Analyzing test data on my PDS school

1. What percentage of students are achieving in any content area?
Only fifteen percent of students are achieving mastery in Social Studies.
2. Provide brief explanation of the learning need.
Students need to identify with other cultures, customs, and be able to identify geographical locations.
3. Find an Instructional Intervention that you might use to address the learning need.
Graphic organizers, Anticipation Guidelines, and Reciprocal teaching all would benefit students.
4. Write down three pieces of evidence that the strategy works.
For Recprocal teaching,

"Summarizing

the text. Students begin by summarizing sentences, and with time and practice, progress to summarizing

paragraphs and passages.

Question Generating

substance for a question. They can teach themselves to ask questions in which they must infer and apply

new information from the text.

Predicting

then called upon to predict what the author will discuss next in the text. Reading to prove or disprove their

prediction becomes a new purpose for reading. The students also learn that text structures provide clues to

what might happen next, through the use of headings, subheadings, and questions imbedded in the text."causes students to activate their background knowledge and set a purpose for reading. They arerequires students to decide what information is important enough to providegives the student the opportunity to identify and integrate the most important information in

Action Research Preview Review

1. What is the title of the project?
Chemistry in Art: Crossing the Curriculum

2. What is the problem?
Chemistry scores in the high school were very low. The instructor, Mr. Kopchains, felt that what would help to improve these scores was to make new connections between curriculum, primarily through art and chemistry.

3.Describe the instructional intervention.
Mr. Kopchains relied heavily on research done by Barbara Greenberg and Diane Patterson in their book, “Art in Chemistry; Chemistry in Art" to design lesson plans to be implemented into the classroom. He relied mainly on personal insights and journaling to gather information on progress during the course. He also asked his students to respond to questionnaires at different times.

4. What kind of strategy is the instructional intervention?
Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers is the instructional intervention implemented.

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?

"Advance organizers, including graphic ones, help students learn new concepts and vocabulary (Stone, 1983). Presenting information graphically as well as symbolically in an advance organizer reinforces vocabulary learning and supports reading skills." (Brookbank Grover, Kullberg, & Strawser, 1999; Moore & Readence 1984).

6. How will data be collected to determine if the strategy will work?

Mr. KopChains gave various assessments throughout the year and also kept track of absences to determine students interests in the topic.

 

7. How was the data analyzed?

Mr. Kopchains compared his students grades and attendance to students from the past year who also took the class. He also talked about his observation and opinion of the students interest and moral; however, because these things cannot be directly measured they are purely speculative.

8. What were the results?

"My most important insight was that the curriculum took much longer to teach than I had planned.  From the beginning I missed planned dates on the calendar and fell behind trying to cover the topics that are required to be covered for the Regents examinations.  I had fallen so far behind by March that I had to decide whether to keep to the curriculum or close down the art connection.  I chose to concentrate solely on covering the remaining material in the traditional manner.
The students generally liked the art projects and their connections with the science.   Motivation remained high throughout the year. The art projects kept many students coming to class.  I noted a general decrease in the number of cuts and absences as compared to a year ago."