As I sat down at my desk on Monday, I began to think about a possible action research question that I want to investigate. Immediately, I came up with multiple topics. I started writing them down on a notepad. I came up with so many that I had filled the page.
When I looked up at the clock, I realized I had consumed my entire morning with this sort of wondering.
While my stomach was rumbling because it was lunchtime, I was amazed at how
many ideas I had generated. I think this highlights an important fact about
action research: topics abound if you are willing to look close enough.
Because of how busy my week has
been, I let the list sit for a couple of days. When I returned to it, I decided
I needed to cut the list back. I was now left with coming up with a way to cull
ideas.
First, I decided that I was not going
to totally toss away an idea. I learned from my studies in writing that an idea
may not necessarily be a bad idea. It just may not be the right idea for right
now. I have a file in which I save writing samples I have started or writing
topics I have dreamt up that I, for whatever reason, have chosen to not to
pursue in that moment. I also have scraps that I revised out because who knows
how I can use those later.
I decided to do that with my
action research topics. Next, I prioritized them based upon what I felt was the
greatest need on my campus. I also considered the length of time that I felt it
would take to complete research on the topic. I gave a lower priority to items
that I deemed to be short-term projects. A few other projects I culled that I
felt would best be researched by someone else on the campus. For example, a few
of these topics I believed to have been a great topic for collaborative
research by my teachers. I also remembered that one idea was being pursued by a
teacher on my campus. My idea could have been considered a subtopic of her topic,
so I culled it. All of the topics I did not consider of high priority I saved
as a list on my thumb drive.
Finally, I had a list of three
ideas that I felt were of high priority and of high interest. It was time to
choose the one that I would pursue as my action research project for this
program. At this point, I took more time to reflect (and to eat- it seems I do
quite a bit of reflection while taking a bite).
As I reflected, the data kept
coming up in my mind. Our district is composed of 75% economically
disadvantaged. I knew from previous reading that economically disadvantaged
students do not increase in vocabulary at the same rate as non-economically
disadvantaged students- a difference of 2,000 words a year in grades 1-3
(Baker, Simmons, and Kame’enui; 1997). I also knew from personal experience
that our students do not have the academic vocabulary to answer questions on
the STAAR test.
Therefore, I decided that my
action research question would be this: In what ways can increased focus on
academic vocabulary help our students, especially economically disadvantaged
students, improve student performance on standardized testing? I chose this
topic because I am interested in this topic, it is relevant to my campus, and I
believe it is the topic that will be of the greatest help at this time to my
campus.
Crmeche,
ReplyDeleteI really respect the process you went through to come up with your final action research plan. This, of course, could be because I am an English teacher as well and we all know what our brainstorming and prewriting sessions are like. Once I started to come up with my ideas for the nine areas I couldn't stop either.
I'm curious in what ways you plan to increase student academic vocabulary. I started playing Dictionary wars with my Sophomores. One of the games we played was vocabulary tic tac toe. a sentence is placed on the board with a word underlined. The students split into two teams had to look up and find the correct definition of the word based on how it was used in the sentence. One of the members had to write the definition on the board and tell me whether it was a verb, noun, etc. If the answer is right then a student from the team sits in a seat to mark an x or an o on a human tic-tac-toe board. Once a person sits in the tic-tac-toe board they can no longer help their team. The students get really excited about it and very competitive. It was one of my favorite lessons this year and they always asked to play it. I hope this helps in your journey and if you find any new strategies please share.
Thank you for sharing this strategy with me. I love activities that engage students, especially one that they ask to repeat again. It definitely seems to have made an impact on your students. I also love strategies that allow learning to be fun. I will definitely be sharing strategies that I find to be effective.
DeleteWow, our action research plans are the same! I had several ideas I was curious about, but this one I felt could make the most impact, and like you I feel it is relevant to my campus. You are a great writer, and I will definitely be following your blog.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I feel that the problem of academic vocabulary is a problem felt by many campus, just from viewing the data and talking with friends in other districts. Good luck with your action research project and your campus this year.
DeleteOk, this was a very insightful blog post, and honestly I wish I would have came across it earlier in the week. I like your process to find the right idea to research. I brainstormed quite a few ideas myself, but not in such an efficient fashion. Will definitely be back to gain insight from your blogs! :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. I just applied what I do as a writer (and what I teach my students as a writing teacher)to action research. It has worked well for me before (I've been able to turn "scraps" into short stories and poems), so I thought I'd try it this time. I think that this is one of the purposes of these blogs, for us to feed off of each other.
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