Action Research Reflection

Introduction

My overall focus for this action research project was to increase independence and engagement during math conversations through accountable talk.  Prior to beginning this action research project, I found that many of my students needed constant prompting to explain their thinking and communicate to others.  I also found that since these skills were lacking, we were missing out on a powerful opportunity to explain math concepts and strategies to parents.  Strengthening students’ communication skills in math can help with developing problem solving skills, communicating with families, and strengthening conceptual understanding of math topics. 

My performance target looked at ways to increase student communication to others.  While one trait focused on increasing independence in student conversations during whole group lessons, my other trait looked at students’ individual abilities to explain a concept in video form through digital portfolios.  My process target focused on providing scaffolding and lessons surrounding the use of accountable talk in math.  My traits included tracking independence and participation during whole group lessons, planning small group lessons around student’s needs in this area, and providing targeted feedback and goals to students based on their initial individual videos. 

What Did We Do?

Looking at these performance and process targets now that this current action research is concluded, I was able to complete each trait as planned.  We had at least one whole group mini lesson per week that focused on how students can use accountable talk phrases in their math conversations. I would introduce three sentence stems each week and provide opportunities for students to practice these as a whole class by posing different problems or questions.  I often posed questions where more than one answer or strategy could be used to facilitate meaningful conversations among the class.  Students would use equity sticks to facilitate independent conversations without teacher support.  Data from these lessons come from my plan book, and also from videos that were recorded of these whole group lessons. 

Additionally, I had at least one small group lesson per week during my math workshop time.  These were a bit more informal because I would pull students based on their performance that day on the whole group lesson.  While there aren’t many pre-planned lesson for small group other than marks on my lesson plans saying “pull x for accountable talk review”, I do have conferencing notes using OneNote after pulling students for small groups.  These notes helped with next steps for individual students and planning for the next whole group lesson. 

Finally, all students were able to record videos of themselves explaining a math problem through their digital portfolios.  Prior to beginning the first whole group lesson for action research, I had students record a video on their ClassDojo portfolio explaining how to add 8+7.  This was a concept that had already been taught, so I was focusing more on monitoring students’ communication skills rather than their ability to complete the problem.  I had them record the same video when all action research lessons were completed.  These can be viewed on our class dojo account, and I provided one side by side video within my presentation for comparison.  I was able to conference with individual students in between these two videos to discuss goals and next steps to help them independently explain their thinking.  These goals were also communicated to parents through their portfolios at the beginning of the process. 

What Changes Occurred?

There were many positive changes that occurred throughout the implementation of this action research.  One of the most encouraging changes was student independence during whole group conversations in math.  After reviewing the video of the first whole group accountable talk mini lesson, I recorded that 5 students were able to participate using an accountable talk phrase, but I was “jumping in” to help or teaching how to do it 12 times.  Initially, I was talking more than twice for every student comment.  At the end of the video, students were able to participate using 10 accountable talk phrases with me only needing to speak twice.  It was encouraging to see the flip in conversations and also watch my (now independent) first graders be able to hold a math conversation between 5 people without any teacher “jump-ins”! 

I also did see increased engagement and participation during whole group and small group math conversations. Once students had the tools to communicate their thinking, I noticed conversations about math popping up in my classroom when I didn’t even expect it.  When I was purposefully recording for this, I also have data that supports those findings.  My initial lessons were longer, but I only had 5 students participate.  My final video was the shortest one of all, but I still had 10 students use accountable talk phrases with many more students adding to the engagement with “me too” hand symbols, thumbs up, or thumbs down to non-verbally convey their thinking. 

There were also encouraging changes that are visible with individual student thinking and explanations.  After watching the initial videos, I marked 9 out of 17 students as emergent.  This means they either couldn’t solve the problem or explain their thinking, or could tell you the answer with no explanation.  The remainder of my class was approaching.  This means they either got the answer wrong but provided an adequate strategy/explanation; or, they got the answer correct with an insufficient strategy and explanation.  In order to meet the standard that I was expecting, students needed to get the answer correct, name a strategy, and use an accountable talk move to explain their strategy.  To exceed those standards, students needed to add at least one extra strategy and incorporate that into their accountable talk phrase.  After viewing the final videos, I had 10 out of 18 students meeting or exceeding standard.  Only one student remained at emergent.  94% of my class was able to move up at least one level (either emergent to approaching or approaching to meeting/exceeding standard). 

Relationship between Actions and Changes

Based on the data, it is evident that the time spent on the accountable talk lessons helped my students improve in these areas.  Looking at the teacher vs. student ratios for whole group lessons, students were increasing independence each week as the instruction continued.  After the first lesson, the teacher to student ratio went from more than 2:1 to almost 1:1.  By the third week, students were able to increase their independence usage beyond the amount that I needed to help. After the fourth week, the ration was completely flipped from 1:2.   By the final week, the ratio went to one teacher comment for every 5 student comments.   This increased student independence is huge for giving students to take ownership of their own learning and also learn from each other.  It also allows them to gain practice communicating more clearly, because they now know strategies to get help explaining concepts from peers rather than wait for their teacher to “bail them out” if they get stuck on a problem. 

Increasing student independence when explaining math concepts was also beneficial for student engagement.  Students were much more likely to pay attention and be following along with the conversation if they knew their peers may need to ask them for help or may ask them what their opinion is about what is being said.  Looking specifically at participation, it increased by 140% just between the first and second lesson and stayed steady from there.  There are also other signs of student engagement increasing that were not specifically looked at (but are an added benefit) such as noticing that more students are aware of questions being asked and we waste less time on repeating what was said.  These are huge things that I am excited to find ways to bring into other mini lessons throughout the day. 

Looking at the rubric scores on the individual videos from the beginning towards the end shows that individual student conferencing and goal setting contributed towards the improvement in scores.  In addition to the numbers, students were visibly more confident when asked to explain strategies after meeting one on one with me to review their strengths and things they could work on.  One thing that I wish I would have done is had students record a “mid-way” video throughout the action research project.  This would help me better determine whether the improvement shown was related to the whole and small group lessons, the one on one conference, or a mix of both.

 These videos have been the most impactful with communicating to families.  Since I use ClassDojo, I can see which parents view posts.  In the past when I have posted a video or picture of myself explaning a math concept, I would have 50-70% views/participation.  When their child posted the video explaining a concept themselves, 100% of parents viewed and communicated (liked or commented) on the post.  This is huge for determining next steps within this action research.

Next Steps

With the data that the parent involvement on ClassDojo provided me, I plan on getting started with implementing student reflections and explanation on their portfolios for all subjects as soon as possible.  My wheels are already turning for next year and how this can be implemented when conveying expectations to parents at the beginning of the year or how I can use students to communicate information in replace of a newsletter (that I know rarely gets read).  Looking back now, of course a parent would rather watch their child show them or tell them something rather than the child’s teacher!  I’m so glad this action research project helped me discover these ideas and concreate ways to implement them. 

I also plan on continuing our work around accountable talk specifically in math.  I believe that with more time my student’s individual scores could have increased even more and more of my class could have been meeting standard, so we’ll keep working towards that with similar lessons. One thing that I plan on changing for whole group lessons is giving “challenge phrases” to incorporate throughout our normal math lessons rather than continuing to provide specific instruction around accountable talk.  Hopefully this will increase the variety of phrases being used throughout our lessons. 

The final thing that I want to investigate further in regards to accountable talk in math is looking at its impact on student work in math problem solving skills.  Our school’s building SIP goal is centered around word problems and increasing higher level thinking in math problem solving skills.  I plan on brainstorming some ways that I can conduct a similar action research project that looks at the work that has already been done and its correlation to improvement on my student growth goals.  If I find that there is a strong correlation, I plan on sharing this with my building as a tool to improve our building’s overall SIP goal data.