Exercise 1: Post your reflection on What is Research? on your Weebly website and then respond to at least two other students.
Experience: from 2013-14 I participated in the Vacaville Unified School District sponsored Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program. This was my first professional experience creating and conducting practical research in a real classroom setting. I chose an active research project that involved pre and post student assessments, analyzing data, collecting student responses and feedback via google docs, as well as the creation of a collection of documents, called inquiries, which included reflections and visual representations of the results of my research on student learning. I feel my successful completion of BTSA prepared me to be successful in this master's program. What is research? Effective educational research results in demonstrable improvement in student learning; whether the outcome of the project was successful or not, the data should help guide teachers or students to improve. Research may include, but is not limited to: a general inquiry, narrowing of the focus topic, analyzation of current practices or student data, reflection, adjustments, practical application, post evaluation, more reflection, and summarization. Exercise 2: Locate and read an article on an action research project. What is the problem or topic, and what are the research questions, that guide this action research study? What procedures were used to conduct the study? Summarize the types of data that was collected. Post your response on What is Research? on the your Weebly website. Google Scholar Action Research Project: 'Exploring student experiences of belonging within an urban high school choral ensemble: an action research study" http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14613808.2010.519379 The purpose of this action research study was to describe adolescent singers' experiences of belonging within one urban high school choral ensemble. Understanding student perspectives on belonging within music ensembles can assist choral educators, parents and administrators in order to more fully support adolescent emotional and social development in school. Tenth through twelfth grade students were selected from one northeastern high school choral programme in a large city within the USA. Twenty-six participants, in small groups of three to four students each, were asked to describe their experiences of belonging within the ensemble. Interview data were open, descriptively and analytically coded. Codes were gathered into categories. Five themes were developed, including choral experience as uncompetitive, sectional bonding as social bonding, singing as shared experience, chorus as safe space and trips as pivotal bonding experiences. Suggestions for future research include examining student belonging as part of choral teacher practices, studying school choral participation as stress reduction and investigating social belonging as embedded within group singing environments. Exercise 3: List or describe at least four things (eg. problems, things you would like to improve) within your classroom or school that interests you and that you might want to pursue further. Do you think any of the things on your list might be appropriate for an action research study? To be shared at our next meeting. 4 improvement goals: 1) Use technology effectively across the entire site (WCW and VP) 2) Demonstrably improve student learning through technology use 3) Gain access to technology that core teachers have ('sorry, no chrome books for choir, english needs them' : ) etc) 4) Providing non-affluent students access to technology at home I believe #2 may have action research study potential.
5 Comments
Danielle Millward
9/25/2016 11:40:54 pm
Colby, I enjoyed reading your ideas for a thesis topic. I'm also curious how to address the problem of how to give ALL students access to technology at home. I actually was wondering how you do that right now since you said you do the thing where you have students watch your presentation/teaching at home before coming to class each day so you can be more of a side/by/side teacher in the classroom. Don't you have students who are unable to watch your lecture at home? And if so, how do you give them access to that lecture to keep everything equitable?
Reply
9/28/2016 08:06:29 am
Students who don't have internet access at home are provided time during our vocal warm-ups to watch the flipped class videos. The biggest issue I face is: are students actually paying attention and learning while they watch the videos at home? There are several resources to assess a students' interest and learning level from flipped class videos but the highest rate of retention I was able to get my classes to have last year was 75%. 25% of students didn't effectively learn while watching the videos while 75% did, as evidenced by data.
Reply
Rosalynd
9/27/2016 06:42:05 pm
Colby, I am so impressed by your flipped classroom and your "sage on the side" approach to learning. I try to use this model as much as I can, but 6th graders are still very young. I have a few that can handle this type of instruction. I will definitely watch your video this weekend. Have you read the book "Growth Mindset" by Carol Dweck? it is a great read and is about brain research and how we learn.
Reply
Colby Hawkins
9/28/2016 08:08:02 am
Hi,
Reply
Gayle Horsma
9/28/2016 05:54:51 pm
It's interesting you bring up providing access to technology at home. Our district rolled out our 1:1 take home programs in our Title 1 schools first. Many of our Title 1 schools have school owned devices that go home with our students. Where most of our non Title 1 sties have implemented BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs. Internet access for students, well everyone, is currently a hot topic. Our school district has considered adding WiFi to buses and parking busing in are most economic disadvantaged neighborhoods to provide free WiFi for families in the evenings. I am unsure of the status on this process, or if this will actually happen, however, I love the idea. Also FSUSD has different networks, where our guest network does not require any password so anyone can come sit in our schools' parking lot to access free WiFi. Comcast also offers a $9.95 internet special for low income families that has been promoted in our schools. These are things I know our district has done to help our non-affluent students gain access to technology to help minimize the technology gap. Maybe they could help your students as well!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorColby enjoys racquetball, playing the piano, and hanging with his beautiful wife, Madilyn. Archives
June 2017
Categories |