Data Collection is Continuing

With Spring right around the corner our teachers are harnessing the extra daylight to keep pushing forward on their action research.  They are still modifying their data collection methods based on what they are learning in Jeffrey Glanz's "Action Research," a highly useful resource to any educator partaking in action research.

Pre-K Hallway-Ms. Kelly Bryant
This week, I've been working on refining the types of data that I will be collecting during my action research plan. Specifically, I have been working on defining the independent variable, Conscious Discipline, by specifying the elements of the intervention that I will be implementing. 

The independent variable will be the Conscious Discipline intervention, which includes elements of the program regarding student interactions and conflict resolution. The aspect of Conscious Discipline that will be implemented will be derived from the Assertiveness section of the program. Specifically from this section, I will be searching for:

1. Assertive Voices: tells the other child what to do instead of negative behavior, uses clear and direct speech, and uses a tone that says, "Just do it."
2. Proactive and Practiced Words and Phrases: "I don't like when you          , please   actvitity instead," "I'm sorry, I will    activitiy instead,"
3. Presence of Physical Response: Looking for whether the child was able to use words or react using hitting or physical altercation and whether or not the problem was able to be worked through.
4. Independent Action: were the children involved able to independently use problem solving skills to resolve a conflict or was teacher intervention required.
5. Special Needs vs. Non-Special Needs: were the students involved considered special needs students or not and was there a significant difference in data.

I hope to further refine these areas of my action research plan and will begin to work on planning how to organize and collect my raw data within the next few weeks.


1st Grade Hallway-Ms. Aprell Adams

Here comes the fun part! I am now at the stage of my research project where I begin to collect data. I am in the process of organizing my data sources in order to be able to clearly visualize my results. Having a variety of sources to collect data is beneficial when attempting to gather accurate data that will support my research questions. As I reflect on my research questions it seemed most useful to conduct observations, give surveys and norm-referenced tests to gather data for my action research project. Neither of these resources is powerful enough to stand alone, so by combining them I am confident I will collect a sufficient amount of data. Glanz states that observations are limited and should be rarely used as the sole means of collecting data. I am conscious of the biases that may exist with conducting observations and will consider my personal biases as I analyze the results. As I develop my survey questions Glanz suggests that the questions are related to the major purpose of the research project. I am fine tuning my questions to ensure they are both age appropriate and relevant to my topic. Having norm-referenced tests are valuable, but Glanz suggests that they are sometimes overused when trying to arrive at a decision about student achievement. Although test are easy to use and can give immediate data, I am aware that they are only a piece of the overall puzzle of the progress and growth of the students involved in the project. I am excited to combine all of my results from each data source and display and summarize my conclusions.

 3rd Grade Hallway-Ms. Stacey Seiler
his week the data analysis portion of our research got me thinking about how to code the responses to my questionnaire. The questionnaire that I created deals with student attitudes toward math class, and their own perceptions of the strength of their skills. At first I thought of this as qualitative data because I wasn’t understanding how I could turn opinions and feelings into numbers.
The Glanz text (p.141-143) helped me out greatly with how to code my survey data and turn it into a statistical analysis. The survey had three possible responses (strongly agree, agree, disagree). The most favorable response will be coded with a score of 3 points, the next favorable response will be awarded 2 points, and the least favorable response will be awarded a 1. There are 9 response items, therefore the most favorable score would be a 27 and the least favorable score would be a 9. From there I can analyze this data using descriptive statistics including percentage, mean, and standard deviation. I decided to use all three of these statistics because each of them make it a bit easier for the reader to interpret the findings. The mean shows the typical answer choice (in points). Unlike the mean, the standard deviation will show how much the choices differ per question. Lastly, the percentage will show the number of respondents who chose a particular answer choice.
Coding the survey was easier than I thought! It actually got me thinking about the connection to customer satisfaction surveys, and how that data is calculated. Though the data analysis portion seems complicated, I am finding that as we move piece by piece it is becoming clearer! 



4th Grade Hallway-Mrs. Jaime Lambrinos

Ms. Lambrinos is out of the office and will respond with her update as soon as she returns :)  

5th Grade Hallway-Mrs. Rebecca Young
After taking a few days to read through Glanz's "Action Research" I feel ready to actually create my first Likert scale and observation checklist. I am looking forward to using Survey Monkey to create my survey about attitudes towards healthy foods.  I have never used Survey Monkey before, but I have heard it is user friendly.

No Rest for the Weary…

Let’s Take a Look Back at the Week…multiple snow closing, an early dismissal, SLO Data was due, and PARCC testing began.  Most teachers would be waving the white flag from their desk but not ours! These dedicated teachers have been actively seeking out and determining their methodology for conducting action research. Take a look at each teacher’s progress…

Pre-K Hallway- Ms. Kelly Bryant

I plan to use a one group pre-test/post-test system for my action research. The benefit of using this system is that I will be able to use the students within my classroom making the plan easier to implement and will allow for my time to collect the data. Essentially, this method provides flexibility for conducting the action research plan. This is also the best method of measuring the impact of the treatment as it is not possible to have a control group. As a result, I will only be able to measure the students prior to introducing Conscious Discipline and following its introduction to analyze the impact of the program on my students. The issue with the lack of control group is that there is no way of proving it was the program that created change as there are many other variables that could potentially affect the behavior of the students. Instead, I will only be able to make note of any changes and determine correlations between implementing the program and the students' behavior.

Research Design: One Group Pretest-Posttest Design
Measurement: Observations	Treatment: Conscious Discipline	Measurement: Observations
Student Interactions		Student Interactions
Independent Problem-Solving		Independent Problem-Solving
Special Needs v. Non-Special Needs		Special Needs v. Non-Special Needs

This would be the chart used for data collection:

STUDENTS #	NEGATIVE INTER. (TALLY)	POSITIVE INTER. (TALLY)	KEY WORDS USED	INDEPENDENTLY SOLVED (TALLY)	TEACHER INTERVENTION (TALLY)
1
2
*3
*4
5
*6
*7
*8
9
10
11
12
13
TOTAL:

The chart assigns each student a nominal number, which will be kept track by putting the students in alphabetical order. This was deemed easiest because this is already a current system used to conceal identity with note taking in the classroom. The chart will tally the amount of positive and negative interactions each student engages in over the course of the week. The chart also denotes any key words used such as emotional descriptions like "I feel..." or "It makes me sad when..." in order to see if the students are using terms encouraged by the program. Additionally, there is a section that tallies the amount of times a conflict was independently resolved, as well as the conflicts that required teacher intervention. Furthermore, a star has been place next to each students' number who has been deemed as a student with special needs.

1st Grade Hallway- Ms. Aprell Adams

Research Design: Nonequivalent Control Group
Measurement: Pre-test	Treatment: Explicit small group instruction	Measurement: Post-test
Student Achievement: - Timed Reading Passage - Sight Word Recognition - Reading Level	Experimental: explicit small group instruction Control: general classroom instruction	Student Achievement: - Timed Reading Passage - Sight Word Recognition - Reading Level
Student Attitudes: -Survey	Experimental: explicit small group instruction Control: general classroom instruction	Student Attitudes: -Survey
Student Behaviors: -Observation	Experimental: explicit small group instruction Control: general classroom instruction	Student Behaviors: -Observation

3rd Grade Hallway- Ms. Stacey Seiler


I will using a quasi-experimental one-group pretest and posttest design.  The data collection can be summarized in the table below. 

Measurement	Treatment	Measurement
Student Achievement: Pretest	Experimental: centers and small group instruction with teacher	Student Achievement: Posttest (same as pretest)
Student Attitude: Survey	Experimental: collaborative centers and small group instruction with teacher	Student Attitudes: Survey

4th Grade Hallway- Mrs. Jamie Lambrinos

My research design will closely follow the nonequivalent control group model as described in Action Research by Jeffrey Glantz (2014, p. 67).  This model involves an already intact experimental and control group which will have separate treatments administered to each group.  Classroom A will receive the treatment of interactive notebooks (T1) while Classroom B will receive the treatment of traditional three-ring binders (T2).  Though they receive separate treatments, both classrooms will receive the same pre- and post measurements in effort to identify the way in which the dependent and independent variables are affected by each of the treatments administered.  The independent variable can be seen as mathematics instruction. The dependent variables are identified as student achievement, student motivation, and the occurrences in which the students utilize their notes throughout assigned tasks. 

Nonequivalent Control Groups

                                                  Classroom A             M - T1 - M

                                                  Classroom B             M - T2 - M

Research Design:  Nonequivalent Control Group
Measurement:	Treatment:	Measurement:
Student Attitudes: Questionnaire	Experimental:  Interactive Notebook Control:  Traditional Binder	Student Attitudes: Questionnaire
Student Achievement: Unit Assessment - Select and Constructed Response	Experimental:  Interactive Notebook Control:  Traditional Binder	Student Achievement: Unit Assessment - Select and Constructed Response
Student Observations: Student Observation Form	Experimental:  Interactive Notebook Control:  Traditional Binder	Student Observations: Student Observation Form

5th Grade Hallway-Mrs. Rebecca Young

This week has been full of answering the “how” of this action research project as well as a growing passion for my research topic.  I enjoyed listening to a TED Talk from Jaime Oliver on the childhood obesity epidemic and the roles schools play in it.  I especially enjoyed his point about the lack of silverware in schools and its implications on what you can serve children.  At around minute twelve Jaime addresses my 1st research question and gives me hope that perhaps the critics I found while doing my literature review were wrong Nutrition integration in schools can make a difference and in fact it is necessary to integrate nutrition into schools.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver

Nonequivalent Control Group
Measurement:  Pretest	Treatment: Nutrition Integration	Measurement: Posttest
Student Attitudes:                                              -Likert Survey	Experimental: "Apple Group"                                           The apple control group will receive lessons that incorporate healthy foods in examples of fraction concepts like estimation and comparing as well as in the adding and subtracting of fractions. Control: "Fraction Bar Group" The fraction bar control group will receive the same lessons on fraction concepts like estimation and comparing as well as in the adding and subtracting of fractions, but the teacher will follow the BCPS curriculum guide with the suggested methods of teaching fraction concepts and operations (without nutrition integration).	Student Attitudes:                                              -Likert Survey
Measurement:  Pretest	Treatment: National School Lunch Program (NSLP)	Measurement: Posttest
Student Attention:                                          -Observation checklist	Experimental:     NSLP                                       Student off task behavior will be noted on a checklist during small group mathematics and compared against students that do not participate in NSLP. Control: Packers Student off task behavior will be noted on a checklist during small group mathematics and compared against students that participate in NSLP.	Student Attention:                                          -Observation checklist