Drumroll please...

I submitted my paper for approval to be bound today! Yay!!!!!! I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. How is everyone binding theirs? I live a bit far from Fresno, so I'm looking into ways to bind it and FedEx it in. I need to see the finished product before I turn them in.

I'm working on my KEEP presentation right now. I'll post the link up when it's done. =)

Thanks again, virtual community!

Migraine

Thank you to all of you who have pointed me in the correct direction! Lothlorien- you are a life saver! I sat down and carefully reviewed the example and realized that my original Chapter One is WAY OFF! So I'm now in the process of re-doing that. On the plus side- LIT REVIEW DONE! I am now designing two small units- one incorporating music and movement, the other, not. My plan is to begin implementing those next week and be done by thanksgiving. That will give me time to type between turkey and pie. =)

Yikes...

Revisiting SPSS

Well, I tried loading the SPSS program onto my new laptop- which of course has Windows Vista/Mohave/whatever on it. I'm thinking the SPSS and the Vista don't like each other much and don't really get along very well. So I've decided I will just do it all on my work computer like I did for our research and statistics class anyway and then move from there. I intended to run some statistics using the program last week, but things got kinda hectic, and, well, yeah.

Can someone tell me: Chapter 3, that's just our research findings and Chapter 4 would be the conclusion? I'm just guessing here. I had the "draft of components" due, I don't know, last week, and I assume this just refers to the research portion.

Where is everyone else on theirs?

Moving right along!

OK!! So, with drafts of chapter one and chapter two out of the way, I am now looking at evaluating some research. Most interestingly, I have finally finished evaluating the TIMI tests I administered to my little ones about a month back (I've been busy, ok?). I don't know how many of you are familiar with the TIMI test, but it's basically a bunch of pandas doing different things, and kids choose their favorite. I opted to make it into a booklet so my first graders could circle one panda, and flip the page (28 times). I, then, had to take those booklets and transfer them to the scoring page, so this took some time. Now I am looking at their dominent intelligences. My topic is on Music and Movement helping ELs learn academic vocabulary, so I felt it would be important to have information on how my students learn best. What I have found is that there are many ties between their first and second dominent intelligences. For example, the Musical intelligence is just as dominent as the Logical intelligence. I am trying to figure out how best to enter this information when it comes to evaluating it statistically.

I have also collected parent surveys on their perceptions of how their child learns best. So I am looking to evaluate the data I have gathered so far in the following ways:

* I want to see how the parent surveys match up to the student TIMI tests.
* I want to see how my L1s, L2s, and maybe L3s match up with their dominent intelligences. Is their a majority here?
* I want to see how my "at risk" students (many of them also EL) match up with dominent intelligences. Do many "at risk" students learn the same way (and is this dominent intelligence out of the mainstream teaching style of direct instruction?).

From here, I need to design a unit using music and movement and another one not. I expect both units will show an improvement from pre- to post-assessment, as that is just simply the nature of learning and being six years old. I'll need to measure the amount of growth in each unit. So that will be my next step.

=) Thanks for reading!

Get yer head straight...

Alright! Moving along- slowly but surely. We had back to school night, and I had all but two parents attend. I got about five of the parent surveys back since then, so I stapled it to their homework this past week. I'm eager to check to see if they actually did it with the homework. I have now gone back and collected more research, and today I sat and read most of it and organized it into my Lit Review Binder. In collecting more research and seeing where the research has led me, my outline has changed completely. I am now looking more into multiple intelligences and how this impacts the learning of language. I found an interesting article about "at-risk" students typically being the kind that learn in a more kinesthetic or visual way. I'm interested now to compare my TIMI test results to my Title I and at-risk data to see if there is any corellation.

I finally got a timeline from my instructor, only to find that I'm "behind." So I HAVE to finish my lit review this weekend. I feel much more confident about it now. I really think it'll be done by tomorrow afternoon. I work best in the morning, so I'll have that cup of coffee and get to work on it.

So here's what I developed as my "action plan" as I was trying to crank out and submit Chapter 1 last weekend:

1. Area of Focus Statement
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of incorporating music and movement in the curriculum to raise academic achievement for all learners.
2. Define the Variables.
a. First grade classroom.
b. 75% English Learners
c. Varying degree of ability
d. Title I (low socio-economics)
e. Multiple Subject Classroom

3. Research Questions
a. How much gain in academic vocabulary is made with EL’s scoring as an L1 or L2 on the CELDT by incorporating music and movement into the curriculum of a first grade classroom with 20 students?
b. What is the gap in achievement between incorporating music and movement, and not?
c. How to all my students learn best?

4. Intervention or innovations

I will incorporate music and movement in to the standards based first grade language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies curriculum.

5. Membership of the Action Research Group

I will be working with twenty students in a general education first grade class. While the focus of this research is primarily English Learners, I am interested in also comparing achievement with English only students. Parents will also be included in the study. While the study is centered on their children, it is important for me to understand how their child learns best. Therefore, it is important I include their input in my study. Parents will be responsible for completing a survey on how their child learns best. Students will be responsible for taking a test to assess their dominant intelligence. They will also be responsible for formal assessments given to assess progress throughout.

6. Negotiations to be Undertaken
a. Media Release
b. Notification to Parents (Back to School Night).

7. Timeline
Phase 1: (Aug-Oct) Identify area of focus, review related literature, develop research questions.
Phase 2: (Oct-Nov) Collect and analyze data. Modify curriculum and instruction as necessary.
Phase 3: (Nov-Dec) Final write up of findings.
Phase 4: (Dec) Submit findings for review.

8. Resources
a. Music (I-tunes, sheet music, CD’s)
b. Music printed or written out with visual cues.
c. Choreography
d. First Grade Standards
e. Assessments

Whadaya think?

Progress, slowly but surely

I sat down at Starbucks today, put my MP3 player into my ears, and began going back over my lit review. I got back in touch with my research and my organization. I had hoped that I would crank out the majority of my Lit Review, but realized I want more research first. I think it was a good thing to put it aside for the summer, but now I'm feeling the pressure!

In other news, I have begun to assess my students' through the TIMI (Teele Inventory of Multiple Intelligences). I also passed out a parent survey to the parents at Back 2 School Night (another reason my brain has been pre-occupied/exhausted.) I'm interested to see what these two pieces of information bring about. My feeling right now is that I will be conducting my research and doing my lit review a bit simultaneously. Surely, I'll be finishing the lit review first, but I just feel I need to be able to switch gears depending on my mood.

Perhaps you should know...

After thought- I should probably tell you all my topic.

It is based on using music and movement with L1s and L2s in the primary classroom to learn academic content and vocabulary.

Ok, now help me!

Here goes... nothing!

Alright, well, here it is, my first blog post. With back to school night coming up on Thursday, I am thinking in terms of survey questions I can attack the parents with. My biggest challenge working in a low income school is getting things returned. I think if I have the parents held hostege at B2S night, I have a pretty good chance of getting them to fill out the survey while they zone out. I've also got a challenge in that I'm working with L1s and L2s for my project AND my classroom is first grade. Of course, I did say in the "primary" classroom, so perhaps I can pull more data if I have other classes fill out the survey. Hmmmmm.

I'm still pretty unproductive when it comes to my Action Research project. I've got to find my motivation! Perhaps after I pull some data from Back to School night I'll get that fire lit. We also just got our API and AYP data, as well as CELDT scores. So I guess I am collecting! I just have no idea where I'm going with it.

So possible ideas I have for survey questions so far are:
* What is your child's favorite subject?
* What is your child's least favorite subject?
* What does your child like to do for fun outside of school?
Do some likhert type stuff with their feelings about all sorts of school subjects.

Ish- help me out here!

Any suggestions would be welcome. Also, let me know the schedule you're working on. I'm feeling a bit lost in the woods here!

On a personal note- just weighed myself... turns out I didn't gain as much weight this summer as I thought! Keep the ice cream coming people!