There is an increasing achievement gap between Hispanic and Non Hispanic students in schools. Some students begin Kindergarten as second language learners and consistently stay behind throughout the years. Goal setting is a positive way to set a growth mindset in academics with an adult to support their progress. Will having a clear target goal make the leap to the progress intended to be proficient at grade level material? Steve Graham is a researcher that studies motivation in writing support to become better readers, that tests digital tools for literacy and specializes in special education. Writing goals to become better readers to close the achievement gap in reading can be used in all areas of education to raise the bar of ESL student success. A teacher will spend one-on-one time with students to set goals and make action plans to raise test scores in Reading in four areas of formal assessment? (Phonics Inventory, Reading Inventory, Core Phonics Assessment and a “Words Their Way” Spelling Inventory) After the teacher gathers the data it will then compare the four pieces of data with students that have personally set goals with a teacher. The students will track their reading daily in their planner and read their personalized goals in school each day at the beginning of class. Students that did not work with a teacher to set goals will be compared and see if their is a more significant gain or not. The two groups of data will be averaged as to which group has the most gain in their scores (goal setters vs non goal setters) to see if the goal setting strategy is a superior one. A sub-question that will be analyzed will be cross checked identifying if one tactic works more for one culture (Hispanic) over another culture (non-Hispanic), the two dominant cultures at the school site that have the greatest achievement gap.
0 Comments
The articles that I read... https://edsource.org/2011/design-schools-so-students-become-real-workers-in-education-system/8332 https://edsource.org/2015/theres-more-to-a-growth-mindset-than-assuming-you-have-it/90780 https://edsource.org/2010/negotiate-student-achievement-goals-into-teachers-contracts/4282 https://edsource.org/2015/home-visits-are-key-to-kids-success/88510 After exploring in areas of my topic area of Setting Goals in the area of Reading with a positive growth mind set I found a few articles of interest. The first of which I found as fascinating reading was in how to design school so that students are the real workers, as though in a work force in the real world. I thought it was a great way to increase the personalized motivation and learning component to be the acting adults that kids want to be with the safety net of supervision. Having projects and learning about motivation and the brain I realize how important creativity is and and how important it is to be driven and passionate about what we do in our lives to give meaningful purpose to make the most out of what we do. All o f the information that I gather about teaching and learning are of value. Every day that I explore is valuable to my next steps and plays as a teacher influencing the lives of children. It directly gets me to inspire and motivate struggling readers and gives them purpose and have reason and drive to become better because they want to. In the second article, was the buzz words about Growth Mindset and how when it was developed it had much more meaning and purpose to what it meant. Like in the game of Telephone, people in the field of education have found ways to shorten and simplify meaning and therefore have lost a chunk of the core meaning along the way. The last two I felt went closely together. One, there was a time only a few years back where politics wanted teachers to be held more closely accountable to the effect of their teaching methodologies and put teacher achievement into their contract and be paid and given bonus' accordingly. The second, was regarding home visits and how important it is to make the connection with the family for the success of the student. Both of whom, the teacher was going way above and beyond the extent of just doing a job, but making efforts that connect to the community in an extreme way to make change in the school system. I found these articles particularly pertinent to my research action's driving question because my driving question has to do with making goals, having a positive growth mindset, and closing the achievement gap when it comes to reading goals. As far as education and learning have come, it is not at a quick enough pace as to keep up with the technological times that we are facing today. We can use all of the strategies in the world, but what are the ones that are really going to make the most change in the quickest amount of time. Testing various strategies as good teaching methods in the 21st Century to discover what is going to be the most powerful affect for change and be able to spread the word in the teaching field is what I am aiming for. Driving Question-Making Goals with Low Achieving Readers I am having a great time interviewing and meeting with my low phonics kids and making goals with them in regards to the data that is driving my project. I am really getting into the research component in my class with assessments and documentation to have comparable data to assess at different points in the research for the end of the course journal assignment. I have made up a reading survey that addresses strategy awareness and interest level for my students reading possibilities and read many books in line with education on becoming a better reading teacher. I have interviewed and talked with peers teachers and have gotten really fantastic help in my pursuit to being a better teacher when it comes to reading. I have to be honest here, I am really struggling to get to the research component of my journal articles. I have attempted a data collection table, but I am not sure how it is different from a research table? I am having trouble with finding articles, journals and publishing's to get the full articles without paying. I know we have had the librarian chat, but I am still trying to figure out the research component of it all. In regards to what authors of research seem to stand out, a few names keep popping up when I type in my key word search of 'goal setting with reading students'. One of the most prominent names is Steve Graham. He has been cited 37,655 times since 2013. I am also interested in getting to know BJ Zimmerman and DH Schunk. I don't think that I have seen the word "self-efficacy" more times in my life than in articles these researchers/authors have written in their journal articles. I am excited to see their findings and their suggestions as to what they did that worked well. As a struggling reader myself, it is fascinating to see all of the technological options out their now that didn't exist when we were kids. For goodness-sakes, when I went to college last they still had a card catalog as the primary system in their library. There were no online classes to take or ways to turn your homework in other than in person. I have had some huge learning curves, thus far, when it comes to the technology component and I am proud of how far I have come and where I am going to be by the end of this journey. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2019
Categories |
Photo used under Creative Commons from Navaneeth Kishor