Blog#8 Nilson Da SIlva

FNED 547

Nilson Da Silva

Introduction to Classroom research

Memo # 8 : Data collected

11/14/15

 

I have collected four sources of data for my research project: Progressive notes, external observations, thematic interviews, and a timeline of achievements. I have already collected some data for each one of the four case study students. I have written “progressive notes” after each weekly individual meeting  with them. I have highlighted   what I consider to be the main events in their emotional, social, and academic trajectory that are  features of agency and autonomy.  

These are official documents that belong to the supportive project, but preserving all student`s identity, I am using them to identify what patterns resemble agency and autonomy in their trajectories, throughout the Fall school semester.  In the progressive notes, I describe the approach I have taken  to support these students in achieving  their personal and academic goals.  As a strategy to categorize my written  observations about autonomy and agency, I have used  colored stickers in the progressive notes as a means to reveal patterns in behaviors or attitudes that are associated with proactive attitudes, initiative, goal identification,  and personal or academic achievement.  These progressive notes, or diaries, are also where I  register the process of identification of students` actions and where I document teacher (navigator) and student interaction. Observation data  include my informal observations during  community lunches. These events are voluntary meetings promoted by the project to expand communication, engagement, and connection among students, scholars and guests. I have used these events as opportunities  to  collect data on what behaviors, attitudes and connections my case study are reflected in students who choose to   participate in these free-period activities.

Next week, I plan to interview each one of my four case study students. I will read the questions and observe their oral expression, emotions, breathing expressions, and body language and connect these variables with autonomy and agency.  I have received students` permission to audio record these moments in order to facilitate the transcription of their “voices”.

The newest addition  to  my research is a timeline of achievements.  Timelines very clearly show change and progress, and I believe that they will help students to see their progress, which will help the feel a sense of pride as they  reflect, identify and talk about their accomplishments in their personal and academic achievements. 

 After collecting, analyzing and interpreting these data, I will be able to better comprehend my research questions and ultimately  develop a broad perspective in my pedagogical and supportive professional role as a navigator- teacher.

Memo #7 Nilson Da SIlva

FNED 547

Nilson Da Silva

Introduction to Classroom research

Memo # 7: Initial findings Literature review

11/14/15

 

 I have been very lucky in my efforts to gather sources on autonomy and agency as  the four articles I am using to develop my literature review also relate  to my research questions on bilingual undergraduate students in college.

One article describes an action research project developed with youth who are marginalized students in an urban community.  In the article, Alice McIntyre raises many of the same questions I have been asking myself. . For example, McIntyre questions how a person can expand his or her understanding of the social, cultural and educational processes that involve autonomy and student agency (McIntyre, 2006). The findings argue that “feeling of sense of agency about one`s life is both nurtured and discouraged in and through the educational process”. Other questions examine the extent to which  school satisfactorily “serves the function of enhancing students’ emotional, psychological and social well-being”. In my overall inquiring process, I have linked these variables within bilingual undergraduate students` life  experiences by their level of critical thinking, decision making and sense of agency and autonomy.

 In the second article, Reyes (2009) discusses the role(s) of key interactions between members of a supportive community program named “College Assistance Migrant Program,” or CAMP, which works primarily with students of Mexican descent in their first year of college. I felt this research closely aligns to the program that forms the basis of my case study. The author’s observations, about the importance of the relationships among teachers and students closely align with my own.

 Aligning with my overarching question related agency and autonomy, the third article, “Understanding Agency and Educating Character” by Klass Roth (2011), develops an understanding about agency connecting the relationship among three principles: The instrument principal, the principal of prudence, and the categorical imperative. These features are on the light of Kant`s thoughts.

 Finally, the fourth article I am referencing is the working paper entitled “How is agency possible?” (Gert Biesta and Michael Tedder, 2006).  This is a collaborative research project between the University of Exeter of Brighton, the University of Brighton, the University of Stirling, all in UK.    Their findings relate to my inquiry question regarding language development process and identity of bilingual students in higher education. The authors point out the interrelationship between learning, identity, and agency in people`s lives.

  In short, by working on this memo to connect my research with the work of other researchers on related topics,  I expanded my comprehension of saw connections between the phenomenon of agency and theory of agency which will help me to understand the factors related to  educational, social and psychological perspectives  in student`s  lives  within  their agency and identity.  

 

 

Memo #8 HJ Bennett

I have given two surveys and a set of interviews to my students.  Both have given me insight to my class.  Although some students have given me feedback regarding other classes at our school, I have enough info pertaining to my class to work with. First of all, not everyone is a fan of small group work.  A fair number enjoy the vibes given off by full class participation. A larger number prefer working alone at their own pace without distractions or the demands to socialize. Many enjoy the interaction and cooperation that a small group offers. They like the independence and ability to call the shots while working out who is the boss and who are the worker bees. I am kept busy taking notes, making observations and keeping up to date with my participation chart.

Memo #8 - Dan Harris

The only data collection I have done so far is writing in my teacher research journal.  I completely changed my research questions a couple of weeks ago, so I plan on giving my students a survey at the end of this week and completing student interviews next week.

The student survey I plan on giving is an abridged version of the WIHIC (What Is Happening In the Classroom?) survey.  The survey is specifically targeted at an inquiry classroom and has 7 sections: Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Investigation, Task Orientation, Cooperation, Equity.  I am most interested in the Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Task Orientation, and Equity sections.  

My teacher research journal has yielded an emergent theme in my research that I did not anticipate when I wrote my research questions.  I discovered that training in inquiry teaching methods is something that I did not account for in my research questions.  Teacher skill, which I define as training and experience, may have a large affect on how effective the 5-E model is in my classroom.  If I am not trained in the questioning skills needed for the 5-E model, how will that change all of the sub-questions I have proposed.

I have also noticed a pattern in my research journal that focuses on my interactions with my students, specifically the questioning that I engage in during class.  I think that is one of the biggest adjustments I am making to teaching with an inquiry model, and I am noticing the difference.   

Gemma Travis Memo #8

                Last week, I gave the students at Cranston East a survey that asked questions about participation, attitudes toward science, previous experiences with science, and whether they would choose to take more science classes or pursue a career in the field.  While comparing data for boys and girls in the class, I have to keep in mind that gender patterns might be deceiving because boys are over represented compared to the number of girls in the class.  On the day that I gave the survey, there were fifteen boys and only seven girls in the class.

                The first thing that I noticed in my survey data was that only one girl out of seven said that she sees herself taking more science classes (other than those required) in the future.  She was also the only girl out of the seven that said that she sees herself pursuing a career in science.  Looking at the boys, eight out of fifteen said that they wanted to take more science classes and six out of fifteen saw themselves having a career in science.

                Next, I noticed that while ten out of the fifteen boys chose that they like science, girls were pretty much evenly split between liking and disliking science.  In terms of participation, it was interesting to see that the majority of boys claimed to participate (raise their hand, answer questions, engage in class discussion) three or more times per class period, while most of the girls said that they participate one to two times per class period.  Finally, looking at previous experiences in science class, the majority of both boys and girls chose that they have done well in past science classes.  Below is a table of my survey data.

		Girls	Boys
Participation:	3 or more times per class	1	7
	1-2 times per class	5	3
	3-4 times per week	0	1
	1-2 times per week	0	3
	Not at all	1	1
Listener/Talker in class:	Listener	5	6
	Talker	2	8
Attitude toward science:	Really enjoy science	1	2
	Like science	3	10
	Dislike science	3	1
	Hate science	0	2
Previous experience:	Awesome	0	2
	Good	4	9
	Fair	1	2
	Poor	2	2
More science classes?	Yes	1	8
	No	6	7
Science career?	Yes	1	6
	No	6	9

Memo #8- Research Memo

I have been going back through my TRJ week by week to see what trends I have seen. Here is my first memo from my earlier journal entries:

Repeated Observations:

• ·        Beginning of the year, good community in the class
• ·        Small, only 11 students
• ·        The teacher was very big on silent redirections
• ·        Differentiating with standardized tests was a bit difficult, forcing students to be silent, some students easily felt defeated
• ·        When working whole group in the small setting, my level 1 students were disengaged and frustrated
• ·        Students engaged with one another through charades and other activities when they could break from routine
• ·        Students that are of different levels do not interact with one another
• ·        Students unwilling to participate in small groups
• ·        Team building activities may not be enough

Trends that I am seeing:

• Students are grouping together based on proficiency, certain students are only comfortable speaking in front of other students.
• My higher proficiency students want to do their own thing, they do not want to help others in the classroom who may be struggling.
• I am getting the sense that other students are shutting down and may be intimidated by others in the room. 

Take -aways:

• I really want to focus at this point on getting different students to interact with one another. Since the trend is independent work and talking only with the people you can communicate with comfortably, I will try to implement more small group work into my lesson plans to observe how students work together in assigned small groups.

Memo #8

After looking through my student surveys, I have found some pretty clear patterns.

1. A lot of my students have skills or rules that they use or abide by outside of the classroom. Many students seemed to recognize dangerous times to be outside, what streets not to go down, and not getting involved with sketchy people. Even though they have this common knowledge, they did not recognize them!

2. After pushing students further with my questioning, students started to recognize that they have critical thinking skills, and apply these to the scenarios listed above. Many of my students are able to think quickly with their reactions to weird situations, and can determine the best course of action outside of school, whether they choose to follow it or not. But having this knowledge, will help me leverage these skills in the classroom! Very STOKED (yes, STOKED) on this information.


Now that I am conducting student interviews, with four specific students, I will try to find even more trends in my data.

Memo #8: Melillo, Research memo

MaryElizabeth Melillo

FNED 547

Research Memo for Student Surveys

    In my research I have used student surveys to collect information to determine  the impact of the student/teacher relationships on student engagement in the classroom, whether or not diverse learners are trying to learn, desire not to learn or do not learn due to fear of failure, and to determine what types of lessons are more engaging to my students.  From these surveys, I have created a matrix to examine the information by each question.

    Using the first and second surveys, students have informed me that they prefer group instruction and that being in a group and using the computer makes them want to engage in the class lesson.  Additionally, most of my students feel as though they either always engage  or most often engage in the class lesson.  In this analysis of their responses, I feel as though their responses are accurate in regards to what I have seen in the classroom daily.  Also, students feel as though their relationship with their teacher does impact their participation/engagement in the lesson.  In my first survey, seven out of sixteen students said it always impacted them.  In my second survey, four out of fifteen said it always impacted them while six felt it sometimes impacted them.  The majority of my students felt as though they are part of the learning in the classroom in the first survey, and the second survey indicated they were divided equally among always part of the learning, most often part of the learning, and sometimes part of the learning.  I hope that this change is due to the growth in our relationship which has made them more willing to answer honestly about how they are participating/engaging in class.  Overall, there is participation/engagement in the learning due to a desire to succeed according to the class majority.

    Reviewing the types of learners my student identify themselves as and their interests keeps me aware of how I’d like to continue to build my lessons. In my first survey, the majority students identified themselves as interpersonal, musical, bodily-kinesthetic learners.  In the second survey,  the majority of my students were musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal learners.  I wonder if the shift in learning styles is based on instruction or better understanding of the learning styles themselves.  The interests of my students vary.  Some of the top interest areas were drawing, models, hands-on, acting, listening to music, alone time, and multimedia.  My next task will be how to incorporate both these learning styles and areas of interest into my instruction.

Research Memo

Taking from Exercise #1 in the Falk and Blumenreich chapter, write a research memo about the data you have collected so far.  What themes and patterns have you been finding?  Have you been able name any of these themes as codes?  What is new/interesting/potentially troubling?

Memo 7: Classroom Research

Luckily, I have been able to find a great deal of research pertaining to the effects of group learning and non-traditional instructional techniques.

One article that I have found particularly engaging is called, "Supporting Autonomy in the Classroom: Ways Teachers Encourage Student Decision Making and Ownership" by Stefanou et al. (2004). This article explains that autonomy support can me manifested in the classroom in three different ways: organizational autonomy (allowing students to take decision-making role in terms of classroom management), procedural autonomy (offering students choices about the use of different media to present ideas) , and cognitive autonomy support (allowing students to evaluate their work). The authors explain that whereas organizational autonomy support may encourage a sense of well-being in the classroom and procedural autonomy may encourage initial engagement with learning activities, cognitive autonomy support may foster a more enduring psychological investment in deep level thinking (Stefanou et al., 2004). I really liked how this article broke down "autonomy" and analyzed student decision making from a variety of different angles.

One area I hope to find more research on pertains to one of my sub-questions: How does a more student-lead classroom affect who I am as a teacher and how my students perceive me? While there is a great deal of research that looks at student autonomy and how it affects students, I want to find more that looks at the effects of the instructor in the room. This does not necessarily have to be in the form of a study; I would love to even find some personal narratives from teachers who have tried to change the structure of their classroom from a teacher-centered one to a more student-led environment.

Finally, I am hoping to find more research that has been done in urban, public school environments. While the research I have discovered has been very insightful, I find that most of the analysis has been done in schools that do not share the same socioeconomic and racial compositions as my students. Most studies have focused on suburban schools or college students. While I do think that these other studies offer great insights into my research question, I am interested to see if there are any differences in techniques or results that focus on urban, public schools.

Harris - Memo #7

To start off, I just want to mention some interesting trends I saw while looking for articles about science inquiry education.  I came across many articles about teacher's attitudes and approaches towards inquiry learning.  It is an interesting topic to research, especially given the rollout of NGSS aligned curricula around the country that call for teachers to plan 5-E units and lessons. 

I was able to find research that addressed my overarching and sub-questions.  The articles come from a variety of education journals and use a variety of methods including teacher research, a case study, and empirical studies.  In terms of achievement, there is research that indicates that students who conduct the inquiry and investigations on their own have increases in achievement.  I was surprised by how much of the research dealt with specific aspects of inquiry science learning.  I will have to think about how to generalize from these more empirical papers and incorporate them into my literature review.  

Additionally, I was excited to see that some people have already explored the question of how gender dynamics can impact students' experiences of inquiry learning.  However, I have not yet found any literature that looks at other aspects of social dynamics besides gender in regards to inquiry learning.  The literature on gender proposed evidence that boys see more of a benefit of inquiry learning than girls.  

I also found a paper that focused on investigating specific teacher-student interactions during inquiry learning in science and what effect they had on student learning.  Reading this paper has made me rethink about what types of interactions I want to emphasize as a teacher during inquiry learning.  They specifically talk about what teacher-student interactions indicate to the students what is important to learn.  I'm looking forward to using this article to gain more resources on the topic.

Memo #7 HJ Bennett

Spending a few hours learning how to navigate search engines at the RIC Library under the direction of a librarian was eye opening. I appreciated the time and guidance she shared with us as well as the convenience of free copies.  I did have to catch myself from falling into the deep, dark rabbit hole of the thousands and thousands of available research articles.  I forced myself to focus and narrow down articles that were compatible to my research questions.  For the most part, I am happy to report that it was more hit than miss.

One of the articles I consider to be a gem is from the Foreign Language Annals. It has caused me to rethink my research regarding motivation and class participation in the foreign language classroom.  This article puts a spin on learning Spanish- are there gender differences in motivation to learn Spanish in the United States?  Boys crave desire greater control in L2 classrooms and "resent" being dependent upon the teacher.  Boys are " highly critical of the repetitive and teacher-centered nature of L2 classes."  They prefer student-centered learning where the target language is frequently used, authentic materials are incorporated and tasks are purposeful. Where do I sign up? My goal is teach in this manner to boys and girls. I did not realize that there is a great divide of sexes.

I do intend to pass out another questionnaire tailored to the points raised in this article. I will also refer to it as I interview students individually.

Gemma Travis Memo #7

I was pleased to discover that there is a lot of information out there on the role of gender in science class.  Now my job is to pick through the articles to narrow what I have found down to what relates most to my research questions.  As I have been doing this, there have been a few things that have struck my attention about my topic. 

Two articles specifically discuss the role of gender not only in science class, but in a future career in science.  I found this interesting and it was not something that I had originally thought of for this project.  However, this makes me want to add a question to my student survey about interest in pursuing a career in science.  This could also be something to ask in a student interview.  An article titled High School Students’ Perceptions of School Science and Science Careers: A Critical Look at a Critical Issue describes that student interest in school science is an indicator of whether they will choose to take science courses in college and pursue science careers, which makes a lot of sense.  However, the study also found no difference between girl and boy responses to questions about pursuing careers in science, which was not what I expected considering the disproportionate numbers of males and females in science careers.

Another article that stood out to me was titled Concern Over Gender Gap Switching to Boys.  This will be something to consider when looking for a counter argument, because so far I have read mostly about a gap relating to female interest and participation in science class. 

Finally, something I want to consider is an article that looked at student attitudes toward science.  I think that this could be something that I could integrate into my research questions.  I could collect data on student attitudes toward science through interviews and a survey.  It would be interesting to see the role of gender not only in student participation and engagement in science, but also their overall attitudes toward the subject.  I will definitely be adding a question to my student survey about this.

Memo #7

After learning how to search through the RIC database, I was STOKED to find an article directly relating to my research topic. Initially, I thought that I would not find something so spot on, and have to piece together research from a bunch of different resources, so to find a ringer like that was a pleasant surprise. The only thing is that will I find another one... which freaks me out a little bit, because I am finding it hard to do just that.

BUT, the fact that I found a research paper, that pushed my thinking of how to look at the students in a growth mindset, and more of a "what do students bring to the table" as opposed to what they are missing out on, has helped me re-focus some of my interviews to be more positive and optimistic on what students already know coming through the school doors.

Some of the excerpts from student conversations with the researcher paints a picture of how students value their street smarts just as much, if not more than their book smarts. Which just goes to show how tying them together could drive engagement and increase the strength and overall power they would have in the outside world but also in the classroom.

I hope to use this article as well as continue finding others that confirm that students street smarts are valued and are being used in the classroom to enhance learning.

Blog # 7
    Campano resonates a common thread throughout his stories about his students. That is "What appears to be is not always as simple as what is observed or perceived." You sometimes have to get to know your individual students better in order to teach them or begin to have an idea about what is maybe going on in their heads. My inclusion teacher gave me some insight into just two of my students this past week. One student, a male of thirteen years always seems to be pleasant and smiles a lot whenever he is talked to or gives an answer. The teacher had asked him why he had a cast on his broken hand when he came in last week. He told her that he had punched a wall and broke the knuckles on his right hand. She then asked him why he had done it and he said, "I have anger issues". If you look at this boy and were given a survey about how he broke his hand, and one of the answers was "Skateboarding" ,"Basketball accident", "Skiing accident", "In Anger I punched a wall", the least likely would be the last answer. I never observed anger issues with him. Both the inclusion teacher and myself suggested to him to seek help with this issue, either a social worker, guidance counselor, or psychologist.
    Another child who is always quiet and does his work, but rarely interacts with other students story is that his father had died last year suddenly and his mother decided to take the two children out of Florida and to move to Rhode Island for a fresh start in life and to try to go on in their lives. I had incorrectly assumed that the ELL was just not confident in speaking English with the other students or was shy, not that he had a great tragedy like losing his father at such a young age of twelve.
   We as teachers who have our own baggage sometimes do not look close enough to our students to see what their baggage is and to try to lighten their heavy burdens so that they can learn. "Things are not what they appear to be". "It is what it is", is not always a true statement.