Effects of Wait-Time on the Number of Responses - Essay Example

? Action Plan CAPSTONE PROJECT DOCUMENTATION FORM Action Research is an exciting, disciplined process of discovery designed to integrate theory into one’s daily practice in a way that improves educational practices and the individual conducting the research. Action Research is the Capstone Project in the Masters of Education program for Concordia University online. It gives the educator, as a scholarly practitioner, the opportunity to examine relevant issues in his or her own classroom or school which may complicate, compromise, or complement the learning process—and to find meaningful, practical, research-based answers. In Action Research, teachers are empowered to design a research-based plan, identify learning issues or problems, review relevant literature that examines identified problems, implement specific, research-based strategies, and discover convincing evidence that supports or contravenes their teaching strategies. The most exciting part of Action Research is the teacher can often observe student improvement during the project and can demonstrate, in a quantitative manner, the improvement of student learning. Sagor notes, “Seeing students grow is probably the greatest joy educators can experience” (2002, p. 5). The steps to the Capstone Project are detailed below. Read through all of the steps before creating your implementation plan. Save this form as a draft until all Action Research steps have been completed and all responses are documented. You will submit this form at different stages of completion throughout EDU 698. ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT Name: Title of Project: Effects of increased "wait-time" on the quantity of attempted responses and correct responses from elementary ELL students to questions in a classroom Date Completed: IMPLEMENTATION TIME FRAME: Number of weeks: Two Weeks TIMELINE of ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT: Start Date: August 1, 2013 End Date: August 14, 2013 AREA OF FOCUS: What is your chosen area of focus? Why did you choose this area? How does it directly impact you? The chosen area of focus is the amount of “wait time” provided by the teacher to students answering questions in the classroom. I am additionally interested in the effects of extending "wait time" for ESL/ELL students, since there are many such students attending the school at which I teach. I chose this research topic because I became quite interested in the positive effects of “wait time” when the concept was first introduced early in this program. Through self-examination of my own teaching behavior and practices, I came to realize that I was not allowing sufficient time for all students to answer questions. I began to wait longer for answers and I noticed a definite improvement in the number and in the quality of answers provided by my students. I extended my "wait -time" in all areas of my classroom, talking circle, small group projects, full class lectures. I notice improvements in the number of answers, participation, and the engagement levels of my students. "Wait time" is one of several tools and techniques learned in this course that I am in the process of implementing in my effort to create a more inclusive and equitable classroom-learning situation. I endeavor to continuously develop as a teacher and I am committed to improving in a manner that insures each student in my classroom learns and develops to their full potential. I have concluded that implementing "wait time" into my teaching behavior is an important aspect of this development. RESEARCH QUESTION: What are the effects of increased wait-time on the number of attempted responses and the number of correct responses from elementary ESL/ELL students? DEMOGRAPHICS DEMOGRAPHIC DATA: Where / What is the research site? Who is directly involved? How will statistics be acquired to give a clear understanding of the context and culture of the research site? (Do not use name as an identifier.) Provide references for sources used. The research site is ‘Iowa after-school program’ learning center where I volunteer. There are approximately 55 students enrolled in the school. Involved with me in the action research project are the Center director, teaching colleague, and fifth grade ESL/ELL students enrolled in the center's summer learning program. This facility is well diverse with different culture and ethnicity. Most of these students they’re parents doesn’t speak English or very limited. There is one teacher per classroom at the ESL/ELL fifth grade. I will interview all the four students and provide information on their cultural, demographic, and social background in addition to information about their level of English proficiency. The Centre director is the active school principal together with one elementary assistant principal, and one middle-school school assistant principal. The school has a high-turnover rate. The average teacher is there less than 5 years. In the title I school, most students receive free or reduced lunches. The funding of the school is a combination of state funding, as well as private donations. Parents normally volunteer 20 hours a year. In addition, the school has three pillars of focus whereby instructional programs are based upon which are language improvement, character development, and technology.  TARGET GROUP: Who are the students you are trying to impact? (Do not use names - you must use another identifier.) How do you think this strategy or content focus will benefit the target group? The target group that the researcher is attempting to impact is four ESL/ELL elementary school students, all of them being boys. The strategy/focus of increased "wait time" will benefit the target group by improving the number of answers and the quality of answers in response to questions asked in the classroom, which will improve the development of cognitive thinking, increasing self- confidence and in general improve the learning situation of these students. The research will do 2 ELL students participant both male who are on the same level fifth grade. Their ethnicity or cultural background are Liberian or from Liberia. They speak other language besides English. In their own home, they speak other language. Because ESL/ELL students take more time to complete cognitive activities related to answering a question (such as translation to their first language), increased wait time may benefit them in a disproportionally positive manner as compared to general students. Extended wait time could create a greater level of equity related to question answering for ESL/ELL students. In the fifth grade students receive approximately 60 minutes of Mathematics and 80 minutes for English Language Arts. English Language Arts period includes phonics, shared reading, guided reading/centers and writing. The researcher is trying to impact student engagement, which will in turn improve academic achievement because the increased ‘wait time’. BASELINE DATA: What are the baseline data that support your choice for this area of focus? What patterns or trends do you see in the data? What is your proof that an issue exists in this focus area? (NOTE: You may not depend solely on Standardized Test Scores.) Baseline data identified in the literature review indicates that educators typically wait approximately one second or less for students to attempt an answer before moving on to another student or another question (M. B. Rowe, 1986). The consensus pattern identified in the research literature review shows, that when teachers extend the waiting period to 2.5-3.0s or more, there is considerable improvement in the number and quality of answers along with other beneficial behavior by both the student and the teacher. This baseline data suggests that ESL/ELL students along with almost all students would benefit from increased "wait-time.” This research project will attempt to determine if ESL/ELL students as a subgroup show more improvement because of increased "wait time" than do general students when compared to the baseline data identified in the literature review. Lower standardized test scores for ESL/ELL students in my school suggest that issues that cause them to score lower as a subgroup exist. Other research examined earlier in this course shows that ESL/ELL students require more time to implement cognitive question answering strategies and functions such as translation than do regular students. Although this is not proof, it certainly suggests that ESL/ELL students would benefit greatly from an increase in "wait time", which if sufficiently long enough might place them into a near equitable situation with regular students when answering class questions. In other words, does the extra time help ESL/ELL students’ more than regular students or the question could be asked conversely. Does the lack of time typically provided by teachers to answer questions harm ESL/ELL students more than regular students. ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN: What is your plan to implement the strategy or content knowledge? How did you collaborate with other staff involved with this issue? The plan is to two involve fifth grade 3-4 ESL/ELL students in the implementation. A teaching colleague that is not informed about the research will ask questions of the students. The reference session #1 will last approximately one hour. After 30-60 minute break, the same teaching colleague will ask the same number of similar questions in session #2 implementing a 3 second "wait -time". I collaborated with the director of the community-learning center and a teaching colleague from my regular school to organize the research implementation. The success of my experiment is almost completely dependent on the list of questions I generate. The questions must be suited to my student participants in terms of difficulty, so that in reference session #1 the students attempt to answer approximately 40-70% of the questions when my teacher colleague asks the questions in a typical manner. A potential problem for my research would be if the questions are too easy and the students answer 80%+ correctly. Then there would be too narrow an opportunity for improvement. Another problem would be if the questions are too hard and the students only answer 25% or less correctly. This situation might produce results that are not meaningful. For example, if in the reference session #1 only five questions out of 50 are answered correctly, it would then only take 7 correct answers in the "wait time" second session to suggest a 40% improvement. Such small numbers could be easily dismissed as random chance and as a consequence would not be statistically significant. Another risk to the success of the reference session would be the presence of one or more advanced students capable of answering all the questions, when the rest of the group might only be able to answer 50% as a collective group. This student(s) would need to be dropped from the research group and the reference session would need to be repeated. Organizing a research group where the students are all at a similar level will be important to ensuring the success of the experiment. If the questions turn out to be too easy or too hard, I will need to develop a new set of questions and repeat the first session on the second day. If I am successful and the reference session produces results whereby students correctly answer approximately 40-70% of the questions, only then will I be able to move on to the second session and implement "wait- time".  PROCEDURES & MEASURES: What are the steps you will follow? How will you measure student progress? The research experiment will be conducted in two sessions: During a first, reference session the ESL/ELL students will be asked questions selected randomly from a pool of age appropriate, challenging questions. The questions will be asked by a teacher that will not be given any prior instructions. After a one week, break a second session will take place. During the second session, the students will be asked an equal number of similar questions. For implementation of "wait time" in the second session, the teacher will be instructed to wait approximately three seconds for a response before calling on all the students to answer. Both sessions will be video recorded for detailed analysis. Information about the length of teacher "wait time" will be collected for each question asked. The Student responses will be collected related to, attempt to answer the question and the correctness of the answer. This numerical data will be used to generate statistical information such as averages, means etc. Although this research is not about measuring student progress vs. an influence, it is primarily intended to measure the effects of increasing "wait time". More importantly, the experiment has two sessions that take place close together to insure there is no learning period between the sessions, which could improve student performance during the second session. The data from the three tools applied to the results of the two sessions will be used to determine if increasing "wait time" had any impact on the performance of the students. These results will then be compared against baseline data found in the literature review of research related to this topic. DATA COLLECTION: What data will be collected? How often? What tools will be used Numerical data will be collected for both the reference session #1 and session #2, when wait time is introduced. The data will include. The length of time that the teacher waited for an answer to each question before either moving on or getting a response is crucial. The number of responses attempted by the students are incorporated, and lastly, the number of correct responses. The number of follow up questions offered by the students is also collected during the process. In addition to the numerical data the teacher asking the questions will be interview using a questionnaire and the teacher will be asked to provide any additional observations. The questions will be included in the Appendix along with the responses to the questions and any additional observations. Some of the questions included in this questionnaire: Did you observe any differences in the readiness of students to answer questions? Did you see any differences in the willingness of students to answer questions? Was there any change in the length and detail of the answers provided by the students? Was there any change in the level of language used by the students? Was there any change in the attitude of the students? Did you see any difference in the level of engagement of the students? Did you as a teacher experience any changes or differences in your attitude and/or level of engagement? I will also interview myself, the researcher observing the experiment, and include my responses to the same questionnaire in the data. I will also report any additional observations. Additionally, a questionnaire for the student participants will be administered. Each of the students will be interviewed. Some of the questions included in the student questionnaire: In which session do you feel you knew more correct answers? Which session was more interesting? In which session do you feel you answered more questions correctly? In which session did you pay more attention? In which session do you think you learned more? The questions for the students will be limited to 10 questions and a few of the key questions may be asked twice only worded differently as a way of checking the consistency of the student feedback. The questions will be structured in a manner that for each question the student will have a same three choices to answers. For example, Which session was more interesting? Answer choices will be limited to: Session #1, Session #2, and No difference. The details of the data collection tools and the results of all three data collection tools will be included in the Appendix. IMPLEMENTATION: (Describe the actual implementation of your plan.) Week 1: Insert text here. Week 2: Insert text here. DOCUMENTATION OF ADJUSTMENTS: How did the plan change during the course of the Action Research timeline? What prompted the change? What were the effects of the changes? Insert text here. ANALYSIS & REPORTING REPORTING RESULTS: What are your results and how will you share them? How does the baseline data compare to the ending data? What is the story told by your data? Insert text here. IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE: How will the results impact your teaching in the future? How did the project inform your decision-making as a professional? Insert text here. CONCLUSIONS: Did this study improve student performance? Explain. Did this study improve your skills as a teacher? Explain. Insert text here. REFERENCES: Insert text here. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: Insert text here. Read More