Data Collection and Analysis With a Real Teacher-Researcher II

Prompt 5:  Analyzing May’s Field Note Data

Some of the trends I noticed from Sienna’s field notes were that May does most of her re-directing of students within the first twenty minutes of class. She commonly use “Listen Up” or “Guys” to get the students attention and try and get them back on task. It was helpful that Sienna made comments on what the students were doing or not doing during the times of re-direction. Sienna even gave May suggestions on how to improve these situations when re-direction was at its highest. I think through May looking over the field notes she is reaffirming the fact that students are off track the first half of the class. Redirection observation data report #4 had significantly less re-directions then the data report from week #1. This shows May that students were beginning to see and understand how much time they were wasting at the start of class each day and that moving specific students seats helped. 

Prompt # 6: Describe May’s class graph. What new goals do you think May set based on her students responses to the timed agenda challenge?

Using May’s class graph of the five minute challenge you can clearly see that the number of students completing the five minute challenge increased from day 1 to day 9. May learned that she had to give more re-direction during transition times and less during academic instruction. May developed and implemented more detailed instructions of how her students would complete tasks during transition times. May also noticed students became more focused at the start of class due to her challenge and she had to give students little re-direction during that time. I think May’s new goal should be for all students to complete the five minute challenge for a week straight. This way all students are working together to achieve this goal. If her students complete that goal then she can start reducing the amount of time to complete the challenge. I think by then she will not even have to say anything to her students they will have the routine down pact and May can spend more class time on implementing engaging lessons and activities. 

Prompt # 7: Describe Anthony and Leah’s data and what happened over time. What do you think May might do in the future to capitalize on Anthony and Leah’s success and keep them on track during the entire class period?

May identified early on into her action research study that Anthony and Leah required more attention to get their work completed at the start of class. May had Anthony and Leah work with Darby to create their own individual graphs on how long it took them to complete their bell work. Darby had Anthony and Leah compare their individual graphs with that day’s graph for the whole class. Anthony and Leah both started out completing their bell work around three minutes and as the days continued they completed their work faster and faster. This strategy was working for Anthony and Leah and helped them focus and start their work as soon as they enter the classroom. May can have Anthony and Leah keep track with a stop watch on how long it takes for them to complete the different tasks they are assigned that day in class. They will also time how much class time they waste by being off task or not completing the assigned task. I think once they realize how much class time they are wasting they will try to get through an entire class period without wasting any class time. 

Prompt # 8: What will you share and how will you share what you learned from your action research study at the first faculty meeting of next school year?

The first and most important thing I would share if I was May would be that through her action research study she learned that she would be a better educator if she stopped focusing on her students behaviors and focused more on her own behaviors inside the classroom. May also learned that getting to know her students backgrounds is crucial in understand their behaviors in the classroom and their learning. May will share the actual results of her action research study. May can display on the white board the graphed results of her students five minute challenge and her students. The majority of her fourth period class successfully completed the five minute challenge at the beginning of class and her more difficult behaved students accepted their leadership roles and became an asset in the classroom. May’s research team is excited to tackle more inquiries next year. May can also explain the entire action research process she went through and explain how easily any teacher can complete the process. She can start with how she developed her wondering and how she collaborated with other teachers to complete the study. May can end her presentation with explain the new wonderings her research team are going to work on at the start of the upcoming school year.

Data Collection and Analysis With a Real Teacher-Researcher

Prompt #1: Why is it important for May to look at literature as a part of her inquiry journey? What insights did May gain about her inquiry topic through her readings? In what ways might May’s readings inform how she will collect data for her study?

It is important for May to look for any current research available on her wondering in order for her to see what research is already available on her wondering/topic. May was able to locate a number of websites, books, and articles that related to her wondering question. May ultimately learned through reading the literature that she needed to refine her original wondering question. May learned several new strategies and was given access to numerous resources from the professional development conference she attended. May now has new strategies and ideas to share with her research team. May also realized what types of life experiences her students have already experienced in their lives. May learned how those life experiences had affected her students in the classroom and ultimately their learning. May learned through reading the literature that allowing her students to play a crucial role in the data collection was vital. Those students also need to have a voice inside the classroom when it comes to decision making. The literature also provided her with various ways her data could be collected.     

Prompt #2: What specific benefits did May receive as a result of collaborating with her colleagues? Why is collaboration an important component of the action research process?

            The main benefit May received from collaborating with her colleagues was to focus her research study on one class rather than all five classes. May’s colleagues helped May determine which class she should focus her research on by describing the students in each class to them. May’s colleagues led her to pick her fourth period class to use as the focus of her action research.  May’s colleagues began to realize that what May learned through her research would benefit them because they teach the same students. That fact right there motivated her research team to help May in any way they could. With the help of May’s colleagues May implemented a mini-PBS project with her fourth period class. The entire research team spent more time reading literature to find data collection ideas for May to implement into her action research. It is important to collaborate with other teachers during your action research because you can talk about new ideas and strategies to try out and get their opinions on them before you implement them in your classroom. By collaborating you also have someone there to share in the research process with you and to help you collect and analyze the data.

Prompt 3: What part of May’s data collection plan do you feel will be most meaningful, practical, impractical and why? Suggest one additional form of data you think May might collect that could inform her research.

Meaningful: I believe that allowing May’s fourth period students see how much class time it takes them to get settled and copying down the outline for the day at the beginning of class. I think that some of her fourth period students do not realize how much class time they are wasting at the beginning of class each day. I think by graphing how long it takes the class to get settled down and begin their work will allow them to clearly see how their behaviors at the start of class are affecting their learning. I also think by giving them a goal time they are striving for will encourage each student to do their best in order for the class to achieve that goal.

Practical: I think that her data collection method of having her Tier 3 student’s assisting her with data collection is a great way to motivate them and create a personal bond with those students. It will be very easy for the Tier 3 students to count the number of students who recorded their assignments in their agendas in that day’s given time limit. It also gives those Tier 3 students a positive leadership role and a special title within the classroom.

Impractical: I think it will be impractical to truly count the number of times May re-directs a student. I think it will be hard to train a student to recognize what counts as a redirect and correctly keep track of them throughout the class. I think that student who is recording the number of re-directs that day will loose time to complete that day’s assignment because they will be too busy trying to focus on re-directs and not the content being taught that day.

Additional Form of Data: I think May’s fourth period class should create a class behavior contract. Students will create the entire contract with the help of May. Students will create the classroom rules and consequences. This way students know what you expect from them and what will happen when they break a rule. You can tract the number of classroom rules being broken or time spent dealing with discipline issues before you implemented the classroom behavior contract and compare it to after you implemented the classroom behavior contract. This way you can see which rules or behaviors students are still exhibiting and formulate new strategies to decrease those behaviors in your classroom. 

Prompt 4: What are the data collection categories you named, as well as examples of responses that were included in each category? If you were May what do you think your analysis of this initial data is telling you to do next?

1. Homework Wishes

# 6, 14, & 20 on her students wish list responses

2. Grade Wishes

# 2, 10, & 13 on her students wish list responses

3. Respect Wishes

# 1 & 8 on her students wish list responses

4. How to start class wishes

# 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 15, 17, 18, & 21on her students wish list responses

5. Behavior Wishes

# 5, 9, 12, and 19 on her students wish list responses

6. Other Wishes

# 19 on her students wish list responses

This initial analysis of data gives May areas to focus on for improvement within her fourth period class. May can use these categories to create new procedures in her classroom relating to her five categories of data.