Focus

My key word for the next few months is to stay focus on my question and not get distracted by other things. I have seen an improvement in my students' writings.

Winnemucca TIC

I'm busy doing lesson plans. I think when school begins next week I will begin some mini lessons. I've noticed a few of my students begin many sentences with "and". We will work together on some other word choices. I also want to start whole group lessons on personal narratives. My second graders have already written some topic choices. I want to give them a chance to write to some of their choices.

Baer's question

Well, I have no idea what I'm doing. No, that's not true. I am stressing. I keep thinking of Kelly's struggle last year and feel like I am in that boat with no paddles. UGH! I have so many things swarming around in my head and nothing seems to be coming together...yet. I expect something will soon. I am working with the math leadership team within our district and feel like we have made some progress toward a plan and organization. I am also trying to finalize some plans with the Nevada Math and Science Leadership Cadre which I am part of. Each of these organizations will affect my TIC question. I am leaning toward something teacher focused rather than student focused, but that scares me a great deal. What do I want to measure and how do I measure it?

Jenni's TIC

Okay, I am discovering that I am more than a bit of an iealist. My question was: How will positive, consistent parent contact impact student behavior and academic performance? When I decided to research this question, I was sure that all the data I collected would be positive and productive and that all my future teaching years would be filled with rainbows and unicorns, because I had discovered a key that would motivate all my students.
Reality strikes however, as I am discovering that some parents don't care about positive contacts (some don't even answer their phone or respond in anyway to notes, certificates or anything else for that matter.) Thus the uplifting contact is never relayed to the student and the motivation I thought I would be wallowing in never makes it to the classroom. How do I make these parents recognize the efforts and victorys (however small) their children are making and encourage them to strive even more? I brought these woes to Holly and she reminded me of the sad truth; I can't make parents do anything, I can only control what I do at school. Soooo as I sat facing this dilemma of nonparticipant parents, and seriously considering dumping my entire TIC and starting over, Holly suggested finding celebration partners for my students who did not have positve support at home. Iv'e set that process into motion but because not all contact is based off of parent response I feel I need to reword my question to make it more accurate, I'm not really sure what direction to go with this. Any suggestions?

question

I'm still floundering around for my qeustion. I've learned in the last few weeks that my class of 3rd and 4th graders still need to become more comfortable writing paragraphs. I'm thinking of using some 4 square techininques in writing paragraphs. Like I said I'm floundering around. Any suggestions on helping me clarify my question would be appreciated. Michele

TIC in Winnemucca

I've been trying all of your great suggestions. I started by writing down how long each of my students wrote during a free write. The first "I'm done" and I collected their paper. My shortest time was 1 minute 33 seconds. The next day we talked about what writing looked like and sounded like. I told my class they would need to write until the timer rang. I added 15 seconds to my quickest time. No one got up until the timer rang. I told the ones who weren't fininshed to get their last thought down on the paper. Each day I have increased the time by 20 to 30 seconds. We are writing for 4 minutes now! I do have another problem that free write has created though. I have one student who writes the exact same sentences each day. It's like she doesn't know what to write so she fall back on her Chihuahuas. I told her I knew what she knew about them so could she tell about something new. She writes the exact same sentences and replaced the Chihuahuas with her brother's name. I haven't got her to write something different yet but I'm hoping we can work it through.

Aaron's TIC

Hello, all. I am teaching 3rd grade at DEN. My object is to study some facet of number sense, and relate that to larger thinking about mathematics. Narrowing that down, however, has not been easy. My ideal question is something like: "Does improving a student's grasp of place value improve their ability to solve word problems?" or maybe something simpler like "Does X minutes a week of activity/practice in place value activity A improve correlate to an improvement in their scores at math activity B?" I just don't have the A and B yet. Concerning "math activity B:" What am I looking for them to improve in? Timed math facts? Word problems? Ability to write meaningfully about mathematics? I would like my students to have a greater grasp of both place value and more deep thinking about mathematics, and I am trying to find a way that might lead them there. I think I just need some time at the anvil to hammer out this question, but if you have thoughts to fan my flames, please share.
Journals:oops
Emotions:3.5
Time: Ah!

Michelle's Project

I became interested in gender differences in the classroom when I was training for RTI. My fellow colleague and I had noticed that mostly boys are in RTI as well as Special Education. So we started to question if it is curriculum or instruction that leads to lack of progress for our male population. I welcome the opportunity to further study this topic.

So after attending a conference on Single Sex Education I decided to inquire further about this issue. At first my question was about gender specific instruction but have changed that. So now I am looking a gender specific motivation. I will be working with the McGill teachers and asking them to reflect on how they motivate their learners to read, to write and to do math. I also want the teachers to reflect on if they differ their motivation per gender.

After an initial survey I will be meeting with the teachers to share what information I am gaining from my research. I am so excited to begin this study.

P.S. - I will be providing lunch to the McGill teachers in return for their effort to help me with this project.

Kristina's TIC Project

I am having a hard time zeroing in on my project also. I was going to use technology to measure if using spell checker in writing assignments helps improve spelling in my students. My major question is how do I know if the technology is helping or is teaching the writing process helping their spelling. I have given my students the first 100 spelling word list and have told them to make sure that they spell these words correctly when they are rough drafting. My other question is, do I have my student do their rough drafts on the computer, also, or do I have them hand write them go through the editing process and then publish on the computer? Won't the editing process fix their spelling errors and I won't get true data. I know I want to use the technology and work on spelling, but just not sure how to go about it. Any suggestions would help.

Journal: 3
Emotion: 3

Lisa Petersen's Project

My question is "What happens when parents reinforce a reading skill at home that mirrors skills taught in school?" So many questions about how the heck to do this. Some things I am wondering about after reading the comments from peers at our last TIC meeting.
1. How will I monitor practice of these skills at home? Or do I just hope for the best???
2. How will I teach parents how to work on these skills at home? If I host a parent-night, do I only teach those who are able to make it? Do I make home visits?
3. Does this project become more about parent involvement or comprehension strategies.

I will stop there for now.....I would love any insight you all may have.

Liz's TIC November Post

Background Information:

I teach three sections of a Humanities class at White Pine Middle School. I am also involved with a grant called Nevada Pathways that has provided me with a fair amount of technology. I share 18 laptops and 32 Itouches with my colleague, who is also participating in the grant.

I am creating and teaching new curriculum with new technology so it has been an exciting and at times overwhelming year so far! What I am getting at is that I have not yet identified my question, although I have an ideas of what I want to focus on. The direction that I want to take is dealing somehow with technology. My Possible question is: What is the impact of technology based activities on student learning and motivation? Do these activities promote higher levels of thinking (Depth of Knowledge)?

This a huge question, so I am thinking of ways to narrow my question. If you have suggestions, please let me know. Finally I am not sure what types of data I want to use. Again, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! :)

Holly's TIC continued

Maybe I need a new question! Maybe I could just collect data, follow the process of me, a non-techy teacher on a journey of becoming, to some degree, techy. I really want to do something with the digital writing workshop, but I haven't even started that and I still need to finish reading the book! I will be going to a session at NCTE by the author, maybe that will get me re-inspired to continue in this direction, or, maybe I will just create a question around the data I've started regarding my journey to becoming techy!!! Is that even an inquiry question? I could make it one!!! Any thoughts? Or... maybe this blog could be the nexus of my question! What happens when a blog is used instead of a face-to-face TIC meeting. How does it compare to a face-to-face session? What are the pros and cons? How effective was this tool for our purpose? How could I create a more efficient structure for this blog? Any thoughts? My project could be something like "How a Blog Impacted our Teacher Inquiry Community". Good thing I have time to get my question squared away!

Courtney Siber's Blog Post

I am right with Jan and Trisha when they talk about having a sudden case of ADD. I can't narrow down anything. I keep going to these wonderful trainings with all this technology stuff and I get more and more overwhelmed on how I am going to use it in my classroom.

I am still wondering if I should have a "control group" to be able to look at data from students using technology versus students that aren't using it.

With some advice from Holly, I have made a daily exit slip for my students that asks what they thought about the actual class and then how they feel about their learning and the daily objective. I have made 2 different colors of these so that I can differentiate days on which I used technology and which days I didn't. So maybe that is a different, but equally good, solution to having a "control" group? We will see how it goes as I am implementing that this upcoming week.

After looking at my question... "What is the impact of using technology on student learning? Does it affect motivation to complete assignments, to learn the objectives or just cause chaos?" I'm wondering if collecting those exit slips is enough? They allow me to see if I used technology or not, but should I be writing or keeping track of a brief summary on what we did?

So many questions... I would greatly appreciate any feedback! :)

Trisha's TIC

That's not teacher led inquiry but a tic beneath my eye...! :) A little overwhelmed still. I keep going over in my head what I want to do. I think I have caught a little ADD from my students. It is contagious isn't it? Okay, so I am still working out what I want to do, and what my question is. Every single day I am learning something new.. about the kids, the school, their learning, their challenges, etc etc. I think this may be why I am hitting a wall.. I have challenges with my students but a lot of that is due to not really knowing them well. Which is sometimes good. I have not placed expectations on what they are capable of.. so they surprise me and surprise their teachers. However, not knowing more about them also makes it hard. I don't know their strengths, weaknesses, challenges.
So in the beginning I was thinking about doing something with Art and student engagement. The thing is though.... art is engaging. Every single grade is very willing to do art and getting messy is just a bonus. I started teaching 5 minute lessons at the beginning of my 5th grade classes. It is lessons that build on each other and right now they think it is pretty easy but they are doing it and hopefully learning something. I decided to try it in a couple of 4th grade classes as well because their teacher mentioned that they really needed help following step, by step, instructions. Art lessons are step by step. My biggest struggle in class is that 40 minutes once a week isn't enough to get in depth. The kids get impatient to get dirty so I am trying to find ways to continue to talk about art concepts, art history, artists, while students are working.
Okay so... that's where I am at... still questioning, still unsure, but still discovering things.

Journal 5
Emotions: ACCCCKKK overwhelmed

November TIC

Thanks for reading and responding to my post here. 

My  excitement level is high, my stress level is high, and I am wondering if I will ever get this accomplished in a year...but I know I will do these things whether or not I ever present the project ...so I guess I will continue to stick with it.  I am seeing a trend in my personality and relating it to that learning curve.  Perhaps I learn best when stressed????

I am here to admit I have not journaled.  I have not done much.  You can all kick me when you see me. 
:O( 
So many things going through my mind.  I feel like I am rambling here.  My project seems to be taking on a life of its own and am getting dragged a million different directions.  If I try out all the new and wonderful things I am working on now, how will I know which one effected the learning of my students?  Things I am working with are Singapore Math and Bar Modeling, Smartboard Presentation and the interactiveness of that (soon to add cell phone interactivity), wikis and their use in math vocabulary development, and that just begins the list.  Feel like I am being given so many opportunities and wanting to take them all.  And I will use as many as I can.  So how can I focus?  I feel like I have ADD and can't get my mind to stop long enough to even get started.  My mind even wants to go back to SS and get an old project done.  UGH  HELP can you just clone me? 

Lisa'a TIC Project

Hello everyone.

My project is on math and the use of journals. Basically will using the journals help my students better to understand and retain lessons? Will the use of journals help me to teach better? To be honest, I started off great but then math was changed around a bit in my schedule as well as using a program. AFter so many teachers telling me about Singapore Math, I requested the teacher's edition and student book to use. It arrived about a week and half ago so I changed over to use that exclusively. Using a program with directions has helped immensely since I do not have a lot of confidence in teaching math. Since the program has arrived my emotions have swung around a bit but is rising!

Journals: 3
Emotions: 3

Lisa

Kenna Hall's Project

Journals: 7
Emotions: 4

Hello! Although I gave myself a 4 for emotions, I am feeling more confident about my project. I was trying to focus on numbers sense and math facts with my fourth grade class. But my plan has changed a little. I want to focus on my teaching of number sense and how my peers teach number sense. How does it differ? How is it the same? I am working on creating a teacher survey to see where we are similar and where we are different. I would like to see how much time is spent daily or weekly on number sense and math facts. I wonder if the amount of time working with number sense makes a huge difference or does the type of number sense activity make more of a difference? I don't have a question ironed out yet, but I am definitely closer.

I have been reading articles related to number sense and math facts. I have come to some realizations that if my students do not have a strong foundation in number sense it may be a waste of time to teach them their math facts. It may be too frustrating and give them a false feeling towards math.

I guess I still need to work with my question and to word it. I need to get started on the teacher survey and see what kind of data I can collect. I also am wondering how I will collect date over time, will I need multiple teachers to compare against? I don’t know. Maybe I can get some ideas from all of you.

Thanks!

Larry Renteria's Project

Hello, thanks for logging on and reading!

I am a K-8 teacher for the Denio School. I have a wide range of students from k-12 in ability in math and reading according to MAPs Testing and STARS Testing.

What I am trying to achieve this year is being able to reach my students in reading across the curriculum, whether they are above grade level or below grade level.

I have a question that I am leaning toward, but am currently reading some literature that my change my question. The question that I am currently leaning toward is, "What is the impact of using rubrics with students for reading."

Thus far I have surveyed my students about reading with a multiple choice questionaire and an essay survey. I have gathered data for all students using the DRA, MAPs, and STARS assessment. I have created a variety of rubcrics as we have progressed through the year. There are still many, many, many more to make.

I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations. I look forward to your responses!

Thank you,

Larry Renteria

Cherié Baker's Project

Journal Entry 10 - Emotional Level 2 to 3

Hi everyone,

I'll start by stating my question, and then give you all some background as to what I have accomplished and where I want to go.

I have been teaching at the Humboldt County Juvenile Detention Center for the past six years, and during this time (supported by attendance data) the recidivisim rate has increased. I have posed the question: What is the impact of providing a role model to released Juvenile Detention Center students on recidivism rates?

Using one of Ruby Payne's (1996) Twelve Key Points, "two things that help one break the cycle are eduction and relationships," provides the basis for a mentoring program. During our last Teacher Inquiry discussion, I asked fellow classmates to consider ways to handle this proposed mentoring program since I have students that come from the tri-county area (Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, and Lovelock). Some suggestions included texting students or using a Facebook page.

Through additional consideration, I have decided to concentrate my research efforts on only Winnemucca students. At the current time, I have a five possible subjects. I'm still in the process of constructing an inital survey based on Payne's beliefes that for students to break the cycle of recidivism they must have/aquire the emotional, mental, support syetems, relationship/role models, and knowledge of hidden rules. The survey will probe the exent to which students have these resources and their ability to break the cycle. Based on survey results, I will then construct strategies to help students aquire the resources they are lacking in hopes to reduce recidvism rates.

My hope is to have the survey completed by the end of this week. Then I will meet with each student's parole officer to gain needed permission for this project. My hope is to administer the survey shortly after release of an identified student and based on results, begin an appropriate mentoring strategy.

Any questions, concerns, suggestions at this point would be greatly appreciated.

Cherié Baker

Response to Holly

Wow!!! Anytime someone uses technology to enhance instruction, I get a little nervous. Your project sounds interesting, and I'm sure you have already considered some type of pre- and post-assessments to gauge imporvement through the tehnological strategy you will use, but I'm thinking some type of formative assessment tool used throughout the project would also be a good indicator of needs or improvements. Just some thoughts. Can't wait to hear more about your project.

Cherié

Response to Jessie

I think you are on the right track, I just think your students need some help in how to respond to your questions. You also asked about how you will collect data to gauge improvements. Have you considered having your students keep a reading journal? This would be one way to show imporvement in not only writing skills, but comprehension skills also over time. Also, how about modeling reading and writing activities with you students, i.e. pose your question for the reading journal, and then model how you would go about answering using think out loud techniques. This activitiy would not only help your students see what an appropriate response looks like, but also they could discover that you also have troubles/problems when trying to figure out what to write. Just some thoughts.

Cherié

Jessie's Floundering Project

Hello-
I'm one of the Humboldt group. Currently I work for the NNRPDP, so I don't have a classroom of students all my own. I started this adventure thinking I would just facilitate the group here and then felt like I should really try this out. Yikes!! Way more work than I ever thought! I have so much respect for people who carry out this work.

A 6th grade teacher is letting me come in and do model lessons with her low readers. I go in on average twice a week and have done so for the last two months. I had the students write to me about their reading and what makes it hard or just tell me anything about them as readers. Well, that was a bust. They didn't really seem to know what makes reading hard for them.

I've used concrete objects with each lesson (thinking that struggling readers need concrete things to help them bridge to abstract) and my question is:
Will using concrete objects with struggling readers make a difference in their comprehension?
or something like that.

Today I asked the kids to write again about their understanding of comprehension. Did any of the concrete object lessons help you? How did it help you? Once again, the answers were very vague and they didn't seem to understand how to answer.

I feel I must be asking them the wrong questions or I"m not making myself clear. I just don't know how to collect data, other than to see if test scores go up, which could show on MAP data, who knows?
Thanks for listening. Any ideas are welcome.
Jessie
Journal: 1

Kara's TIC Project

Hi everyone!

I am just getting started with my project and already have an idea that I would love some feedback on. I am teaching PE at David E Norman for those of you who I haven't had the chance to meet yet! During this first month of teaching, I have noticed, depending on grade level, the motivation for students to demonstrate the behavior I expect from them varies. The older kids are WAY more interested in what they get out of their good behavior (they have a chance to earn up to 3 extra games of Star Wars) while the younger students are way more interested in making me happy.

My question is: When does motivation change in students from wanting to please the teacher to wanting to get something for themselves instead?
Sub questions: Is teacher happiness more of an intrinsic or extrinsic motivator for students? Is there a certain event that triggers the change from being a people pleas-er to a self pleas-er?

This is still a work in progress and I would love to hear your thoughts on it! Also, if I could get some feedback on how to reword my question so it sounds...better that would be wonderful!

Thanks and I can't wait to hear from you!

Treena's TIC Project

Hello Fellow TIC-ers,
I am currently teaching English to 9th and 10 grade high school students (and loving it despite the challenges).  Because I am working on my K-12 license (right now I have a provisional license) I am aligning my TIC project with the requirements for a grammar course I need.  I just got my textbook today, Engaging Grammar -- Practical Advice for REAL Classrooms, and am excited to begin perusing it hoping to jump start my inspiration for a question.  Actually, I have several ideas, but am not committed to one yet. 

I'm not sure I need any help right now unless some of you are cooks/cleaning sorts because that is what is lacking in my life right now.

I haven't written in my journal - flog me!  And I would rate my emotional level -- harried (3).

Looking forward to touching base with all of you this month using this format

Holly's TIC project

Journals: 12  Emotions Rating: 3
I have been changing my question on what seems like a daily basis! I know I want to do something with writing and now that I've been learning so much about technology I really want to do something with that. I think I've finally figured out what I want to do...Digital Writing Workshop!  I started reading a book with the same name. I'm inspired! Here's my question (rough draft form!)
What happens when I teach writing using a digital writing workshop?
Sub questions: Do my students write more? What is the level of thinking used with this type of writing, is it more analytical than others writing found in a non-digital writing workshop? Does the amount of writing increase? Is quality impacted?

At this point I really don't know my research plan - other than that I will be using my own three children as guinea pigs for this project!!!
So, I guess what I need is probing questions to help me think about this direction I want to take and or ideas for data collection.
Thanks so much! Can't wait to hear back from some of you!