Hi everyone. Here is my data analysis. Do I need to add any charts or survey results to go with my analysis?
Looking over my observations, I notice that the five students I have been observing do not ever appear to be engaged 100 percent of the time. But, that is what I notice about all of my students, not one of them is ever 100 percent fully engaged. But, the students who are struggling the most are the ones that are disengaged most of the time. I noticed that calendar time is when they are least engaged and they appeared to be most active (hands always moving, touching something or playing with things (hair, shoes, shoelaces, chairs, tables, etc.) and they were easily distracted by something going on in the room. It is definitely hard for them to focus for periods of time. When I take those students into a small group setting, however, two of them they are able to tell me what the lessons are about and can verbalize what our discussion was about for that morning. The other three still struggle with remembering the lessons, even when in small groups. They appear to be distracted with other things that cannot be explained. I am sure that family situations are a major impact in these students’ education. From my observations, I also noticed that those five students were more engaged when singing learning songs and by moving. But, they were not always singing the songs or the words; they were mostly going through the motions of the song without singing.
I had two focus groups, one at the beginning of the data collection process and one at the end. They were able to discuss with me what student engagement was to them. For my kindergarteners I used the terms participate and participation. Some of the students I had been observing were also part of the focus groups. When asked what it means to participate, most of the responses were “listen and follow directions”. None of the students mentioned answering or asking questions. When asked why it was important to participate, students answered, “so you can get smart”, and “When you listen, you can know things.” Other students answered, “so you can get points,” or “to get stars,” which was in reference to our Active Learner rubric that is posted in our class. I can see from this focus group that my focus was on earning stars and points and should have been on the participation piece. I need to encourage the asking and answering of questions when in a large group setting, although it may be difficult to engage a whole group when there are so many students.
My students filled out a survey on being an Active Participant. The results of that survey said that 15 students liked learning by watching, nine students liked listening best, four liked using their hands best, one liked to learn through movement, and three liked talking best. I have 25 students, 11 students picked one way they learned best, and 10 students picked two choices that they liked best. The survey also suggested that 12 students liked to work by themselves and that two students liked to work with partners, and seven students liked to work in groups. Before I gave this survey to my students, we discussed ways that people like to learn. I gave an example about how I am a visual learner. I told them that I learned how to make a sandwich because I had watched my mom make it. If it is a harder task, I told them that I have to see the directions on paper before I can do it. If someone tries to “tell me” and “gives me oral directions” it is hard for me to do it. I just have to see it. I am not sure if the survey results are accurate because I am not sure the students understood what I was asking. Maybe I should have added the category of “sitting in a group” to see what they would have put. But then, I do see some truth in the results, because most of my class does like to see an example first and I do give a lot of visual step-by-step directions when giving instructions. I do list directions on the board for students to look at when doing projects.
The overall theme I discovered is that every class has diverse learning styles. No class is ever the same and that what works for one class, does not or might not work for another class. I’m thinking that maybe it is time for me to change up my calendar time and focus on small groups more. From my observations and data I can see that I need to focus on teaching to the various learning styles in each class. In the past, I have had small classes, maybe the large 25 students this year cannot handle the large group setting.
alaskanjam 