Heading toward the end

Can you believe you are turning in your very last journal entry?! We're getting close to the end of the research process. Yet, you do have a few weeks and I hope it is feeling manageable. Given all of the writing you've accomplished to this point, your papers are already substantial. As you begin to work on the last sections of the paper, it can be helpful to cut and paste all of your relevant journal entries into one document. Just the act of looking at all of those completed pages adding up can provide a boost of motivation.

I will be sending you some slides in the next day or so about paper "logistics"--organization, headings/sub-headings, etc. We can talk more about those issues next week during our session.

I will also send you some follow-up slides about presenting your findings in the paper. I also, though, want to share some thoughts on that section here. The findings can be organized in the way that makes most sense given your analysis. This will often mean that the section is organized by the themes you've identified. If you used the matrix as a tool for your analysis, it also provides a very effective organizational tool for writing up your findings (theme: example from data, example from data, example from data; next theme: example from data, example from data, example from data; and so on for the third theme). Some people find that their analysis lends itself to a different organization, for instance, around their data sources. In that case, the section might look like:
Data Source--theme within data source, theme within data source;
Next data source--theme within data source, theme within data source;
and so on

As a rule of thumb, you should provide at least three examples from your data that illustrate each theme. If you're organizing by data source, provide at least two themes/ideas that arose from each source of data. I think there are two primary areas of feedback that I often find myself providing on drafts of findings sections. First, is the use of headings and subheadings; those headings are a wonderful way to guide the readers through your findings. Second, is the suggestion to "be more specific". When you find yourself writing about something you found in your study, always follow up with a "for instance" that provides illustrative quotes from surveys or interviews, a story from the classroom that helps the reader to "see" what you observed, a description of student work (whatever data was relevant to the claim you're making). When in doubt, provide an example, tell a story, quote your kids or your own notes.

As always, we're fortunate that others have gone through this process before us. The online examples of findings sections are excellent sources of information and inspiration.

I'll be in touch again soon and look forward to seeing you all on the 24th!

Back to the blog!

It feels good to be back to our blog. As I was telling you all in class, I think the blog became a difficult space for me to face in the weeks following Janice's death. I apologize for not being more present here. I think it was the right decision to make the blog an 'opt in' space this semester, given our collective experiences. But, I do hope that we can 'meet' and chat here in these last weeks of the semester. I have added comments to the recent posts.

I've enjoyed reading your literature reviews. I've been impressed with the quality of your thinking and writing about the research you've read. I hope the examples on the website have been helpful. You seem to have been very successful in finding journal articles that relate to your research questions. I know that VPN and ERIC (could there be more acronyms related to this process?) can be a challenge (aka pain in the neck), but you've navigated them well. Your literature reviews are poised to function just as they are intended--to situate your questions about your practice within those larger conversations occurring in the field. You are engaging those conversations with a strong personal voice and a genune connection to your own work. Kudos!

I will post again soon with some thoughts about the sections of the paper that you'll be writing in the coming weeks. Enjoy your spring break!

Small Groups in Math

My research is going good. My questions is: What happens when I use small group instruction for students who need extra guidance in math?

Unfortunately, what I am seeing so far is how challenging it is to meet with a small group to re-teach concepts in math. I feel like the learning is constantly being interrupted because the students who are working independently are coming over to me and asking questions.

Does anyone have any suggestions on ways that you meet with a small group in your classroom without any interruptions?

Bloggin' At Last!

It looks like I am kicking off the posts for March...Here goes.

First, I'll start by sharing my research question:

What happens when I begin to participate in independent reading and writing with my students?

Basically, during DEAR time (silent reading time) and at the beginning of Writers Workshop, I am joining my students and free writing, or reading a books just as they are. Thus far it has been very interesting, because it is obvious that no teacher has ever done this with them before. They really have interest in what I am writing, and look forward to me sharing during "share chair". They also frequently ask me questions about the books I am reading during DEAR. I like when they do that, because it allows me to demonstrate an authentic summary, which I think is a difficult skill for a third grader.

My research in the classroom is going well. I am having much more difficulty finding articles that tightly relate to what I am researching. Is anybody else having trouble with this? I have found a whole lot of books that talk about things that kind of relate, but certainly nothing that hits the nail on the head. Oh well, I guess I'll keep on searching.
If anybody comes across anything that you think may be valuable to me, passing it my way would be greatly appreciated!

Thinking of you

Hi everyone. I am not sure what to say, except that I have been thinking of you all. I know this is a very sad time and I hope you are all doing OK.

I thought that I would officially post my question because my first one was an attachment.

What happens when an ELL student is given more structured one-on-one time with peers?

I have been working on organizing a specific area for the student to work with others. I have also varied the times of day the interaction takes place. My students are only with me for about 2 hours a day. If you have any suggestions on how I could collect more data I would appreciate the feedback.

Thoughts of Janice

The last comment I made on the blog was to Janice's post. Actually, even the example comment from class Tuesday night was made to Janice's post. It's been almost exactly 24 hours since I heard the news that we had lost Janice. I still cannot fathom it. We can return to our blog as a space for talking about research when it feels right and comfortable for you. For now, I thought I'd share a memory of Janice from Tuesday evening's class. There was a moment as I was talking through the slides on data sources when I became very conscious of the fact that my focus kept returning to Janice's face as I spoke. I remember making a conscious effort to focus attention on other parts of the room. Yes, she was sitting in the middle of the room, but it was more than that. Janice had a way of communicating her support and enthusiasm through her expression. She created a sense of connection that, like a magnet, drew my eyes to her. Although I hadn't known her long, I felt as though I'd known her much longer. I'm sure she brought that quality to her teaching and her relationships with kids. I so wish I'd had the opportunity see her in action in the classroom.

Janice, we'll miss your voice and positive presence.

Your impressive blogging

You've really made this forum work! I'm impressed with how quickly you've all taken up this tool for discussion. I've been enjoying the conversations and have been adding my comments when an idea strikes me. It seems that the use of "comments" on individual posts is working well. Do be sure to check back on some of your posts over time to see if new comments might have been added. Thank you for taking the time to make such thoughtful, valuable comments on each others' work!

I'm noticing that the conversation is evolving so naturally from posts on the research questions themselves, to conversations about starting the process, and now some initial thoughts on what you're beginning to experience/see now that projects are underway. This will be a great forum for sharing initial and developing thoughts and insights about the research (insights that will eventually grow into your "findings"). Discussing developing ideas is an important part of data analysis and the blog can help to serve that purpose for us.

Looking forward to seeing you in person soon!

Finally, I'm in!

Hello all,

It has been quite interesting to read the proposals and associated questions. I am impressed be the depth and variety of subjects.
My proposal is based on my desire to determine if increased praise will inspire and ultimately help improve my students' writing. Rather than looking at their writing with an eye for errors, I will instead focus on the skills that are well done and keep my suggestions for change to the minimum. Is there anyone that is already approaching writing in this manner?
I have found the best motivator for my class is positive praise, so I am hoping that I will see a notable increase in their writing skills over the next few months.
I look forward to reading about other teachers' progress as our research progresses.

Good luck!
Janice

Suggestions

I posted a while ago however, I'm not sure if my post ever showed up! I'm new to this blog thing too! Anyway, my question is:

What would happen when a group of students who struggle to turn in high quality work engage in peer editing? Will the quality of work improve?

I have started collecting data on my small group and what I've noticed from two of the students is very interesting. They have actually paid more attention to details than they have in the past. I'm really hoping this trend continues. I'm trying to get one other student on board with the routine of editing buddies; she's my real challenge because not only is the quality of her work "not so good" its basically a major accomplishment for her to turn anything in! Any inventive ideas on how to motivate kids to take responsibility for their time and actually complete work? I feel like I've tried everything with this particular student.

Heather

Trial

Just trying to work out the kinks here. It hasn't been letting me get on so now I am seeing if this works:)

Eavesdropping ideas, anyone?

Does anyone have any ideas (esp. cheap hi-tech) for eavesdropping on my reading groups? I would like to make it as unobtrusive as possible, although 4th graders can figure anything out. An old-fashioned tape player seems bulky and unreliable. I have my own iBook, so maybe someone has ideas for using it to record/video the kids?

Terry

My question

Hi everyone, I think I finally have this figured out. I join the bunch of you that are new to blogging! Anyway, here is my question: What is the relationship between students’ work in the spelling curriculum and their spelling in their writing across the school day? There were a few different things that brought me to this question. First, I have struggled with spelling throughout my life and have considered myself a "bad speller." I am curious to find out if the new curriculum being used in my 1st grade classroom is helping students to better learn to spell. I am interested to see if their is a correlation between their success in the spelling curriculum, like their test scores, and their ability to use those words spelled right in their writing. Anyway, I am interested to see where it goes!

Catie

Comments Section

Hi everyone! I think it would be very helpful to add our comments directly to someone's posting. As I was reading everyone's posting, it seemed that it would get pretty time consuming to look for responses if they were spread out over several postings.

It's great to see so much work being done in writing. My question is, "What happens when I focus on voice in my writing lessons?" If anyone has looked into voice and how to bring it out in children's writing let me know. I will be doing a lot of research in this area but I was encouraged to see so many entries about the writing of a son or daughter so let me know if anyone has dealt with this area.

Enjoying the conversation!

Thanks everyone for the great conversation. I'm impressed with your thinking about your projects. You're off to a fabulous start!

Abby raised a great question about the blogging process that I wanted to pose to the group. Now that we have many posts on our board, would it be easier if we did use the "comments" option to respond directly to a person's post? I can certainly see that it will get increasingly hard to indicate which post you're responding to and this seems especially an issue if the goal is to directly address a question someone posed in their post or provide specific feedback. So, I'm wondering if you'd like to use "comment" when you are directly responding to an individual and continue to use "post" whenever the message is directed to the group at large? What do you think? I'm definitely learning this stuff too, so all thoughts are appreciated!

Elizabeth

Holding students accountable at DEAR time

Hello all! I'm very new to blogging but I think I'll be able to figure it all out sometime before the end of the class.
I'm so excited to hear how every one's research turns out. There are so many interesting questions to concider!
I had trouble narrowing mine down but here it is: What happens when different methods are used to hold students accountable during independent reading?
What I would like to do is find several methods that motivate the students to read while still giving them space to enjoy the reading. I have tried the written responses to individual books, keeping track of the strategies they use and writing friendly letters to me about their reading. These methods all seem to have some level of success, however, I am wondering if there might be a method that is more motivating to the student. The methods I am most interested in looking at are verbal accounts such as having a discussion with me about the book after a reading block, or talking with a buddy/classmate at the end of the block.
If anyone knows of other methods I would love to hear them!
Thanks!
Abby

One on One Attention

Sorry for my delay in responding to everyone and posting my question and thoughts. When I was thinking about what question I wanted to do, I constantly was drawn back to one individual in my classroom . He is a very immature first grader socially, with a very in stable home environment. He doesn't have any close relationships and has trouble dealing with adults in general. Although he acts out in class behavior wise, he is a very smart intellectual. So on to my question: What would happen if I were to spend more one on one time with Kaylub.

I am wanting to spend time with this child individually and record his actions, behaviorally, socially, and academically. I am recording the number of break downs in class along with his behavior during class time and with his peers. I have our school psychologist set up to meet with him in a social group once a week and we are meeting twice a month to talk about his behaviors in group and during class. When meeting with this child I will be doing more of a one on one relationship builder. I want him to gain a relationship of trust with me. I am planning on doing board games, having him help me out after class, and also begin a book together that we can read. I think that this will change so many things with him and I just can't wait to see!

I also was given a very interesting book, thanks to Terry:), that has given me more of an insight of things to think about. I am very excited to see the outcome of this study:) If you have any suggestions please let me know!!

Kindergarten Writing

Hello everyone! I've enjoyed reading your thought-provoking questions.

Doug - I like that you are linking the question of comprehension to fluency because ultimately, of course, good comprehension is the goal with fluency being the means of getting there. I was wondering if you had considered using reader's theatre as a fluency strategy? My son struggled with fluency and one summer we tried a modified version of reader's theatre with his at-the-time favorite genre - comics. It actually helped and it was easy to do. Let me know if you want to know how we did it.

Rico - Your question really interests me too because of my son, again. He was not a fluent writer, and was allowed to work with a good friend of his who was a very good writer. They were able to engage intellectually with each other in coming up with ideas. The teacher insisted that my son help with the actual "writing down the words" though his friend probably did the bulk of it. It was a great benefit to my son, the struggling one, but did it really help the other child? It helped my son to view himself as a writer and get excited about writing down his ideas but it probably did no not help his friend with his writing. It may have been socially beneficial for him to work with a partner though. Later my son was partnered with a different boy and I remember they really got into writing an acrostic alphabet poem together. They were more equally matched and they both probably benefitted from the parnership. Have you thought about how you are going to pair the boys up?

Now for my question: What happens when I allow students to "turn and talk" before writing? I'm considering this question because I wondering if my students will develop their writing ideas more with an additional "rehearsal" or pre-writing activity. My questions about it are - what are they talking about when they "turn and talk?" (I'm hoping for writing ideas, but you never know in kindergarten!) Does this additional idea development time help motivate and excite them about their writing? Do they write down more letters, sounds, and words or are their story ideas more developed in their pictures? Is what they talked about reflected in their writing? I'll collect data by writing down observations during the turn and talk time or by tape recording the conversations. Then I'll look at the writing from that day too. I want to look at differences between my ELL kids (2/3 of my class) and my native English kids. By necessity I'll have some homogeneous pairs (in terms of native language) and some heterogeneous. I think it will be interesting to observe how this aspect effects the results. I would also like to make some observations about the excitement/engagement/and independence levels of the kids during writing time after implementing the "turn and talk" time. I think I'll narrow my data by just choosing four pairs of students to look at (2 of the heterogeneous pairs and two of the homogeneous pairs). I'm also wondering if the Spanish speakers will speak in Spanish or English during this time. That could be another piece of data I collect through the observations and/or recordings.

Does anyone have any other ideas for data collection? I'm open to any and all suggestions. Thanks.

Fluency

Hello to everyone! It has been fascinating to read all of the great topics that everyone is engaged in. As far as my question, I have zoned in on "What happens when I use a variety of strategies to increase fluency for my students who are reading below grade level? How does this focus on fluency impact comprehension?". As of now, for my data collection, I am planning on using 3 (I only know of 3 currently) programs/strategies that will be my fuel to increasing fluency. The first is the Quickreads program which I have already been implementing in my classroom. The second is a "phrase chunking" initiative that I am looking into. It focuses on using written symbols in the text to clue students into reading in phrases and sections vs. the robotic reading. Lastly, I am looking into some form of timed-reading strategy in which a student feels motivated to read at a higher speed...basically by being asked to read quicker by me (I have been able to toy around with some of this in individual conferences and it is amazing how much more fluent a student will read when you just ask them to read with a bit more speed). Anyway, this is a long post now. If you have any recommendations of fluency programs you have used or heard of, please reply! Good luck with your research endeavors!
Best,
Doug

Boys and Writing

Good luck Rico! It sounds like a fun question and I can't wait to hear the results. I know I have had success with boys working together on writing. In fact many of the boys in my class want to work together to write "chapter books" together. It helps them to talk about their ideas, but they still need your guidance. I found it was helpful to have them meet with me before and after each chapter to talk about what they did and where they are going. This would be an opportune time to give a little mini-lesson on craft. Have fun!

Boys Writing

Hi Everyone-
The question that I'm considering is "What happens to boys' writing when they work in pairs or teams?" I'm intersted in hearing from any of you who have considered or tried this approach to help boys with the writing process. The data collection plans I'm considering, and already implementing, are lots of anectdotal records paired with finished products graded on widely-used writing rubrics. I'm also going to gather some 'control' pieces which the boys have worked on individually for comparison. Our current unit is on poetry, a writing form I feel boys are often resistant to, and I've already seen some interesting collaboration on a partner writing excercise we did. Any thoughts or insights from you are most welcome.

Question

First of all my question is How does the use of publishing options effect student writing......I am not exactly sure how I want to choose like five kids to collect my data from.....does anyone have any ideas...or should I even be thinking about this now?
p.s. Happy b-day Janice!!!
-Nicole A

Math groups & girl relationships

Hello! I've never blogged before but it seems alot like Yahoo groups. Anyway, Kristen - I somehow manage to differentiate for math instruction by using small groups. Most of the groupings come about from either pre-assessments (which don't have to be long tests - could be 4 short questions or less) or observation. As your students work, observe carefully. Pull some for a mini-lesson in the corner if they're struggling. I don't know if this is what you're thinking about, or something more formal.

Gretchen - the girl relationship question sounds fascinating! I would love to know what happens. As a mother of two girls, a sister (4 girls in my family), and a teacher with lots of interesting social stuff going on in my classroom, I always wonder about involvement - how much, when, or not at all? Good luck! Maybe you can start with a survey or some close observations about the relationships. As I'm sure you know, alot also has to do with what's going on at home.

Terry

Re: Here we go!

I'm sitting here at my living room window looking at the gorgeous blue sky and wanting so badly to be outside playing, but then I open the door and decide against it. Instead I thought I'd read the blogs and post one of my own!

Kristen, I had a couple of thoughts about yours. I love your question, but definitely understand your conundrum. How DO you choose the students who need help? And isn't this the basic question we struggle with all year long? Everyday, from 8-4 we constantly wonder if we are helping the kids who REALLY need it. I think that we all probably find the kids who are missing the basics. In reading, we concentrate a lot of instruction on those who are struggling with decoding, phonics, phonemic awareness, etc. Without the basics they will have a hard time doing the higher level thinking we ask of them. So, in forming your math groups, maybe it would be helpful to look at the basic skills needed for the concept. A pretest is helpful, though sometimes it will make you feel like all you are doing is testing. I think it would be helpful, though, for you to divide your groups into those that will need the "basics". Good luck!

And now here's my conundrum. I have a question that I am very excited to be researching: "What happens when I intervene in the relationships between some of the girls in my classroom?" My hope is that it will lead to a lot of interesting discussions about how to communicate with people we do not get along with or particularly like. Hopefully it will start to give these students positive communication skills. Yet, I have NO IDEA how to collect data! If anyone has thoughts on ways to do this, I am certainly open to any and all suggestions. Thanks and enjoy the rest of your long weekend!

Here we go!

Heather and Hillary it sounds like you both have lots of great ideas on how you are going to collect data for your questions.

My question is: What happens when I use small group instruction to support students who need extra guidance in math?

I have started to think about how to collect this data but I have a question about it that I am having trouble answering. Since we study lots of different math concepts through out the rest of the year, I know that different students will need more guidance depending on the topic of study. So, in this case do I pick students who I know in the past need more instruction to be in my group to study? I think I need to have a group that I am following through this process in order to collect the data... So what do I do if they don't need extra guidance and another student does? Does this make sense? Would I just add them in?

Any suggestions? Thanks!
Have a great day off!
Kristen

Let's try "new post" instead of "comment"

Hi everyone! I notice that when we hit "comment" after someone's post, the comments don't show up on the main page (you can access them, but have to hit the "comments" link at the bottom of the post). So, I'm thinking we should try to always hit "new post" even when we want to directly respond to what someone has previously posted. Then, all of our "talk" will show up on the site. Does that make sense? (I'm afraid it doesn't, so let me know!)

Elizabeth

Getting us started

This is our first post--so we can see how the posts work! Welcome to our site of oh so insightful thoughts, questions and musings.

Here's a thought to get us started. I've enjoyed reading and responding to your research questions. Everyone should be all set with an "approved" question by the time you head back to the classroom on Tuesday. So, the next step is data--what data will you need to collect to investigate your question? I know this is what you are now thinking about. So, this is a great place to ask your questions or share your ideas about data collection.

And, in terms of timelines for data collection, your goal should be to collect data from now until March. You can still be collecting some data in March, but you'll also need to be turning to data analysis at that point. You should think about April as your 'finishing up' month. In other words, all data will be collected and much of your analysis should be complete by then.

I'm looking forward to reading your posts!