Action Research Readings

By teachers: 

1. What is the title of the project?

Teaching Science through Inquiry-Based and Hands-On Practices

2. What is the Question?

What are the benefits of using inquiry-based learning in science versus lecture and recitation?

Does asking factual versus evidential questions make a different in science literacy?

4. What strategy is being used to address?

Generating and testing hypothesis through hands-on, minds-on activities. 

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?

The National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy. 

6. How will data be collected to determine if the strategy will work?

The teacher will do parent surveys and students' work based on case studies to see if the strategy is working. 

7. How was the data analyzed?

The teacher video taped small groups, and asked whole group questions for documentation. 

8. What were the results?

 The students were asking both factual and evidential questions, but more and more evidential questions were being seen in the classroom including with the students with learning differences (such as ELL, gifted and talented, speech and language, bilingual,etc.

9. How do the results inform teacher practice?

The results tell the teacher that the students are perfectly capable of asking and answering evidential questions the same as factual questions. They also inform the teacher that the students have an easier time asking those questions when learning is inquiry based rather than lecture and recitation. 

 

Student proposal:  

1. What is the problem?

Students in the PDS school struggle with recognizing rhyme and word families in text. The teacher's main goal is to improve the basic literacy skill according to the Strategic plan.

2. What is the rational for the project?

The rationale is that because this is a part of the Strategic plan the student teacher will use rhyming games to try to improve word family recognition and phonemic awareness. 

3. What strategy will be use to address the problem?

Playing rhyming games

4. What is the question?

How can I use a variety of rhyming games to help my students recognize rhyme and word families in text?

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?

The student has a list of references that shows that research says that using rhyming games will improve the recognition of rhyme and word families. 

6. How will data be collected?

Checklists while students are in small groups and whole group reading.