Background or Position Statement:
In a lot of classrooms, printed materials tend to blend into the surroundings and be forgotten by both teachers and students. On the other hand, students are often very interested in observing how teachers make these materials and follow closely when things are drawn/written in front of them. I’ve seen students point to schedules that have been drawn in front of them (when prompted by a question about their day) but I’ve never seen students point to preprinted materials in this way. Further, students this young often lack confidence in their mark-making/representational skills. I would like to introduce more opportunities for teacher modeling of mark-making tasks and more opportunities for students to practice mark making. I would like to link these mark-making opportunities to the planning components of our lesson plans. These planning components occur regularly in our curriculum as a means of preparing and transitioning students from one activity to another. The regularity of these planning components would provide brief but frequent exposure to mark-making. I also hope that the visualization process that goes along with these activities (representing the anticipated activity) will impact our students’ ability to focus and engage with the coming tasks.
Research Questions and sub questions:
How does increased exposure to mark-making as a component of planning activities effect student engagement with planned tasks?
a) Does observing a mark-making task as a part of planning increase student engagement with planned tasks?
b) Does participating in a mark-making task as a part of planning increase student engagement with planned tasks?
c) Does increased exposure to mark-making activities increase student comfort and/or satisfaction with mark-making activities?
Related Research:
Key Literature Areas: Research and documents pertaining to the Tools of the Mind curriculum. Other related research, as yet to be determined.
Key Terms to be Defined: “mark-making task,” “planning activity,” “student engagement”
Permissions:
I will need to receive permission from my national program and local staff to make small alterations to the curriculum that they provide. I will need permission from school administration and classroom teachers to implement the curricular alterations and gather information about the students. I will need permission from parents to include examples of student work and observations in my study documents.
Data Sources:
1) Student work (drawings, transcriptions) – These would provide evidence of student planning and engagement with the proposed curricular adjustments
2) Taped/transcribed informal conversation with students (recall)—These would give further evidence of connections being made between planning strategies and classroom learning experiences
3) Interviews/surveys of teachers/tutors—These would provide a baseline and evaluation of change or lack thereof, in student behavior in the classroom
4) Interviews/surveys of parents—These would provide a baseline and evaluation of change or lack thereof, in student behavior in general. (Further, this might provide data about other possible effects of the treatment—like a general increase in interest in writing/drawing activities)
5) Pictures/video of classroom activity—These could be referred to for observations of student engagement with curricular adjustments and evidence of student learning and behavior changes
Methods and Analysis:
Data collected will be collected from the sources listed above either in the form of anecdotal observations, numerical rating, or a mixture of the two. I will attempt to create a broad picture of classroom behavior, rather than choosing individual representative children or describe each child individually (this is partly to avoid problems related to student attrition). A baseline for behavior will be established in the early part of the study, prior to the application of my curricular modifications and data will be collected over the course of three months after modifications have been implemented with students providing work and teachers and tutors providing feedback from continuous observation. Parents will also be surveyed at the close of the observation period to provide additional information about possible changes in student behavior.
Time Line:
Mid-November thru mid-December: collect initial data to establish baseline
Mid-December thru mid-January: (break in program curriculum)
Mid-January thru mid-April: implement curriculum changes and collect data
Mid-April thru mid-May: organize and interpret data; assemble findings
Possible Findings:
1) I expect that my students will become more engaged with classroom activities as a result of the mark-making and visual planning strategies.
2) I expect that my students will be more engaged by visual representations of planning that are produced in front of them than by preprinted versions already placed and used in the environment.
3) I expect that my students will become more interested in mark-making activities (drawing, coloring, painting, and writing) as a result of increased mark-making activity demonstrations and opportunities for mark-marking included in daily routines.
Dissemination:
I am interested in sharing the findings with my program’s national offices and potentially with a wider audience through a journal article. I would also consider creating a presentation and sharing my findings at a conference or other professional development gathering.
Budget:
The cost of notebooks to be used as journals in the curricular modification is the only cost anticipated (these have been provided by my program for other purposes in the past). My program already owns and provides marker boards for other curricular activities and these could be used for the teacher-modeled mark-making activities. Writing materials are already available in the classroom.
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