’s stand while we read today. I wasn’t sure if it was going to work or not but it ended up working. Students were not falling asleep or fidgeting in their desk. I did have some students trying to lean on the desk with their elbows and sit on the desk but I just walked around and touched their shoulders asking them to not lean or sit on the desks, just stand. I do believe this helped with their focus and woke them up a little. Every student that I called on knew where we were and were paying attention. It was a short reading so they only stood for about 10 minutes at most. I prefer having the whole class stand because if I have students stand up individually when they are not following along or falling asleep it is possible that it would be embarrissing to the the students and I am not trying to embarress them, just simply get them to focus better. We continued reading Lewis and Clark and Me today and then when we finished the students worked on maps and making map legends. The students did very well with this lesson, followed directions and behaved. They were also being very creative with their map legends. We did not finish the map today but we will finish it tomorrow after we review.

Blog 2: Thinking about research - Aug 23rd

I have been trying to think about what it is that I want to do my research on this year and I believe today I finally have an idea that I feel passionate about. I strongly believe in integrating movement and music into the classroom as much as possible. I also know from looking at my current fourth graders West test scores from last year, that as a whole, they are really struggling on the west test. I want to help them improve their grades in the classroom and on the tests that they take. The fourth graders schedule is one subject after the next with no breaks in between. I have noticed several students loosing focus after two subjects and many of them start to put their heads on the tables and fall asleep. I have read that movement in the classroom improves students’ learning and improves their thinking, helps them to focus, so I want to test this and see how well it really works. My ideas are to implement classical conditioning by introducing several different songs, from different genres to the students. Once the students become a bit familiar with the different songs I will connect them to a certain action in the classroom and explain what I expect of the students when they hear a particular song. For example, I would play “operate” and they would know once they hear it that they are to clear their desk and get ready for the next subject. I am hoping that eventually I will not have to tell students what to do but instead just play a song and they will do it.

EDUC 600- Chapter 2 Reflection

Chapter 2 discusses a lot of important information especially about how to actually use what you learn in your education courses and apply it to your PDS classrooms. When I think back to all of the education courses I have taken at WVU I realize how much I have learned including facts, methods, strategies etc. When it comes to research I often struggle with forming the research question. This chapter has a lot of useful information that can be applied when thinking and creating your research question. It gives great detail about the many sections that make up the research inquiry. One section that I believe many of us really struggle with is finding reliable, accurate sources to use. The first place I always think of when looking up information is to do it on the internet, although the internet isn't always the best place. As this chapter explains, it can be difficult to find reliable and accurate sources but it also shows you how to modify your search in order to find some reliable sources. One source that has been a lot of help to me has been the WVU Library online. I have found several articles and books that helped me with my previous research.