Which methods were chosen and why?
The Time on Task Analysis was administered twice, once before beginning action research on January 24th and again towards the end of action research on March 6th. Originally, the plan was to have 4 analyses done, but due to many days off for snow and cold, two were all that fit. During the writing block, students would be observed for five seconds at a time, the observer glanced around the room every five seconds at a different student. Being on task during this time was defined as writing, reading their writing, conferencing with an adult, or reading the mentor text for guidance. If the student was doing any of those things they were recorded on task with a plus (+) in a box. Every five seconds a new student was looked at marking either a + for being on task or a zero (0) for being off task. Once all of the 60 boxes had a + or 0, that would signal the five-minute observation was over. At the end of the observation, the total number of boxes with a + in it to represent the total number of students on task was divided by 60 which determined the percentage of time on task during that writing block.
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This assessment tool was chosen for my class because through my observations, it seemed as if my students could not continuously write throughout the writing block. According to my research, Votteler and Miller (2018) and Smithson (2008) found success with increased time on task as well as student ownership of their work after implementing a writer’s workshop with conferencing. To see if the workshop would help my students and their writing abilities, I wanted to track their time writing before and after I implemented the elements of the workshop.
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Pre-study and post-study writing samples were taken as well. The screenshot to the left shows what I projected for my students in both instances when we set aside time to collect a writing sample. In our classroom, we referred to an assessment as a "show what you know," so students were aware that this was going to be a serious time to focus and truly show their best work and what they knew about writing. I gave students loose leaf paper and did not give them any directions other than what is pictured to the left. At the conclusion of the 30 minute timer, students wrapped up the thought they were writing and passed their papers in. When I graded my students' samples, I used the rubric of the genre that best matched what the students wrote in provided by my district for our summative writing assessments. I simplified it to solely determine if what students wrote was proficient or on grade-level or not proficient, meaning the student was not writing on grade-level. After scoring all of the samples, the first conference my students and I held was over their pre-study writing sample. For the post-study sample, we did not discuss their scores. This assessment was chosen for my students because a large part of the purpose for this study was to determine if writer's workshop would aid my students' in achieving better in writing. Having a very clear pre-study and post-study writing sample was the best fit for my students to tangibly see what they could do before and after implementing the model with conferencing.
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I randomly selected three students to take part in student interviews at the beginning and end of the study. There was one student who represented each of the follow categories: below grade-level achieving, on grade-level achieving, and above grade-level achieving. Students were verbally interviewed one on one and asked the questions pictured to the right about how they felt about writing. All of these questions were asked in order to shape instruction for the students in my class. I wanted to be intentional about the writing support, services, and strategies I provided for my students and I knew the best way to serve them was hearing from them directly. I wrote their responses as we talked and kept them as a form of anecdotal notes. Their responses proved to be very honest and authentic. After hearing from my students I was able to blend what I found to be effective from the research with what my students needed. |