MY PLN JOURNEY

Creating a screencast was more fun and simple as I thought. Although I may not have gone with making it super creative, I like that it allowed me to be honest about what I thought. I will definitely keep this in mind for future projects. 

Action Research Conference 2013!!!

At the AR conference I attended the School Counseling Action Research Project Showcase and Learning and Teaching Showcase. Both were amazing and interesting in their own way. At the first presentation, I had the opportunity to hear from three ladies who were obtaining their masters degree in counseling. In hearing them present, I couldn’t help but to be overjoyed that they got to work with topics that are of high interest to me: women empowerment, body image, and goal setting. The fact that they brought them to the school setting is great. Schools sometimes get caught up with academics, which are important, that the student as a person gets left behind. What these ladies did was amazing in that they used the students interest and feelings to connect to their studies. The second presentation I went to had a focus on mathematics. I personally found this interesting since I wanted to see if I could take anything from their research and apply to my own. In the end, I ended up taking notes on what I could do in my future classroom and teaching tips in general.

One of the things that surprised me in both presentations was how it was more of a simplified explanation of their research and findings. In all presentations, I saw a common outline for everyone’s presentations. For example, context, literature, research question, phase 1 and findings, phase 2 and findings, legitimacy, new knowledge, and reflection. However, although it looked like a common outline each presenter said different things for each topic. The one thing I did leave wondering from each presentation was what was the survey and needs assessment they gave their students. In other words, what was it that made them realize the themes or conclusions? 

As a presenter I overall felt relaxed going into the conference. I had prepared before hand and knew my progress so far very well. I definitely felt over prepared for my presentation. Also, since I am only at phase one I didn’t have many things to remember as those who were presenting their entire action research. One of the things that worked and didn’t work was that the person who came to talk to me about my research was a friend I met last semester. It was good in the fact that he felt comfortable I asking me in depth questions about my research. For example, why did I chose to do a pedogocial approach rather than a motivation approach, what where the theories that guided my AR, and how is it that I am planning on comparing my three phases? I found this helpful in that it helped me further develop my reasoning/justification for my AR and what to include in my slides for next time. It wasn’t as great to have him for my AR presentation, in that I didn’t get to talk to other about my AR. We had a great conversation but I would have also liked to hear form others. Overall, this presentation experience was amazing. I felt the adrenaline of having to present. I got new ideas about what to do for my next phases and literature I could include in my AR.

STAR Review

Today in class the students were doing a Star test review activity. We had the students in groups of 3-4 students for a total of 6 groups . Then we handed each group a question from a released Star test, without the multiple choice answers. The questions were ones that they were unfamiliar with or had not yet learned the content. The purpose in doing this was to have the students force themselves to estimate and think of how they would approach this problem. They were given 2.5 minutes to think on their own and then 4-5 minutes to discuss it with their group members. This was done for all 6 problems.

As I walked around to monitor student work I couldn't help but to notice how the students found it hard to estimate. They weren't comfortable with "guessing" (as they called it). They knew there was an exact answer but weren't confident in their work. They wanted me to check it and tell them that they wer on the right path. For example, one common question/comment I got was "are we going to get the answers for the problem" and "are we going to go over them". Another thing I noticed as I was monitoring was that for some these problems were "easy". I asked why that was and their comments were that they learned it last year but didn't remember it well enough to be certain of their answer.

At the end we had the students reflect on the following 2 questions:
What did it feel like to encounter an unfamiliar problem on your own ad not be able to talk about it?
How did you respond?

In talking about these questions with the class, many felt frustrated or annoyed at the fact they couldn't get help form their peers right away. Especially when some of them had "small" check in questions. However, they realized that like the Star test they had to do it on their own first, thus, it made them feel like they were taking the real test. Another comment that came out of this conversation was "test taking strategies". That we can use the given multiple choice questions to "guess and check". This then lead the conversation to realizing that the test makers sometimes put in answers to trick them. For example, there might be two answers that work but only one of them fits the scenario of the problem. Overall, personally, this activity went very well. The students were engaged in the problems and were collaborating at the appropriate time. Although I did have to remind them to force themselves to work alone for 2.5 minutes. I will definitely do this again when I have my own class.