Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Updating the Plan
After I pulled data for my action research plan,
I met with my site supervisor to discuss what the data showed. I was a little
disappointed that the data did not show what I thought it would. He said that ‘data
is data, it is what it is’. He encouraged me to pull the camp attendees grades
from last year and the current school year to see if there was any impact. We also discussed that teachers made the
recommendations for the camp for a reason, so the camp attendees might have
been low to begin with. From
the comments from the blog and on the discussion board, I think I am also going
to look at growth from last year to this year. This does not change my
action research plan any, because I am still pulling data-just more data. I
will also send out an attitude survey soon to the camp attendees and compare it
with the feedback we got at the end of camp. I am hoping that the data will
show that the program needs to continue, but I have come to the realization
that I may have to recommend that it is discontinued.
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I know it would be nice to see empirical evidence of improvement after a summer program. But, I just don't think that is possible in such a short period of time. I think you will see dramatic results if you try to quantify "positive experience with math."
ReplyDeleteI have been the math teacher for our Higher Achievement Program (HAP) for the past 12 summers. The goal of our program sounds very similar to yours. We target underfunded Catholic schools in the Dallas area and bring them in for a 4 week program from 9-3. Much like you, we didn't see immediate test score improvements from our program. Over time, though, we detected greater student engagement. One assessment we recently started administering is an attitude survey toward various subjects. There were dramatic improvements in attitude toward a subject after the 4 week program. That, I think, is an under appreciated fact. It's tough to say what a positive attitude does. Maybe the scores would have dropped or stayed flat without a positive outlook.
I know it's not related to your research project but I have a bunch of resources I would be happy to share from our HAP Math curriculum. I have a basic per-algebra text I put together. I also alternate between a trebuchet and model rocket unit each summer.
Matt, I would love to to see what you put together for your math curriculum. I would be happy to share what we used during our camp.
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