Impact on student learning: Challenges
Throughout the duration of my study I experienced some challenges and some successes. One of the challenges I faced was student behavior. I held WIN time at the end of the day Monday-Wednesday and Fridays. I did not have WIN time on Thursdays because that was our early release day. I noticed that before I started implementing my study and when I initially implemented my study, students were a lot less focused and willing to work at the end of the day. This behavior presented some struggles when I tried to implement new strategies. Another behavior challenge that I faced was I held WIN time right after lunch, recess, and science. Sometimes if a student was misbehaving at the beginning of the day, the consequences he/she faced was to lose parts of recess, or to have a working lunch. At times when that happened, the student would have a really hard time getting back on track, and being able to be in the mindset to learn and participate. Essentially this situation would cause the remainder afternoon to be not as productive as it would have been if the student had had recess and lunch socialization as usual.
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Some of my students also struggled to get along. If they were placed with a partner who they did not get along with, they were unable to work effectively together or play any of the math games that we had played throughout this study. This behavior resulted in the students taking their focus away from the games or activities, and their focus was more on the social aspect of their partnership. This situation also went the opposite way when two partners were friends. Their focus was taken off of the task at hand, and more onto their friendship with each other.
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Successess
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Growth on Common Assessments
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Understanding of my students' math abilities
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Students' positive feelings toward math
Challenges
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Behaviors from students
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Occasional lack of focus
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Timing of WIN time-end of the day
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Questions
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Questions I still have after my study has been implemented are mentioned below
Impact on student learning: Successes
One of the successes that I experienced throughout this study was student growth. Since I am a second year teacher, I saw the 6th grade students last year go through this Common Assessment process, and I would get discouraged to see their scores. I would think to myself: How can I make this better? How can I get my students to understand the material in a better way? So I was incredibly thankful that I got to be a part of this school improvement plan of WIN time. I had been implementing WIN time since the beginning of the school year. When thinking back to the scores last year, and how well the instruction had been taught this year; there was a huge improvement. This year I saw the number on the proficient side increase, and the number on the not proficient side decrease. Although the numbers from my study don't necessarily represent that statement, when looking at the entire class and my students who were not in my ability group, they were improving on their skills.
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Another success I saw was that I got to understand my students' mathematical abilities on a holistic level. I feel as if I understood them more in regard to their math abilities by implementing WIN time. I was able to look at every pretest for the standards and the post tests that go along with that, and see their growth and understand where they might have lacked in a skill set. I felt better equipped to teach them exactly where they are by implementing this process. This approach enabled me to analyze their pretests and figure out what the students needed from my instruction to master this concept. I could pick out activities based on data and implement them, in hope that students would soon master and be successful with the skill.
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Another success that I had was with the students who lacked in mathematical abilities or didn't necessarily feel confident in their abilities who grew more comfortable by the end of my study. Since we had been implementing WIN time all year, I saw at the beginning of the year, students who loved and were confident in math, and students who were not confident and second guessed themselves when solving. As the study progressed, I saw that my not so confident mathematics students were feeling more comfortable and confident in their abilities.
Lingering questions
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If I utilized WIN time at a different time throughout the day, would there have been any differences in data or scores?
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How could I incorporate more games with WIN time being such a short period of time?
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How could I continue WIN time type of activities/games during this time of COVID-19 where we are not physically in school?
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How could I communicate the students' standings on the pretest in a better way to let students know how they are doing?
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How could I utilize more online resources?
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If I were to have WIN time 5 days a week instead of 4, would that have impacted any of my data or student learning?
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What if I were to ability group in my room instead of across a team of professionals; what would that look like?
Impact on current teaching
My action research impacted both my students and myself. Throughout this process it occurred to me how important it is to keep growing as an educator and perfecting my practices. I recognized how important it is to use research based strategies in the classroom. Using the research based strategies that I researched for my Literature Review was pivotal to student learning throughout this process. Using these research based strategies allowed me to not only challenge my students to higher thinking, but also challenge me to be the best teacher I could be.
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This study also helped me learn how to analyze data. I have learned how to look at a set of data, and make decisions based on that data. I have learned how to pick certain sets of data to see how my students are performing, and how to make decisions based on what the data is telling me.
Impact on Professional growth
Before I started implementing my study, I was extremely nervous because I was worried I wouldn't have much student growth. And now that I have gone through this entire implementation process, it has occurred to me that it's not about whether student growth occurred or not; it's more about how I respond to the data I have to make sure students are mastering material. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the length of my study, I wasn't able to revisit any of these concepts with my students.
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I've also grown a lot as an educator in regards to collaboration. I have learned that while research and best practices are super important, so is collaborating with other professionals who have more years of experience than I do. Being able to collaborate with my grade level team, special education staff, my CADRE associate, and my principal ensured that I could reach all my students' potential. Knowing I did not know it all, helped me to collaborate with peers and have them teach me from their experiences, while I am brought a fresh new perspective to teach them from my experiences. Working with other professionals and collaborating means we are doing the most to reach our students
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Impact on future thinking & behaving
Because WIN time was a school improvement plan, and we saw so much student success while using it, I plan to continue to utilize it. I felt as if I really got to understand my students' mathematical thinking and skills. It painted the whole picture for me on the students' abilities. I could really analyze the data, and figure out what the students absolutely needed, and where they are lacking. I did not get that overall picture before I implemented WIN time. WIN time has helped me to help my students in the most productive way. I have gained a confidence about WIN time, analyzing data, and resources to support my students that will help me through this future process. I will be able to research strategies to help my students and my classroom and be able to implement those practices in the future. I can pick strategies to support my students' needs.
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From this process I will be able to analyze data in order to promote student progress. I was able to improve my own teaching practices based off of that. I was able to tell whether or not my practices were effective and promoted student growth, and reflect on them if they were not. I was also able to change my practice to better promote student growth if I was not getting the outcome I had hoped for.
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