Week 8: Action Research Project #SEACCR

Week 8
#SEACCR

Hello everyone out in SEACCR land!

If you have time, please take a look at my Action Research Project.  I would love some feedback if you're able to provide any.  Please let me know if I should include anything else or improve a certain section.

Thank you for taking the time to take  look at my paper, and please let me know if you would like me to take a look at yours!

Amber

Action Research Project

Week 7 Reflection #SEACCR

Amber Hanson

Week 7 Reflection #SEACCR

1. What new resources, curated resources, or ideas did you share this week?

I was able to share an awesome site called “We Give Books” with a few people this week (I also mentioned it on my initial blog).  The website is located here: http://www.wegivebooks.org/ it is perfect place to locate online eBooks of all genres.  I will be using it primarily for having students locate and select nonfiction texts for one of our lessons. 

I also suggested the book “Teach Like A Pirate” to Lenore on her site, as she expressed a desire/interest in upping her enthusiasm for all subject areas.  I figured it could give her that extra boost to becoming the best teacher she could be.

2. What did you intend these new resources, curated resources, or ideas to do in terms of impacting others' learning? 

I am hoping that by sharing “We Give Books” more teachers will be able to adhere to our new Alaska/Common Core standards more efficiently.  I personally have a large collection of nonfictional/informational text in print, but I know that many other people aren’t so lucky.  My sharing this resource perhaps teachers will not worry as much about their personal nonfictional collection, and more on how to increase technology in the classroom while boosting their students comprehension scores!

Although I can tell that Lenore is already a very engaging and enthusiastic teacher from all her posts, I believe that if she read the book she will be able to figure out more ways in which she can aid in students learning.  She may also enjoy it as much as I did, and want to share it with other educators who are perhaps struggling with engagement/enthusiasm for their job. 

3. What was the actual impact (that you could discern)?

Unfortunately due to the last sharing of my blog post, I have yet to see the impact on other class members.  But previously I have had the chance to share the book “Teach Like a Pirate” with other teachers within my school, and we will be beginning a book study when teachers return from Christmas Break!

4. What would you do differently next week?

Next week I intend to attend the last WebEx meeting!  I hope I will be able to at least!  I’ve already told a few co-workers that I cannot be bothered, as I need to attend this.  I will not be tutoring tomorrow either, so I can assure I can log on in a relatively timely fashion.  I will be unable to attend the twitter session on Thursday, due to a school carnival my school will be putting on that afternoon/evening.  I hope to reply more to other student’s blog posts as well.

5. What resources did others share that made a difference to your learning?

A resource that someone shared this week was actually an idea for a lesson.  Well, It was shared last week-but it was after I posted my blog reflection.  The idea was to do a picture walk with a piece of nonfiction literature as a means of having students pick out the main idea/topic of the selected texts.  It was an awesome idea in which I was able to implement within my own Action Research Project.  Thanks again Courtney!

Week 7 Blog Post #SEACCR

Amber Hanson

#SEACCR

Week 7 Blog Post

As I mentioned last week, as a result of the students interests survey, I made some adjustments to my classroom library.  Included in this post is a picture of what it looks like.  It’s by all means not complete, as I don’t want to put in the time to make pretty signs and color code the books until I am fully satisfied with the categories and organization of our library. So far it’s been a success.  My students are excited about the different types of books we have and are definitely reading a lot more nonfiction books.  This may be due to the fact that nonfiction is what is primarily displayed however, but I’ll take it!

I also indicated last week, that as a result of an exit slip, it was discovered that students weren’t too comfortable creating an idea web on their own just yet.   As a result, another lesson in which we as a class created an idea web-took place. After this took place, I had students (Tier 1&2 in pairs, and Tier 3 in a small group with my aide) *attempt* to do the activity on their own, with a short article from Scholastic News.  Everyone had the same article; therefore it made it easier to gather as a group to share what we came up with you.  Boy did I do this prematurely!  As soon as I had students begin working, I had almost every pair calling for my help!  It was soon discovered that although students could indeed point out details related to a particular main idea…they lacked the ability to actually find the main idea itself!  It appears that I spend more time on details than I did on actually figuring out the Main topic of an article.  Oops!

Thankfully, due to a suggestion from Courtney last week, I had an activity up my sleeve to help me!  Courtney suggested conducting a listening activity based around a piece of informational text. Once the text was chosen, as a class we would do a picture walk as well as look/read the headings we find throughout the pages.  From there students came up with suggestions/ideas on what we might read about in this book.  After this, I had students (as a class) come up with words that they thought they might hear as we read (reading the headings really helped with this!).   Next, we made it to a type of game.  The children’s job was to raise their hand if they heard any of those words read in our story. This definitely helped with keeping some students activity engaged with the text.  I awarded points (as Courtney suggested).  I told student that for every 5 points recorded on the board, they would get a class marble. I reminded them that Halloween was in a few weeks and that it would be really nice to have a class party for it! At the conclusion of this activity students actually received a total of 43 points!  Therefore they receive a total of 9 marbles (I included a little estimation in this lesson too :p ).  Each time students pointed out a word that we had heard; I put a point next to the word.  At the end of the story we had a few words that were repeated much more often others.  We used this as an aid in discussion how we can use repeated words to help us find the main idea of a section.  We also talked about how the headings helped us pinpoint the main idea as well, as most of them specifically named the topic, or alluded towards it. 

After the completion of this activity, I had student get in their paired groups from the day before.  I gave them the same article from the day before.  I have to say, it was soooooooo much more smoother than the day before!  Seriously Courtney, THANK YOU!  I’m not sure how I had missed such a huge portion in my instruction, but your suggested activity was perfect! 

At the conclusion of this activity, I had students use Survey Monkey to indicate how comfortable they felt with using an idea web, finding the main idea, listing details and had them indicate one thing they learned from the article (after-all, my aim is to improve comprehension isn’t it?).  Best survey/exit slip result EVER!  All students were able to tell me one thing they learned from the article they read with a partner, and also indicated that they felt pretty comfortable with main idea/detail.

The next day we conducted a similar activity, and instead of using an article, students chose a book from our library to read with their partners.  It was great seeing some of the kids do the picture walks and recording the words/phrases they expected to read about.  I was a bit nervous having students take part in this activity as the text was longer, but it ended up being pretty successful!  At the end students used their idea webs they created to share with the rest of the class what they learned from the book they read. 

Ok, so I know I said this entire time I would be using Starfall as a means to include digital text for my students, but I discovered a MUCH better site in which I will be using instead.  I might still show student starfall, but it will not be the primary site anymore.  The new site I discovered is called “We Give Books” The website is: http://www.wegivebooks.org it’s free, easy and includes SOOOOO many books!  Please take a look at this site; it will be worth your time! 

I will be using this site this coming week to have student look through and choose a book that they are interested in reading.  From there students will create an idea web independently. At the conclusion of this activity I hope student will share their discoveries with the rest of the class.  I’m not sure how long this activity will take to complete, but if have results by the end of the week-I’ll share it.  If not, I’ll let you know of my progress.  I will also be pulling a Maze test off of Aims Web to administer with the students this week.   

Week 6 Reflection #SEACCR

Amber Hanson

Week 6 Reflection

#SEACCR

This week I was able to contribute to several other people’s blogs.  I’ve made suggestions, as well as gained ideas for myself.  While reading this week’s blog post by Jeff, he indicated his struggle with having students return surveys that he sent out using survey monkey.  I suggested possibly making the survey short and quick to complete.  In addition to this, he should inform his student that the survey is short.  If a person knows the survey may take 5 minutes or so, they will be far more likely to complete it.  Too often I’ve been asked to take a survey, and found myself 20 minutes later frustrated still trying to complete it.  I find that if the administrator of the survey lets me know how long the survey will take, I will be less hesitant.

            In addition to make suggestions to my classmates, I also received ideas.  While reading Lenore’s blog post about the interview she held with herself and the librarian I found myself extremely interested in doing the some.  Lenore was able to have her library print her out a list of books her 2^nd graders had checked out since the beginning of the school year.  This piece of data could be very beneficial in identifying what students are actually interested in reading.  In fact after reader her blog I got really excited, and texted the library about perhaps getting this list from her. She said that it definitely possible and that we can do it this week sometime.  I can’t wait to share the information with you all next week!

            This week’s blog readings have been extremely beneficial for me (especially Lenores!) and I look forward to reading/contributing to more as the week progresses.  Next week, in terms of data collation I will re-teach how to fill out an idea web with a class chosen nonfictional text.  After this, I will survey the class to see if we’re ready to complete this task individually.  I am excited for this new week and can’t wait to see what it has in store for me!  Good luck all, and let the data collation continue!

Blog 6 #SEACCR Data Collection

Week 6 Blog

#SEACCR

Essential Question: What am I finding as I collect data?

Data Collection has been a whirlwind. Last week I was able to conduct the book interests survey.  It was actually a very fun activity.  To my surprise, a lot of students came up with a lot of topics that feel into the informational text category.  Below are the topics students indicated they wanted to learn about.

Student Book Interest Survey

I want to learn about mud.

I want to learn about people.

I want to learn about blue whales.

I want to learn about the sky.

I want to learn about the earth.

I want to read animal books.

I want to read about the weather.

I want to read about the arctic.

I want to read about dinosaurs.

I want to read about Hawaii.

I want to read about Princesses

I want to learn about the weather.

I want to read about animals that talk.

I want to learn about cooking.

I want to read about Castles.

 I want to learn about the world.

Princesses

How to bake

How to make masks

Learn Science

How to make clay

How to make clothes

I want to learn about dogs.

I want to learn about cats

I want to read about talking dogs

I want to read about cooking

I want to read about plants.

Scary books

Books about jets

Books about the Army

NBA books

Books about the Miami Heat (basketball team)

Books about Volcanoes

Books about basketball

I want to read about Halloween

Books about Dinosaurs

Books about plants

Books about math

Books about school

Books about birds

Books about Valentines day

Books about colors

Books about Aliens

Books about fish

Books about:

Addition

Scary books

Fish

Bridges

Animals

People

How does wind work?

How does it rain?

subtraction

mice

spiders

aliens

insects

windmills

houses

volcanoes

fireworks

fire

planes

jets

America

windows

behavior

As a result of this survey, I began adjusting my classroom library. I was out of the classroom this past Mon-Wed, so when I came in on Thursday I began my adjustments.  As a class we took all the books from the shelves, and began to sort them into categories.  Some of these categories included: History/Geography, Science, Math, Animals/Insects, Alaska...etc.  Once all books were sorted, we put them into bins to be placed on our bookshelf.  (Pictures will come soon!).  This actually ended up being a very fun activity, as I got to see students get really excited about the books they wanted to read.  In fact, after we sorted the books, and before we placed them in the bins, we took a break to read a few books that caught our eyes.  And the funny thing is, they were all nonfiction!

We finished sorting our library today (Friday).  After this, I chose a book titled “Armadillos” to model how to fill out an idea web.  I modeled how to figure out the main topic of each page (pictures, repetitive terms…etc).  From there I listed details about each topic on the outside of the web.  Once I completed this, we chose a book together and made a new idea web. After having students complete an exit slip (in which they indicated how comfortable they were with being able to do it on their own) it was determined that students would benefit from having a little more practice together.  As a result of the exit slips I will conduct another guided practice session with a different nonfictional text.  This time I will have students help me locate an informational text on the website starfall.  From there we will dissect it and create a web together.  After this activity is completed I will administer a survey.  I will attempt to figure out the SMART response system (clickers) for this activity, if I am having trouble, however, I will have students record their opinions using survey monkey.  From there I will determine whether I will need to do another guided practice, or have students begin creating their idea webs on their own.   

Week 4 #SEACCR

Amber Hanson

Week 4

#SEACCR

Research Proposal Overview and Rationale

When I initially began formulating my original research question “How do I use non-fiction text to assist students in learning?” it was purely as a way to insure the incorporation of one of the key components on the Alaska State Standards. But, as I began conducting research on the topic I found myself constant asking, “what exactly do I mean by 'student learning' and how could I actually monitor the improvement of it”? At the time that I had been conducting research outside of school for this project, I was also administering the benchmark assessments for reading comprehension within my school. At the conclusion of this assessment, I gathered the data together and looked at the results.

 After analyzing data I discovered that nearly three-fourths of all 3^rd grade students fell far below grade level in their ability to comprehend texts. It was at that point, that it clicked with me. I had asked myself several times before how I could improve students learning, but never what area they could afford to benefit the most improvement in. It was through this assessment that I was able to clearly see what our most lacking area was. What better way to improve reading comprehension than through the use of informational text? This ‘aha’ moment was what brought me to my new and official action research question. I knew I could use nonfiction to improve reading comprehension...how? How I can use informational text to increase my students reading comprehension.

Methodology

            The participants for this study will be my thirteen third grade students at Hugo T. Apatiki Elementary School.  The class is considered 100% ELL.  All students are of the same decent-Siberian Yupik.     Student’s reading comprehension level is benchmarked and tracked through AIMSweb.  After viewing the data, it was discovered that four students are at the ‘above average’ grade level mark. Five students are at the below average level in reading comprehension and four students are at the well below average mark. The data from benchmarks will be used to compare the effectiveness of this project.  The project will include the explicit instruction of textual structure as well as textual feature.  This project will also include ways in which technology can be used to assist in this instruction.

Data Collection

            I will be collecting data in a variety of formats for my action research project.  This data will be gathered using qualitative and quantitative methods.  I will be recording anecdotal observational notes in a journal on a daily basis.  I will also be implementing the use of several technology tools to aid in this data collection.  A few of the tools include: Surveys using Survey Monkey, Smart Response (Clickers), the online internet program; Starfall, as well as the AIMSweb database to locate and test the progress of students reading comprehension improvements using the MAZE comprehension test.  In addition to these tools, I will also be using the paper pencil method to conduct a simple interests survey to begin the implementation of this project.  I will also be gathering data using exit slips.  These exit slips will be used at the conclusion of each class period.  Students will be required to rate their understanding, rate the usefulness of the lesson, as well as include one thing that they have learned.

Experience over the week

            This past week has been overwhelming to say the least.  I spent a total of about 15 hours (probably more) on my research proposal to find relevant materials as well as the actual construction of the research proposal itself.  This week I took part in only a small part of the twitter sessions, as I am having difficulty in attending the sessions at the time in which they are held.  Twitter is blocked at my school, therefore I am unable to log in at work, and I find that I don’t end up coming home until about 5-6 every evening.  Due to this I’ve had to rely a lot on trying to make sense of the twitters on tweet deck, as well as communication with other member of our class using Skype, email and text message.  I’m not sure I would have been gotten through this weeks assignment if it wasn’t for Lenore or Halley.  

Halley was my go to person throughout the week as she answered several of my clarifying questions when I was stuck on specific tasks.  Lenore helped walk me through what was due this week as well as provided ideas in how I can collect data using technology.  She even sent me her proposal to use as a model.  Seriously, this girl is amazing.  Overall I feel that I have benefited greatly from collaboration from my classmates.  By having this online support I feel that I was able to construct an insightful proposal and am well on my way to starting my Action Research project!

Week 3 Reflection #SEACCR

Amber Hanson

#SEACCR

Week 3: Blog Reflection

            I really liked the essential question this week, as it gave me the chance to really look at what is known already about my research topic.  Not to say I wouldn’t have investigated prior research on this topic, but having it as an essential question, lead me to investigate it sooner and deeper.   I was able to share a few idea/resources this week.  One resource I found and shared was the example lesson plan from the article “Do You Want to Know What I Learned? Using Informational Trade Books as Models to Teach Text Structure.” During a collaboration meeting with all the elementary teachers in my school, we were discussing how to implement some of the new Alaska State Standards.  When discussing Nonfictional text I was excited to mention a great tool that other teachers could use in their classroom.  I was also able to share, as a result of my own research from the article “Common Core: Fact vs. Fiction”, what actually constituted as ‘informational text’.  After that staff meeting, I wrote out a cute little poster that listed several different types of informational text that I could hang up in my classroom.

            Although I didn’t attend Twitter sessions this week, due to our open house, and tutoring sessions I believe that the resources I shared with my staff members really impacted their learning.  When I was able to share the different types of texts that were considered ‘informational texts’ there was an ‘aha’ moment for several of the teachers.  By pointing out these different texts several of the teachers started bubbling with ideas on how they can use charts, graphs, biographies, scientific texts…etc within their classroom.  In addition to this idea filled staff meeting, I was able to see that our discussion really did have an impact on their teaching.   In one particular classroom one of the teachers actually made an effort to sort and display different nonfictional text, as opposed to having it amongst all of the other fictional text (I purposely did this earlier this week after I read about it).

            Since I was unable to attend the twitter sessions this last week, I will make it an effort to attend one this week.  For sure on Thursday, and perhaps on Tuesday (It’s my Birthday, so I’m not too sure). I would also like to collaborate more with people within this classroom-more than just by twitter sessions.  I hope to collaborate more with Lenore as well as Hallie too. 

            There were a lot of resources that have made a difference in my learning.  Specifically from Lenore’s blog.  In fact, due to reading her annotated bibliography I have bookmarked articles, and even purchase the book “Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3-8” by Stephanie Harvey, for my Kindle.   I look forward to investigating these resources further this week, and will let you all know what I discover in next weeks reflection!