Why is it important for May to look at literature as a part of her inquiry journey? What insights did May gain about her inquiry topic through her readings? In what ways might May?s readings inform how she will collect data for her study? May?s inquiry journey started as a semester was starting. She was encouraged by the assistant principal; Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown was much informed on research because he had conducted several research inquiry cycles. He was a middle school teacher who taught social studies before he was promoted to an administrator. He shared hunger for inquiry with May and other teachers and they all accepted to enquire more on action research to help them improve their teaching profession. They came up with their own professional learning community (PLC) and engaged themselves in a study (Mills, 2006). May was motivated by what was contained in the study and she decided to start her own inquiry study at the season of the spring of the school year. In her study, May had to look at literature as a part of her inquiry journey because using literature assisted her in relating her work to others. Through literature, May was able to get an understanding on the reason for her student?s behaviors (Yendol-Hoppey & Dana, 2010). She acquired the knowledge on good and bad behavior; in her study she was able to understand that the student?s bad behaviors were indications of their strength but not their weakness. From her study, May started admiring her students who used to fight every day and she felt for those who were giving up (Poekert, 2011). She learnt to accept the strategies of her students as twould help her teach them on newer strategies for achieving what they want from their classrooms and in their lives. She could now imagine the life experiences her students were undergoing and she concluded that may be some of them had just given up in life (Dana &Yendol-Hoppey, 2008). Literature helped May towards a new direction and strategies which she would use during her enquiry process. She learnt that she would acquire data by conducting an interview to her difficult students and questioning on any weird behavior coming from the students in her classroom (Dick, 2009). May, Naomi, Margaret, Darby, and Mr. Brown formed a professional learning community that met regularly to plan May?s first inquiry and to support one another in their work as educators. What specific benefits did May receive as a result of collaborating with her colleagues? Why is collaboration an important component of the action research process? In her research May decided to collaborate with Mr. Brown who was the assistant principal, Darby the schools response to intervention coach, Margaret a seventh-grade mathematics teacher and Naomi who was a Special education teacher. The team realized they were almost coming to an end to the school academic year and they had to make the research enquiry simple so as to accomplish their plans on the research before the school holiday began in June. They decided to work on one class instead of five. The collaboration between the five team members helped them a great deal. They supported each other by sharing ideas and the problems they were encountering and the solution. That reduced their levels of stress among them. Inquiry research is not simple and sometimes it can be irresistible chore to educators who mostly are loaded with a lot of work. May was overwhelmed and she turned to the other teammates and worked together. A teacher has many responsibilities and adding other work might be stressful. May was able to make good decisions by collaborating with her team members. By sharing the members helped her feel it was not a burden and was more manageable. They helped her come up with the exact strategies which would work best for the different characters in her class. A critical component of the inquiry process is designing a plan for data collection that is ! Explain the importance of developing a data collection plan that is meaningful but practical to the life of a classroom teacher. Address the following: For May to plan the interventions and the data collection plan, she thought of the challenges she had earlier faced with the fourth-period class as a whole. She realized that she had a problem in getting to class early. She shared with her team mates (Hubbard & Power, 1993). The way May took time to plan with the other team mates was really admirable. They decided to collect data through journaling, focus group interviews and observing which worked very well in favor of their plans. In my opinion, focus group interviews and the use of observations which were used by Sienna and Darby, the RTI coach helped May since the methods provided her with data which gave her vision directly from the students. The best way I think was used to record the data was timing the students during agenda time which was used by May (Yendol-Hoppey & Dana, 2010). That process was easier and quicker to undertake since it involved no interruption and little explanations. I think Mays decision to use Darby in collecting her data was not very brilliant (Dana & Yendo-Happy, 2009). Mays data would have been collected by Dary with Mays assistance but according to me, the schools RTI coach normally have many roles to perform and they do not have time for assistance maybe after the school hours. However it looks like in mays school, the RTI coach is available to the teacher?s needs. May however performed well when choosing the various data collection methods to use for her inquiry. In my opinion I think adding something visual like video would have been of much benefit to her inquiry. Teachers are thought to be good in multitasking. By use of video, May would be able to make reviews which would help her understand the different behaviors of her students (Dana & Yendo-Happy, 2009). Download May?s Wish List Student Response data.Follow a modified version of how to conduct a data analysis as described in the course text, . In your journal response, share the categories you named, as well as examples of responses that were included in each category. If you were May, what would your analysis of tinitial data tell you to do next? The big list of responses could however be categorized into four. (1) High opinion for others. (2) Preparation. (3) Laziness. (4) Deficiency of self-value. I choose the first category which is high opinion for others because there were some students who were wishing for high opinion or simply respect. For example: give respect to our teacher and classmates, Listen and be quiet, I wish people would stop being loud and I want to show my teacher respect. The second category which is preparation was chosen because there are responses which fall in it. Examples: Have out our pencil and paper and be ready to learn, Come in and get ready and start on time I wish we could come to class, sit down and start our work and Class would be good if it started on time every day. Thresponses indicate that some students really do desire to make the most of class and time and wish their classmates would come prepared to learn (Yendol-Hoppey & Dana 2008). The fourth category which is laziness had the following points I wish we could get less homework and Homework Mon.-Thur. and Fri. no homework, the last category is deficiency of self-value which involved the following responses. To give me an A for no reason, we nto have more parties and I wish to be the richest person in the world thpoints clearly showed that the students did not understand their reason in school and may had to educate them the essence of hard work in life. If I were May I would specifically deal with the students who gave the points and where required.Based on what you have read and considered about May?s process, reflect on your own teacher inquiry practices. How has May?s story thus far affirmed or changed your thinking about the action research process and your own research plans? Include specific information from your journal entries and one or more Learning Resources in tcourse to support your response. I have always thought that it is good to carry out teacher inquiry process alone but from May I have learned that it is good to work as a team. By use of individual interview one can get the first hand information which is very reliable. I can conduct an interview and document the information for future review like May did with the list of responses she got. There were four observations that Sienna conducted over a two-week period to document May?s redirection behaviors. First, you will examine the series of observation reports. Second, identify any trends and themes you find in the data. Be sure to consider the observational notes that Sienna included. Look to find and share any triangulation processes in May?s data collection and analysis work. Third, evaluate the data and provide reasonable explanations for what you think might be happening over time that would explain the story the data are revealing.The first trend that I observed in the data is that in the four sets of observation made by Sienna, the number of redirections May has been making in her classroom have been reducing over time. The first observation had a total of 37 redirections. Twas followed by 18, then 16 and finally 12 redirections made during the lesson. The time gaps that existed between redirections were most likely caused by an activity that required the students to work as individuals and tgave less room for them to distract the class. Another observation was that students tend to me noisier or distracted when they are mobile. Tis why the frequency of redirections increased when they were changing over activities. Those who failed to secure a seat during the lesson were also the cause of redirections since they easily moved about. The students were also more attentive when going through a joint activity together. The teacher?s predictability has the effect of making the classes boring and predictable thus making the students easily distracted. Evidence of tis found in Sienna?s comments that the silence of about ten minutes was caused by the students? expectations. It is also noted that most of the time she is recorded redirecting, she is drawing the attention of students towards herself. Describe May?s class graph. What happened over time, and what are some possible reasons for the trends and patterns you notice? What new goals do you think May should set for the class as a whole based on her students? response to the timed agenda challenge?Mary?s class graph is an indication of the students? uptake of the five minute challenge. The sudden spike on the second day she tested them can be justified by the excitement the students had about the activity. The slump that followed indicates boredom now that they had become accustomed to the idea. The gradual rise indicates the increasing number of students who were getting to complete the challenge. By day 8 the whole class had mastered the activity.Based on the response for to the timed agenda, May can encourage them to settle down on time during the change-overs between classes and activities. Twill help her in managing the class with much less redirections Describe Anthony?s and Leah?s data. What happened over time? What do you think May might do in the future to capitalize on Anthony and Leah?s success and keep them on track during the entire class period?Anthony?s data shows a positive trend in embracing of the five minute activity. The gradual improvement combined with comments shows that as time went on, he became more excited about the idea of improving performance of the task. The fact that he acknowledged delay being caused by going to the toilet shows desire to eliminate barriers to success. Goal setting seemed to constantly motivate him.Leah?s graph similarly illustrates the importance of goal setting. She also exhibited a constant and consistent improvement by gradually reducing the time she spent in doing the five minute challenge. Unlike Anthony however, she does not seem to be able to pinpoint the reason for her success. The motivation given as seen on the graph played a great role.She should be able to capitalize on Leah and Anthony?s success by ensuring continuity in the process of encouraging them. At the beginning of each class assignment they nto have an objective which the teacher will allocate a specific timeline depending on the length of the semester. Pretend you are May, and it is now the start of the next school year. Your assistant principal, Mr. Brown, asks you to talk about your inquiry journey at the first faculty meeting of the year. Discuss a plan for your presentation. What will you share and how will you share it? Refer to Chapters 6 and 8 of for support in responding to tprompt.For my presentation I will have to include the four students who formed the focus group. I will not include them in the formulation of the whole presentation. Instead I will plan it such that I get to introduce the presentation by sharing my experience. I will also include the teachers who assisted me in the project by supervising and encouraging Antony and Leah. Tmeans that I will have on board four students and five teachers who will form the core of my presentation. After I introduce the presentation and give a few statements on the importance of collaborative inquiry in the work of teaching I will invite each of the students to talk for a minute about their experience and progress from before the project begun to during and finally after then project took place.I will then illustrate their significance of their presence and how it profoundly helped me. I will talk about the misconceptions I had about being in control and how tled students to note that I tend to overdo redirections. I will also mention the way my arrangement of the classroom has been negatively affecting the students at the back. After tthe teachers will be invited to give a brief description of the role they played an how thelped them appreciate collaborative inquiry. In the end I will appreciate the students and teachers for the opportunity I got to work with them. Now that you have lived the process of inquiry through May?s study, consider texample as a teacher-researcher yourself. Do you think that May reached the goals she set out to achieve? What would you have done differently or the same as May and why? How will May?s study inform your own practices as a teacher-researcher? Include specific information from your journal entries and one or more Learning Resources in tcourse to support your response.The thing that I could have done differently was to have my teaching and the student?s behaviors carried out independently before and after the collaborative inquiry. Twould eliminate any bias resulting from self-assessment. I have also learnt that I nto be more adventurous in the research I do. This, like in May?s case will enable me to learn much more than the basic expectations. The development of a wondering will help me in this.
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