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!