My Action Research

1. After viewing the test data from Harrison County, Simpson Elementary, I viewed their social studies scores are the lowest in novice. Reading: mastery - 28%, above mastery -26%, distinguished - 9%. Math: mastery - 26%, above mastery - 17%, distinguished - 11%. Science: mastery - 29%, above mastery - 21%, distinguished - 10%. Social Studies: mastery - 17%, above mastery - 15%, distinguished - 8%.

2. Students learning needs are reading comprehension in social studies.

3. The instructional interevention used for the social studies is graphic organizers and concept mapping to improve reading comprhension in social studies. This can include Own the Word where students break the definition down and draw or either find a picture to represent that definition.

4. Cues, questions and advanced organizers - (1)research shows that advance organizers, including graphic ones, help students learn new concepts and vocabulary. (2)Presenting information graphically in advance organizers reinforces vocabulary learning and supports reading skills. (3)

5.

Action Research

1. Title -What happens to a third grader's writing when they participate in a letter writing program? Research Question/Definition of Problem.

2. Problem - Third grade writers struggle with language development, such as letter formation, spacing of words, use of punctuation, and capitalization. The problem found in this teacher's third grade class is students struggle with all components of letter writing, dialouge, organization, sentence structure, flow, text-connections, vocabulary, mechanics, support from the reading, and making references about themselves.

3. Instructional Intervention - Implications of the writing process was a link to classroom pen pals. Pen pal activities to reinforce vocabulary and mechanics.

4. Strategy - Reforcing Effort

5. Evidence - Reinforce effort. Students who are recognized for effort will make the connection between effort and improvement. Students should be helped to internalize the value of effort to make a strong connection between effort and the desired outcome. Making connections.

7. Analysis of data - All randomly selected students demonstrated growth in the letter writing process.

8. Results - Their occurrence of errors decreased and their level of writing increased. However, the majority of them continued to struggle with vocabulary and mechanics.

Rubric

Click here to view my rubric on simple machines.

Formative Assessment Redo

Sorry about not making it public. I thought I did that. Here is the new link.

Driving Question Redo:

I am going to change my driving question to the one you suggested: Which simple machine is most benefical to human beings? For the task I was going to have them be separated into 6 groups. Each group will create a simple machine. Each simple machine will be used only once. The CSOs, that I was trying to find, did not have any about simple machines. So I have selected these 2: SC.O.4.3.2 - create models as representations of real things. SC.O.4.3.7 - use an appropriate engineering design to solve a problem or complete a task. Are those 2 CSOs fit the task?

Multiple Intelligent Survey I gave to my struggling student

On Wednesday, I gave my struggling student a MI survey. I didn't want to single him out, so I gave the whole class the survey. As I suspected my struggling student is a kinesthetic and social learner. He is also musical.

Click here to view the survey I gave to my students.

Formative Assessment

Click here to view my web about simple machines.