Mills make-up 2/18/14

Where I am now...I feel that my question has evolved. It started off more as a procedural/behavioral type of question but it has now gone in the route of content and what types of questions I ask and which are successful.

My question was...

How can the use of a student response system during Math instruction allow me to elicit participation from all my students in an organized way, that allows all students to successfully share their answers and feel validated.

It's now...

 

What types of questions are easier for my students to understand during math instruction? (Patterns of their responses and see if there is a certain type of question that they are able to answer better)

My focal students and their indicators or success are...

Focal Students                      Indicators of success

Girl       YSP       1/1             paying attention, participating, thinking about question

Girl       AGS       2/19            talking less with other girls, thinking about question    

Boy      ERR      3/12           keeping answer to himself and not blurt

Boy      LCO      6/30           giving others the time to think and process

Boy      JDC        9/16 TK       pay attention, thinking about the question

Girl      ESP      10/27 TK     keep answer to herself and think

One important thing for me to do is to take notes of what I noticed or what was said as it happens. I often times forget what stumped students or what realizations we came to when discussing the problems. I could put these responses at the bottom of my data collection sheet

Where I currently am with my inquiry 12/10

I created a template that easily allows me to collect data. I feel that if I collect data every Monday after Math, I have a routine in place that wouldn't be an additional thing for me to do. Though I'm specifically looking at 4-5 focal students (still not sure who exactly) I know that this inquiry is allowing me to look at the class as a whole and track everyone's progress. I know I want Y.G.R, E.R.R. and L.C.O as 3 of my focal students. I'd like to add another 2 (probably students who struggle) so that I can see if this routine is helping them. I was also thinking that my questions might be harder based on the topic, which might allow me to see if I'm challenging them too much, or if some students are ready for these type of questions. I plan to use the color coding system I used in my inquiry 4 years ago (red/yellow/green) based on how many questions they correctly answer. As of now I think my question is:

How can the use of a student response system during Math instruction allow me to elicit participation from all my students in an organized way, that allows all students to successfully share their answers and feel validated.

Mills Saturday Meeting - October 19, 2013

I have a new focus of inquiry this year. I want to weave in elements of puppetry from last year's inquiry but this year I want to focus more on the use of student response systems. The concept has lots of steps and may seem difficult at first, but this year I introduced them to the class (not my TK's) and I feel as if I've already had some success. They have all of my students engaged and excited about learning. I still need to figure out in what curricular area I plan on using them.

The format I might use with the puppet is a game show. As of now I have 5 focal students in mind (3 boys and 2 girls). I have a mix of boys/girls, advanced/benchmark, talkative and blurters/quieter students. Because there is minimal writing in Kindergarten, the purpose of this assessment is more for oral participation.
 

My current question is:

·        How can I use a response system with my kindergarteners to assess what they quickly understand and then push them to explain in a manner that’s organized so that they are not blurting out and stealing that opportunity to learn from other students?

April 9th - thoughts after tonight's meeting

What I’m thinking now:

After looking at my data (before coming to tonight’s meeting) I came up with some early findings. Despite how much I may want a student to talk, I’m not going to change their personality. I hope they learn what I teach them and it can help them in some way, but my quiet student is not going to be super talkative due to my inquiry. I want to promote a safe environment that allows students to feel comfortable enough to speak in front of their peers. Another finding is that students frequently use a puppet’s body language as a way to demonstrate their own emotions.

Possibly making 4 indicators of success based on what I’ve seen so far with the puppets

• Puppet Use Learning Goal: Are they using the puppet correctly?

• Develop Craft Learning Goal: Learning how to take care of tools and use them appropriately

• Content Learning Goal: Are they able to demonstrate that they understood the information they learned about the particular community helper?

• Language Learning Goal: Are they speaking in a loud/clear voice?

Why wouldn’t dressing up as the character be enough? Because I was looking specifically at the puppet use as a tool to get them to talk, especially those students that are extremely shy and don’t speak. 

The evolution of my data collection method so far and where I am now (prior to April 8th meeting)

 

 

This is a progression of my inquiry. At first I had students dress up as the Community Helper they were describing. It was a little to complex for them to be able to do both at the same time so then I partnered them with a classmate (still using the dramatic play costumes with the corresponding puppets). This was still a bit confusing for them, so the last two videos are where I am now with my inquiry. Students interview the Community Helper puppet and ask him/her questions about what they do. They then switch with their partners so that both students get the chance to ask the questions/use the puppet.

 

Something I have noticed about my focal student's learning (I'll refer to him as Max for now), is that he understands the concept of using a puppet and that there is an audience. He can demonstrate what he knows about the community helper through his role play. One thing I want him to do before the school year is work on speaking in a louder voice and more clearly. He has recently begun to stutter and I don't know if it's nerves or if there's so much that he wants to say that he can't process it before saying it.

3/5/13 Where I'm at now...

After tonight's meeting I think I know where I'm heading and what I need to do. I want to step back from video taping my students and I think I'm going to have my aide do that. I'm also going to restructure the dressing up/puppet interaction. The interviewer will be a student dressed in their regular clothing, asking the puppet to tell them about their job. I hope to come up with 3 or 4 questions that students can ask all of the community helpers. I also want to think about what Georgia brought up. What are the strengths that each of my students possess instead of looking at their areas of deficiency. This will help me think about Laura's continuum and will help me think about particular indicators of success for that student.

Feb 28th assignment/ Work in progress wrap up

At this point I don't have much to say about my focal students. After talking it over with Anna, I decided to narrow down my focal students to 4 (1 representing each of the four categories). That made round 2 of data collection a lot easier but I'm still sorting through it to see what I'm getting from the data.

My group also talked about the complexity of interacting with the puppet and so I went with a suggestion they gave me and I now have one focal student interact with another focal student who is using the puppet. A difficulty I'm coming across is having enough time to film this during my regular school day . I've been trying to do it in a quiet setting but while I film 2, I have 27 other students who are talking and make it difficult to hear. One thing I'm going to work on at the meeting while looking at data is the indicators of success. I haven't really done this yet, but now that I have my focal group narrowed down, I'm hoping it'll be easier.

Some good questions for me to consider that came up during the work in progress session were:
Does it matter if child or puppet is talking?
Is goal to produce language or perofrm for audience?
What kind of teaching/mini lessons have I done?
How could I simplify expectation for language production? Pass around circle vs. interview
Does it seem like puppets are starting to encourage kids to talk?
Could sentence frames help?

At this point my question seems to be:
How does the use of puppets help kids talk more?