Yearly Goal at Rusch Completed

Goal: Differentiate math instruction to extend the development assessment approach to 6^th grade. Create remediation lessons and finish with quick assessments. Provide some algebra enrichment and readiness skills to the higher end (230+).


Steps for Achieving Goal:

• I set up my grade book based on standards achievement during the 3rd and 4th quarters of the school year. Students also completed self-assessments and self-tracked achievement of standards during units 7 and 8. 
• I created remediation lessons for students who had difficulty on the quick assessments. Lessons were taught by a parent volunteer, peer tutors or me.
• Algebra enrichment and readiness skill sessions were held every Tuesday and Thursday after school from 3:05-3:50 until 4/22/11.
• YouTube lessons and computer games were added to my class website.
• I completed two action research studies to study the effects of differentiation in mathematics and wrote a literature review.

Narrative Statement for Next Year's Research

Research Study - How can I differentiate content, lessons and standards-based assessment in mathematics classes so all students make academic growth?

1.  I will be researching the effects of differentiation in mathematics classes. The purpose of this study is to meet the needs of all 4th grade mathematics students in my school. I will begin collecting data from the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year until the second MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) test is completed in early February 2012.

• My plan is to create binders for each math unit using three levels of content and instruction for each lesson.
• Standards-based assessment charts will be used to help students monitor their achievement of each standard.
• Opportunities for reteaching and retesting will be available for all math standards.
• ALEKS (Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces) online computer instruction will be provided for students who achieve at the 95th-99th percentile on the MAP test.
• After the first MAP test, Enrichment Math Parties will be held on Tuesday and/or Thursday nights after school. These parties will be open to all students who accept an invitation to complete packets of individualized instruction.
• Online instruction in the form of YouTube lessons will be made available on my class website.
• Class practice tests, problems and explanations will also be available online and in hard copy form.
• Everyday Math Games, games related to RIT (Rasch Unit) scores, and other online instructional games will be available on my class website.
• Questionnaires will be given to students at the beginning, middle and end of data collection period.
• I will add a weekly reflection regarding math instruction onto my lesson plans.

2.  Data from classroom testing, MAP testing, student questionnaires and teacher reflections will be used to form results. My students are 9-and-10-year-old fourth graders. There are currently three students with learning disabilities out of 46 students. Most students are Caucasian.

3.  My parent/guardians will not receive a written notification of informed consent since I will not complete the research for publication.

Second Mini-Action Research Project

My action research was to use the Keystone Math Method modified for my sixth graders. For my research,  I read an article in The Chronicle of Higher Learning (2009) entitled "Demonstrating the Power of Group Math." The Illinois Professor of the Year and winner of other awards, M. Vali Siadat uses a technique he terms the Keystone Method. Students work in cooperative groups and then take a quick assessment after each lesson. Students “view the classroom as a learning community,” and “the group work also gets students deeply engaged in the subject matter.”  I planned to start every class with a "test" to check understanding of the previous day's target or objective. Then, I introduced and taught a new objective. While the students were working independently, students who had difficulty on the "test" learned the concept in a new way from me, a YouTube video or a student tutor.

When students finished their work early, they could work on the ALEKS program, complete algebra party packets, play the game 24, play games related to their MAP RIT score or read. I also read an article “Gen Y: Who They are and How They Learn" (Black, 2010) describing key characteristics of students born between the years 1981 and 2001. Students in this group are savvy with technology and enjoy working together.

First, I implemented my plan for our Unit 7 Math Unit: Probability and Integers. During the unit I gave the students a "test" at the beginning of lessons on nine days. On three days, another adult corrected the pages, and I was able to follow up the same day with the few students who had difficulty. On one day, I could tell that so many students were having problems completing the assessment that I immediately retaught the lesson to all the students. On the other five days, students corrected their pages in class and asked questions if they had difficulties.

Student tutors, small groups and YouTube videos were used after we took reviews of previous material or when students had difficulty during independent work time. After the mini-tests, it was often too difficult to teach a new concept, give students time to work independently on the new concept AND catch up with students who had problems on the mini-test. Therefore, I implemented the use of small groups, student tutors and the YouTube videos after the first unit review.

A funny story occurred when five of my students were suppose to be watching ALL the YouTube videos on my teacherweb.com site. Unknown to the students, the second-to-last title was just a webpage instructing them to tell me a secret password. When the students returned from the computer lab, they assured me that they had watched all the videos, but only one of them could tell me the secret password. From then on, I had students watching the videos on the four laptops in class, and they never knew if there was a secret password on one of the videos, so they were always looking for one.

The student unit assessment results did not change much from the unit assessment I gave during my first action research project. There were still six students who scored below 80%. In addition, I wanted to use the Self-Assessment Page with Unit Standards in a more productive way. The Everyday Math Series has a page at the beginning of each unit test for students to self-assess themselves. I used the page to set up my standards-based gradebook, and students completed the page as they took the test. However, I wanted to have students use the page as a self-tracking device during the unit. For these two reasons, I decided to do another "quick" round of action research for Unit 8.

Post-Script - - Testing by standards allowed me to easily retest just the sections that students needed. I will continue to do this type of testing in the future. Students have more opportunities to master material. I think higher MAP scores as well as higher grades on report cards are a result.

Mini-Action Research Results

It was the Beatles who sang, "We all get by with a little help from our friends." For my mini-action research study, I wanted to see if my sixth grade mathematics students would also do better with a little help from their friends. There are twenty-three students in my class. Three students have tested in the 95-99th percentile in math on the Measure for Academic Progress (MAP) Test, one student tested in the 10th percentile and one student who is in the cognitively disabled program does not participate in my math class. One student is African-American, one is Hispanic, three are Native American and the remaining students are Caucasian. Sixty percent of the 312 students in our school receive free and reduced hot lunch.

I have twenty-five years of experience as a teacher and seven years of experience as a sixth grade teacher, but this is the first year I have taught at Rusch Elementary School in Portage, WI, a city of almost 10,000 residents. Previously, I taught a multi-age class of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade students. Often students had to work together while I taught a separate lesson to the other grades. This year, I missed having time to work with small groups of students, and I do not have an aide to assist me with students working independently. Therefore, I was intrigued by a high school geometry teacher's use of groups. She described how she used cooperative groups to review and recorrect math tests.

For my research, I read an article in The Chronicle of Higher Learning (2009) entitled "Demonstrating the Power of Group Math." The Illinois Professor of the Year and winner of other awards, M. Vali Siadat uses a technique he terms the Keystone Method. Students work in cooperative groups and then take a quick assessment after each lesson. Students “view the classroom as a learning community,” and “the group work also gets students deeply engaged in the subject matter.” I also read an article “Gen Y: Who They are and How They Learn" (Black, 2010) describing key characteristics of students born between the years 1981 and 2001. In addition, to being savvy with technology, Gen Y students lack basic skills and learn better in groups and teams.

For my study, I formed teams of three and four students. I asked for volunteers who would be willing to serve as group leaders. After the first lesson, students worked on math journal pages in cooperative groups. Afterwards, students answered two questions. First, “Why was it more helpful or less helpful working in a group yesterday?" Sixteen students said it was more helpful, one student said it was both more and less helpful, one student said she was absent but she thought it would be more helpful, and two students said it was less helpful. After some modifications and more practice working in their groups, I then asked students to rate cooperative group work on a scale of 1-5. Eleven students gave the work a 5 (the highest rating), seven students gave it a 4, one student gave it a 3, one gave it a 2, and there were also two 1’s (the lowest rating).

The two students who rated rated the cooperative groups less helpful after the first day were the same students who gave it a 1 rating after the second round. The third student who was moved into their group also gave it a low rating of 2.

Student test scores on the unit test were more varied than the previous unit test. While there were 5 students who scored 100% on the second unit test and no students who scored 100% on the previous test, there were also six students who scored below 80% on the second unit test after cooperative group work and only 2 students who scored lower than 80% on the previous test.

In analyzing my data, I would like to review my reflections after each day of the study (see second attachment). The cooperative group method gave me more time to observe the students as they worked because I was not asked for problem solving help very often. After the second day of lessons, the students and I also realized we had to be more viligent about referring to the objectives of each lesson and preparing for a short independent quiz the morning after each lesson. Students asked for and received an extra five minutes at the end of the lesson to review their work.

While most students rated working in cooperative groups highly, three students consistently gave it lower scores. This may have been my fault because the group leader was the only student chosen as a leader who had a mathematics MAP score below 229. I thought it was a positive statement that this student felt she could be a leader and help others in mathematics, and she did score 15% higher on the unit test than she did on the previous unit test. In addition, I switched a student who was having difficulties in another group with a student who did not like working in this group after the first day. The student who had difficulties in another group may just have difficulty working with others.

Part of the reason more students (6 vs. 2) scored below 80% may be the material covered (statistics vs. algebra), but I also found that 4 of the students were absent at least two days during the two week period before the test. In addition, after discussing the matter with the students, I feel I should have worked with the students who performed poorly on a review before the test instead of allowing them to remain in a cooperative group.

Overall, I learned how my students and I benefitted from working in cooperative groups. I also learned to make the groups more flexible, and also have some students work with me when they are having extreme difficulty or have missed some days of school. Students who helped others as leaders also helped themselves learn more. All the group leaders scored higher on the second unit test than they did on the first. Since I have conducted this action research study, I sometimes allow students to choose partners and groups, sometimes I choose groups without leaders and sometimes I choose student leaders. I will continue to experiment with cooperative math groups in the future.

Feedback Preferences

 How do I like to get feedback? What do I need to work on or remember to receive feedback in a healthy, productive manner?

I like to get feedback in a formative form rather than a summative form. I need to remember to evaluate myself before I receive feedback from others. That way, I can listen dispassionately and know that what someone is saying makes sense to me.


 How do I give feedback? How is it received by others? What do I need to work on to be good at giving feedback?
 
When I give feedback to students I usually do it on their rough draft. For instance, when my students write a story, research paper or poem book, I edit EVERYTHING and give all types of suggestions. Then, on the final draft I only write positive comments.
 
Also, when students do math journal pages, I write notes and make check marks. However, after they redo pages, they simply write "REDONE" on the top, and I record the FINAL SCORE.
 
This year I have had the students do some self-assessment before they turn in work, but not as much as I will have them do during the second half of the year. It is sort of my way of them taking responsibility for their work. I also am good at providing examples so they can tell what the standard is for their work.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for December 1, 2010

I put my test grades in my gradebook based on skills rather than a whole test grade. Also, today I worked with one group of six who did poorly on the test, and the rest of the students corrected both the A and B sections of the test in groups. I like the B section because it is a formative assessment. Students who excel can keep working, and students who are struggling can just work on part A. Finally, some students chose to take a pretest for the fractions' unit. 

Based on student preferences and my observations, I will definitely continue to use cooperative groups for teaching math. I don't think the groups have to be permanent, I think I will usually work with a group and I do not think I will assign leaders. Although the grades on this test were not higher than our previous unit, I think it is a case of comparing apples and oranges. The algebra unit was more difficult than statistics. Also, every student now understands the importance of making sure he or she understands the material before the test. Finally, I am making two changes when I begin groups for our next unit. First, students will need to pass an independent "quick" check of the previous day's lesson before moving on, and the cooperative groups will change on a daily basis.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for November 30, 2010

Today, I formed groups based on what students had to practice after independently completing a review. One group of students also did not finish a section because they did not understand that "Evaluate" means to solve the problem. I worked with two students who had quite a few problems to redo. As other students finished up a section or completed the entire review, they usually joined my group. This is really working well because I find many students do not start thinking about how to solve problems until they are asked to complete a task. Even when I have students hold up white boards with their answers, a few students always lag behind. Working in small groups has kept them more focused. Also, they don't have to listen to a whole class discussion of problems they already know how to do.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for November 29, 2010

Today students completed a review for our test on Wednesday. I had them work independently so they could see what they needed to practice before the test. The only problem is I had three students absent so it will be difficult for them to get the review done AND review it before the test.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for November 24, 2010

Today was the day before Thanksgiving Break. I wanted to finish up the lessons for this unit. I presented a short lesson and students worked together in groups. After recess and phy. ed., we did a little more instruction on using the calculator to find square roots. I was a little (okay, more than a little) embarrassed that one of my math cooperative groups was still having problems working together! A parent volunteer was helping in my class, and I just think I have talked with my drama group enough times that they should KNOW how to behave with each other! Then, during recess, I had students in from both sixth grade classes because they had not finished their science work. For some reason I was having trouble hooking up a speaker for my movies that reviewed the material, and of course the kids were loud and restless. By the time I had it all working and the group on task, the parent volunteer had left. However, I don't know why he would ever want to come back. I know I didn't!

Luckily, the rest of the day went very well, so we left for break on a good note! I guess it is a good idea to back off on the instruction on the afternoon before Thanksgiving. On the spur of the moment, the other sixth grade teacher and I decided to show an inspirational movie instead of teaching science and social studies. It ended right before school ended. Everybody was hugging and saying "Have a Happy Thanksgiving." In fact, the students were taking so long to leave and say good-bye that I finally went down to the second floor so they would clear out! One of the second grade teachers and I had a good laugh after she told me she couldn't get her students to go home, and I explained what I was doing on the second floor!

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for November 23, 2010

Today was very different because we had an assembly. Students were leaving for color guard practice, then band, and finally, choir. During the remaining fifteen minutes before the show began, I gave up trying to teach math to six students, and they played Hangman. The good thing is students who were gone after the first five minutes of school could later help other students catch up.

Sixth grade in an elementary school is interrupted at least two times a week. Band students are pulled out on Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings for individual and group lessons. Choir students leave for the last fifty minutes of the day on Tuesdays. Safety patrol members are leaving for posts or working as office helpers at different times. There are fundraisers, assemblies, after school events, guidance classes, discipline issues and pull outs for speech, reading help and testing. All of these things and more happen during our academic time. For instance, I like that the sixth graders are in charge of the Harvest Festival, but they often miss hours of instructional time preparing for a two hour evening event. The worst part is that the only reasons I mind at all are personal; I get behind in my math pacing guide and my science schedule of labs has to be arranged again and again.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for November 22, 2010

It turns out that only three students want to work in pairs. The rest want groups of three or four. All of them are interested in choosing their own groups. I'm not sure how that will work, but I might put students into pools and one student could be selected from each pool. Today we also had students attempting to work individually and then checking their work as a group. In addition, students had a little time to work on corrections in their math journals. Using this method kept the class members on task and working quietly.

I want students to try to solve the problems on their own. Some students follow along during the lesson, complete practice problems and then immediately say, "I don't get it," when independent practice is assigned. I don't even think they read the directions or look at examples. It seems to me that students should have learned to "figure out" how to complete work independently by sixth grade. I know my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders definitely learned how to figure out pages on their own. Perhaps, they had no choice because I could only work with two groups at a time, but I believe it might be the most important math skill of all.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for November 19th

Today students worked on their own to complete a review of algebraic statements, fractions and integers. Material we covered yesterday on fractions was the easiest part for the students. Overall, the results were better than average. After reading the student reflections from the past week, I will ask students to work on their own first. Then, ask questions and check work together. Also, I will designate the last five minutes of the period to a group review so students remember the main objectives of the lesson that were written on the board.

Three students wrote that they would like to pick their own groups and/or work in teams of two. I may try creating two pools of students and allow students to pick a partner from the other pool. However, a few students (including one who suggested this method) may have limited choices. I would add this onto the end of my initial action research beginning on December 1st.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) 11/18/10


Even my drama group worked well together today. We were a little bit short on time because students wanted to share their poems from writer's workshop. So, towards the end of class students had to finish up quickly, and I saw a couple of students simply show their answers to other group members. I'm not sure this is a problem if I see it happening and can intervene. Also, if a lot of people are not done before read aloud, I can always tell them to finish up the next day rather than have them finish during recess.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) for 11/17/2010


Today I discovered that the cooperative math groups are even better when a substitute comes to your class! I stayed home with my ill daughter yesterday, but the students were still able to have a wonderful math class. The substitute teacher was impressed with how well the students worked together. Today, they proved it by individually finishing the review without problems.

I asked the students to rate how the group work went. The scores were great except for my drama group that wanted to replace their leader. I explained that some people need a chance to learn how to be the leader AND some people need to learn how to be a follower!

Teacher Reflection (MARS) 11/16/2010 


I started the day with students completing a page that contained the same type of skill problems they worked on the previous day. Many of them acted as though they had no idea what to do. I explained that working in cooperative groups was different, and so we would go over the page together. However, today I would write the most important objective on the board, we would do practice problems, they would finish the work in groups AND then they needed to make sure everyone in the group knew how to do a similar problem on his or her own tomorrow.


I'm not sure what to do about my "drama group" that is performing during our cooperative group math time. Last week, I moved one of the members out and replaced him with someone who was unhappy in another group. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of "She did this...," and "she did that" going on. All the other groups have done a good job although I have had three students out with illness this week. 


One thing I notice is that students do not come to me for help very often. It's nice to just observe or visit groups.

Teacher Reflection (MARS) 11/15/2010    

After our wonderful conference in LaCrosse, I felt upbeat and positive about returning to my classroom and beginning my action research data collection. During the previous week we had experimented with cooperative groups. This morning I posted an updated list of groups and had students rearrange their desks into pods. The set up the students designed was better than I could have made. Some groups are in pods and two groups are in horizontal rows. In the future, I will still form the groups, but the students can always take care of the desk arrangements.


Today, I presented a lesson on distance, rate and time. After a discussion and sample problem was completed, students worked on using the formula and similar rate formulas. Then, they graphed the results of their work. During the time I observed the groups, all the groups worked well together. One group was missing their leader, and the two remaining group members waited until I visited their desks before they completed any problems. On the first page, they had to be prompted several times. Eventually, they were able to work on their own, but they needed additional time to finish the assigned three pages in their math journals.