Matching Strategy with Teacher Style (EDU 6526)

This week’s module on direction instruction and cultural literacy reinforced my belief that instructional strategies can only take a class so far – the engagement of students is often more a result of the teacher. As we moved along through the Survey of Instructional Strategies course, we studied many strategies that essentially opposed the traditional approach of direct instruction. Even members of the class posted comments regarding their bad experiences with direct instruction in history classes. Yet their concerns don’t really seem to be about direct instruction, as it is the engagement with material. My guess is that most students (at least college age or older) have experienced at least one professor or teacher who used direct instruction and kept the class enthralled in the topic. My point is that the strategy itself isn’t flawed – it is the combination of the wrong strategy at the wrong time with the wrong teacher.

I advocate for teachers at least trying to use as many instructional strategies as possible. This variety keeps the class’ attention and keeps a teacher thinking of new ways to introduce content. At the same time, most teachers should hone in on the strategies that work for them the best. With this said, teachers must have an idea for how the classroom should generally look like on a daily basis. I enjoy the approach of Mortimer Adler and the “Paideia” program. The emphasis on values and ideas that people face throughout history is a perfect approach for our Collegio curriculum at Seattle Prep. As an integrated course of English and History, we teach from the perspective of big ideas, themes, and essential questions. This makes more a curriculum that allows students to connect ideas from the 17^th century with those from the 21^st. History no longer becomes a classroom of facts, dates, and names. It becomes a room where ideas are discussed based on time periods and context.

Class Reflection (8/18) EDU 6982

Wednesday, August 18                                    Educational Research

Vocabulary

No reading due for today

Reflection

The final class day in Educational Inquiry provided an opportunity for all of us to share an article critique. Students in our class researched a variety of topics from fitness and academic achievement to self-concept to art and negative emotions. Hearing my classmates share their opinions of the strengths and weaknesses of each article made me  realize how much we learned in this course. I found a number of flaws in the study I shared with the class, despite the research problem itself being very interesting and significant to the future of physical education courses.

As I move forward and begin teaching again this year (I go back on Monday!), I wonder how I will utilize this information in my daily teaching life. I do think that I will use action research at times in my classrooms in order to improve the behavior or academic standing of a particular student. I also believe that I might someday be involved in writing an article for a journal using quantitative or qualitative research. I am not sure how it will happen or when, but I definitely have the interest.

Class Reflection (8/17) EDU 6982

Tuesday, August 17                        Chapter 13                          Educational Research

Vocabulary

1. Population validity: (text pg. 353) generalizability to other individuals.

When researchers look for the population validity of their research, the often must generalize based on characterisitics like race and gender.

2. Ecological validity: (text pg. 355) generalizability to other settings, times, treatments, and measures.

Ecological validity is strong when the results can be generalized to different settings.

3. Hawthorne effect: (text pg. 356) individuals’ realization that they are subjects in a study.

The Hawthorne effect can limit results because the subjects know they are in a study and thus their answers change.

Reflection

After today’s class and completing the article critiques, I gained a new perspective on evaluating research studies. Our class discussed the phrase “research says” or “research believes” a lot over the course of the last four weeks. I agreed with many who said that they don’t really buy into that phrase, but I didn’t really know why. Now I understand after examining the discussion and results section of a few journal articles. In one of my articles, the authors essentially excused away all limitations and conflicting evidence. It made me very skeptical. Yet another article explained very clearly and with supporting evidence why a relationship existed. The difference between the two was astounding. I feel that one of my “take-aways” from this class is that I can help administrators and other teachers interpret data and best practices. When we are making a decision at our school on a policy or something that involves educational research, I feel that I can help make informed decisions and interpret the data.

Class Reflection (8/16) EDU 6982

Monday, August 16                        Chapter 9 (241-243)                        Educational Research

Vocabulary

1. Single-subject design: (text pg. 241) individual behavior recorded before and after an intervention.

Researchers use individuals to study an intervention on behavior utilizing a single-subject design.

2. Baseline: (text pg. 241) measurement of behavior before the intervention.

The baseline refers to a period of time in which the target behavior is observed and recorded as it occurs without a special or new program or procedure.

3. Multiple-baseline design: (text pg. 243) more than one subject, behavior or setting.

In a single-subject multiple-baseline design, observations are made on several subjects, different target behaviors of one or more subjects, or different situations.

Reflection

Single-subject designs seem the most applicable as a classroom teacher when it comes to educational research. I don’t envision myself running or being a part of a quantitative study right now. Even a qualitative study seems quite daunting, but the single-subject design actually seems plausible. In some ways, I do this all the time in my class. When a student faces some difficulty, whether behaviorally or academically, I brainstorm ways to help that student. When a good idea comes up, we implement that “intervention” in class. The central differences are that I don’t record the data and I usually don’t go back to the baseline after the intervention. With the information provided from this class and the text, I have a better understanding of how to implement an intervention and ensure that it is successful.

Character Education (EDU 6526)

This week’s readings and reflection in Survey of Instructional Strategies focused on character education and its place in our schools. As a teacher at a Jesuit, private school, character education exists in nearly all, if not all, aspects of Seattle Prep. From athletics to ASB to academics, the mission of the school is to create “men and women for others”. This can ONLY be accomplished through character education. While not all teachers have this same luxury, it is as important for us at Prep to create strong, compassionate young people in spirit as well as academics.

I think that for many teachers, morals don’t need to be taught. In fact, I think many are scared, so to speak, to teach morals because of their connection with organized religion. In the public schools, this enters a territory of uneasiness. Therefore, many teachers revert to the cliché that values are “better taught than caught”. C.S. Lewis and some other philosophers agree in “it is more effectively communicated by informal means through the implicit example of a teacher’s kindness, visibility of community role models, and the actions of moral exemplars perceived through great literature” (Williams). Yet, no matter whether one is teaching in a private or public school, the character education aspect should be included in the regular curriculum.

How does one accomplish this? As we discussed in the forum this week, teaching citizenship and moral decision making can help teach character education. I believe that I can include students in making choices about lessons, timing of quizzes, and even homework load. When the students are forced to defend their decision, they learn that while having choice is part of a democratic society, so is justifying one’s decision. Lastly, I teach moral decision-making through presenting both sides of a situation (which works great in a Social Studies course) and letting students pick. They, again, must defend their choice with specific evidence. Through these type of situations in class, I am helping teach character, as well as trying to model it in my own life.

Class Reflection (8/11) EDU 6982

Wednesday, August 11            Chapter 11 & 12                        Educational Research

Vocabulary

1. Ethnography: (text pg. 276) in-depth involvement in a culture to describe naturally occurring behavior.

Anthropologists have used ethnography to investigate primitive cultures for years.

2. Emic: (text pg. 283) participant wording.

Emic data contain information provided by the participants in their own words.

3. Phenomenological: (text pg. 291) understanding the essence of experiences.

A phenomenological study describes and interprets the experiences of participants in order to understand how it is perceived by those individuals.

4. Grounded theory: (text pg. 293) theory generated from qualitative data.

Grounded theory studies look at qualitative data, analyze it, and then create a theory based upon the information.

5. Triangulation: (text pg. 296) compares the findings of different techniques.

Triangulation enhances the credibility of a study by collect data in a variety of manners including observation, research and interviews.

6. Reconnaissance: (text pg. 333) self-reflection of focus.

Reconnaissance occurs as you take time to self-reflects on the area from the perspective of your own beliefs and from the context of the classroom or school.

Reflection

After listening to the lecture on what defines qualitative studies, much of the interest in the class, and subsequent discussion, turned to the debate between qualitative and quantitative studies. Some members of the class advocated for quantitative studies because the numbers or facts present a more compelling argument. Yet others pleaded on behalf of qualitative for the story they tell including the span of human emotions. It seems to me that a mixed-method approach, or something close to it, would get the most attention from a reader. A study based mostly on numbers, without a story highlighting the “why” or significance of those numbers, lacks punch. Yet a story without much empirical evidence seems to be too “fluffy”. Imagine a study that looked at the impact of inquiry-based learning in a social studies classroom. If the researchers could include not only the numerical impact (using a test like the Stanford Achievement) to show improvement, but also provide quotes from students on why they like the method, then there exists a more compelling argument. The mix of human experience and numerical proof of improvement would seem to me to get the most attention from educators, administrators, teachers, and parents. With their attention in hand, the chance of implementation increases as well.

Class Reflection (8/10) EDU 6982

Tuesday, August 10                        Chapter Ten            Educational Research

Vocabulary

1. Level of significance: (text pg. 254) probability of being wrong in rejecting the null hypothesis.

Due to the probability being .20, the level of significance proved to be only 20% that the independent variable achieved the result the researchers wanted.

2. Type 1 error: (text pg. 254) rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true.

The researchers attributed the lack of correlation to type 1 error after the researchers found no difference between the group that received a reading intervention and those that didn’t.

3. Confidence interval: (text pg. 255) interval in which the true value of a trait lies.

When comparing the two groups, the data showed only a small overlap thus providing a high confidence interval to the researchers.

4. Parametric: (text pg. 258) statistical procedures based on certain assumptions.

When a researcher used interval-level measures and has a population that is normally distributed, they are looking at results that are parametric statistics.

5. Analysis of variance (ANOVA): (text pg. 259) compares two or more means.

The ANOVA test compares two or more means to find the probability of being wrong in rejecting the null hypothesis.

6. Univariate: (text pg. 264) one dependent variable analyzed.

A univariate study analyzes only one dependent variable.

Reflection

After comparing the various types of experimental and non-experimental designs from Chapter Nine during class, my group held an interesting discussion regarding our hypothesis. As the group studying the effects of fitness on academic achievement, we felt that our question and hypothesis led us to the simple design of single-group pretest-posttest. Yet after some discussion on our population, we realized this wouldn’t yield great results for a comparative study. We knew that we are selecting essentially “couch potatoes” or students not involved in organized sports. Thus, despite allowing any students to participate in our fitness program, we thought that single-group would be the best design. Yet most research shows that by comparing a control group and an experimental group, researchers can find more relevant and important data. So we switched to nonequivalent-groups pretest-posttest design. But there is more! After discussing this as a class, it turns out that even though our population is selected, our sample can still be random. Thus we finalized the design of randomized-to-groups pretest-posttest. With this we can give ourselves the best chance for a reliable and valid study.

Class Reflection (8/9) EDU 6982

Monday, August 9                        Chapter Nine                        Educational Research

Vocabulary

1. Internal validity: (text pg. 220) control of extraneous variables.

Due to the fact that the plausible extraneous variables were controlled, the study had high internal validity.

2. Statistical regression: (text pg. 223) threat from change of extreme scores to those closer to the mean.

Due to statistical regression, the outliers scoring very high on the first test came back to the mean in the second test, thus the internal validity wasn’t as strong as the researchers hoped.

3. Diffusion of treatment: (text pg. 224) threat from treatment effect on one group affecting other groups.

The diffusion of treatment became obvious as the control group began getting resentful toward the group receiving the intervention.

4. Experimenter effects: (text pg. 224) threat from characteristics or expectations of the experimenter.

The age and gender of the experimenter seemed to have detrimental experimenter effects on the subjects.

5. External validity: (text pg. 225) generalizability of results.

The study proved to have strong external validity as it applied to most classrooms in the United States regardless of differences in characteristics.

6. Factorial designs: (text pg. 234) containing two or more independent variables.

By studying more than one independent variable and their interactions, the researchers employed the factorial design experiment.

7. Intervention fidelity: (text pg. 239) extent to which intervention occurred as intended.

When the subjects filled out the daily logs as the experiments wished, they knew they had strong intervention fidelity in their study.

Reflection

I consider myself a pretty strong visual learner. There are times that someone will begin reading a passage from a book to me and I simply ask to stop and read it myself. I can be auditory, but it is a lot more work for my brain to process and begin analyzing information (especially when something is read out loud). With this information in mind, one would think I would use more graphic representations in my classroom. Yet I don’t think I do it enough.

After today’s class in which each group had to visually present the threats to internal validity, I am determined to have my students complete more non-linguistic representations. Not only does it vary the class activities and provide a nice break, it creates meaning in the mind for many students. I know I went from a peripheral understanding of the threats to a very solid comprehension after the activity in class. I look forward to adapting these activities to my history classroom this year.

The Classroom Environment (EDU 6526)

This week in Survey of Instructional Strategies the online discussion centered around uniformity versus variety. How do we get students and parents invested when as teachers we teach to one style or to the masses? This may just be the millionaire dollar question. As classes grow in size and time shrinks quickly, the one on one time with students seems to go by the way side. Not to mention that in many public schools teaching to the test is necessary (or at least feels that way) since funding and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) are at stake. Yet many feel that students get disengaged and disinterested quickly when this is the case.

I feel that because of these issues it is essential to create a classroom where personalities, emotions, and the variety of intelligences can find time to shine. This isn’t to say I do it perfectly or make every kid happy all the time, but I do work hard at making it a reality. In many ways the best way to tell if students feel comfortable enough to let their personalities be a part of the classroom environment is how much they are willing to risk. Obviously this refers to safe risk-taking behavior in a classroom where a student may ask a difficult question or feel ok with struggling to understand something in front of the class. It may be acting out a scene from a novel. It may be group work. It can be a lot of things, but I know my students are engaged when they feel that way. Yet I can’t let them get goofy; I must keep them engaged in content not just in the class. This is where the variety of strategies and tapping into different learning styles comes into play. Letting students work on a visual representation of a historical event or acting out a scene from history gets students interested in material beyond my “normal” assignments. The more I allow students to be themselves and feel safe doing it, while varying my assessments and instructional strategies, the more my classroom environment will feel comfortable to all.

Class Reflection (8/5) EDU 6982

Thursday, August 5

Vocabulary

No reading due today

Reflection

Today’s class provided a nice summary of validity and reliability for me, as well as an explanation of the different types of non-experimental research. While yesterday I felt a bit confused about validity, I know can boil it down to a simple statement: does the test or experiment do what it is supposed to do? This makes it much easier to remember what validity means.

When discussing non-experimental research, it became very clear that education could be the recipient of many of these studies. After brainstorming a list of topics that cannot be used in an experiment, it becomes pretty obvious that education sits right at the top of the list. Thus many of our studies in the educational field must be ex post facto or causal-correlational studies. Yet these have great value and I would argue could even be more valuable than experimental studies. In an experiment, it really is impossible for the researchers to prevent the subjects from knowing they are part of an experiment. Seems obvious right? Yet if we look back at demographics and achievement or teaching style or class size, we get information that is less contaminated in many ways. Thus I see great value in these types of non-experimental studies.