Starting From Within
There is very little that I value more than learning for the sake of learning.
I learned this about myself the hard way. Growing up as the teacher’s pet, the goody-two-shoes, the bookworm, and the desperate-for-approval, I did everything I was supposed to do solely because I was supposed to do it. I questioned little. I worked for praise. I got the oh-so-sought-after straight A’s that we are socialized to believe define our abilities to be successful adults.
It was in college that I discovered how little that had actually prepared me for life outside of high school. Suddenly, I had to be able to think for myself, to struggle through challenges that didn’t necessarily have an obvious answer, and to be willing to take risks and make mistakes. I also had to be able to ask questions and collaborate with other people... two things that I have never found to be particularly easy.
Working to hone those skills has taken years, and I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but as I began my journey into teaching, I struggled (and still do struggle) with the idea that students should be passive absorbers of knowledge who either can do it or can’t do it. That they have abilities that are fixed. That “every man is for himself.” That you do it or you fail, and nobody around you can help you. These are the kind of ideas that feel inherent in our educational system.
I just can’t get behind that mindset. Every success I am proud of has been the combined effort of me and every person who supports and mentors me.
More than anything, I want my students to feel that sense of infinite learning, and of camaraderie. I want them to feel like they always have room to make improvements and to question what they are learning, and I want them to be part of the process, and to work for growth, not just a grade or score.
And so I began to wonder how my students viewed collaboration, the process of learning, and their motivations.
It was through quite a bit of trial and error that I got to those wonderings. Some apply to the action research question I later formulated; some don't.
This is my journey:
Context
I am a English teacher. Or at least, I'm about to become one. A master's candidate at the University of San Diego, I have been working towards my English credential and degree. In our program we are able to spend time in multiple classrooms during our two-year program, learning with and from teachers and students around San Diego.
This semester, I am working with a 9th-grade detracked English class. At this high school, all freshman take “Advanced” English, creating classes that are extremely diverse in population, in developed skill level, and in each students’ individual desire to be there. Often, students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), are clustered with certain teachers, while English Language Learners (ELLs) are clustered with others, so that scaffolding can be more focused for the teacher. My classes are amongst those that have a higher number of students with IEPs.
All 9th grade students experience the same curriculum across campus. The 9th-grade teachers plan together in twice-weekly PLC meetings (Professional Learning Community), working to build the same skills with their students. A unique feature of my classroom is that we are almost 100% paperless. Each day, my students walk in, unplug their assigned laptop computer, and read while they wait for their computer to load. The work my students submit is completed almost entirely through Google Drive. I work in a paperless classroom in order to teach my students 21st-century skills that they will use in our increasingly digital world.
My class has 32 students. 17 are girls, 15 are boys. 10 of the 32 students have IEPs, and 2 are also designated as English Language Learners. Roughly 50 percent of students are caucasian, 30 percent are of hispanic descent, and 20 percent of African-American or other descent.
As I began working with these students, my first impression was that students were in need of more opportunity to speak with each other to learn communication skills, and that when they wrote, they found it difficult to identify ways to improve or analyze writing, whether their own or another’s.
This semester, I am working with a 9th-grade detracked English class. At this high school, all freshman take “Advanced” English, creating classes that are extremely diverse in population, in developed skill level, and in each students’ individual desire to be there. Often, students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), are clustered with certain teachers, while English Language Learners (ELLs) are clustered with others, so that scaffolding can be more focused for the teacher. My classes are amongst those that have a higher number of students with IEPs.
All 9th grade students experience the same curriculum across campus. The 9th-grade teachers plan together in twice-weekly PLC meetings (Professional Learning Community), working to build the same skills with their students. A unique feature of my classroom is that we are almost 100% paperless. Each day, my students walk in, unplug their assigned laptop computer, and read while they wait for their computer to load. The work my students submit is completed almost entirely through Google Drive. I work in a paperless classroom in order to teach my students 21st-century skills that they will use in our increasingly digital world.
My class has 32 students. 17 are girls, 15 are boys. 10 of the 32 students have IEPs, and 2 are also designated as English Language Learners. Roughly 50 percent of students are caucasian, 30 percent are of hispanic descent, and 20 percent of African-American or other descent.
As I began working with these students, my first impression was that students were in need of more opportunity to speak with each other to learn communication skills, and that when they wrote, they found it difficult to identify ways to improve or analyze writing, whether their own or another’s.
Needs Assessment
I knew early on that my class would be writing a novel during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in Novemember. The 9th-grade classes at my school have been participating in this project for a number of years, and this year would be no different. Fall semester is almost entirely dedicated to preparing for, writing, and revising student novels. Knowing they were about to embark on this intense writing project, I created a needs assessment to ask their opinions on writing.
This included likert scales on a scale of 1-7, asking, among other things, "How well do you think you write?" and "Do you enjoy writing?" While more students felt they wrote well than didn't, I noticed that the general attitude toward writing was far more evenly split. There was less of a correlation between attitude and perceived skill level than I expected. It was the open-ended questions, though, that led me to ask more critical questions of myself and my teaching. What I was looking at was too broad and unfocused, but there are a few common themes that came out of asking the following two open-ended questions: "What excites you about writing?" and "What is difficult about writing?" The following are common answers: |
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What makes writing difficult?
In response to this question the common response from my students were:
What excites you about writing?
In response to this question the common response from my students were:
These responses made me think that students care about writing when they care about the topic, but often have some struggles generating ideas for topics and direction. It was disheartening to read how my students could not identify one thing that excited them about writing.. If my students believe that writing is difficult because they have a hard time generating ideas and getting all of the details in, I needed to think about what I can do to help them do that.
Reflecting on my own writing process, I first generate ideas and make progress through conversation and collaboration. My writing gets better because I talk to people about it, even when I don't to. My best work is a result of collaboration, of working with other people and asking for advice and input.
Keeping this thought in mind, I began watching carefully for signs of how my students interact not only with the work, but with each other in my classroom as the next step of my needs assessment. I wanted to see how they worked with each other, and if it's effective.
For instance, at the start of our first unit, students were asked to choose a novel to read together, so that all of them could be working towards the same goal in reading analyzing the devices together. Not only has their seating allowed for opportunities for collaboration, but even our classwork has called for a kind of teamwork. Seated in groups of six, I first asked them to collaborate on a Google document when they were looking for examples of descriptive settings within their novel to explain how that revealed information about the characters. In between shouts of "That's my box!" heard across the room from tables who couldn't resist the opportunity to prevent themselves from making progress, I watched as some groups simply sat silently waiting for someone to find a quote for them to respond to, dividing the work without communication, productive progress, or critical analysis of what they were doing.
Combine this with the almost daily question (directed at me) of, "Am I doing this right?" or "Will you make sure this sounds good?" with regards to any and every writing activity they are asked to complete in their online English Journal, I cannot help but notice that my students do not value each others voices. Multiple times, I've asked them to share what they've written with someone at their table who might be able to help them improve it, and the response is often, "They can't fix it" or "They did help me, but you have to tell me if it's right."
I found that in my observations and interactions, what I am concerned about is not whether or not they like writing necessarily, but whether they find value in working with each other through the writing process, and how I might be able to teach them how to do that. They want to be able to generate ideas, and they want to ask for advice, and seem to want to do well, but they do not know how to use each other to do that.
In response to this question the common response from my students were:
- "Writing is sometimes made difficult because you need to think of new ideas! When things are over done and predictable everything is boring."
- "For me writing is difficult when I am writing about a topic that I have no interest in and when I don't know much about the topic."
- "What makes writing difficult is how everything has to make sense because in my head when I think it sounds good but when I type, it doesn't turn out good. Also its hard because I feel like I can be a good writer but I just don't know how to put my writing together to make it make any sense and how to use different words to make my sentences better."
What excites you about writing?
In response to this question the common response from my students were:
- "Nothing."
- "When I'm passionate about what I'm writing about."
- "If I get a good grade on my writing I do."
These responses made me think that students care about writing when they care about the topic, but often have some struggles generating ideas for topics and direction. It was disheartening to read how my students could not identify one thing that excited them about writing.. If my students believe that writing is difficult because they have a hard time generating ideas and getting all of the details in, I needed to think about what I can do to help them do that.
Reflecting on my own writing process, I first generate ideas and make progress through conversation and collaboration. My writing gets better because I talk to people about it, even when I don't to. My best work is a result of collaboration, of working with other people and asking for advice and input.
Keeping this thought in mind, I began watching carefully for signs of how my students interact not only with the work, but with each other in my classroom as the next step of my needs assessment. I wanted to see how they worked with each other, and if it's effective.
For instance, at the start of our first unit, students were asked to choose a novel to read together, so that all of them could be working towards the same goal in reading analyzing the devices together. Not only has their seating allowed for opportunities for collaboration, but even our classwork has called for a kind of teamwork. Seated in groups of six, I first asked them to collaborate on a Google document when they were looking for examples of descriptive settings within their novel to explain how that revealed information about the characters. In between shouts of "That's my box!" heard across the room from tables who couldn't resist the opportunity to prevent themselves from making progress, I watched as some groups simply sat silently waiting for someone to find a quote for them to respond to, dividing the work without communication, productive progress, or critical analysis of what they were doing.
Combine this with the almost daily question (directed at me) of, "Am I doing this right?" or "Will you make sure this sounds good?" with regards to any and every writing activity they are asked to complete in their online English Journal, I cannot help but notice that my students do not value each others voices. Multiple times, I've asked them to share what they've written with someone at their table who might be able to help them improve it, and the response is often, "They can't fix it" or "They did help me, but you have to tell me if it's right."
I found that in my observations and interactions, what I am concerned about is not whether or not they like writing necessarily, but whether they find value in working with each other through the writing process, and how I might be able to teach them how to do that. They want to be able to generate ideas, and they want to ask for advice, and seem to want to do well, but they do not know how to use each other to do that.
This led me to the next stage of my needs assessment. A phase two, if you will. In this I was able to ask students to define collaboration, express their opinions on who they want to receive advice from, and rank what they find most important in an English class. The most fascinating and perplexing piece of information that I received from this survey was in relation kind of information represented in the graphs below. |
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While a full three-quarters of my students expressed that they would most like to receive writing advice from their teachers and many believe it is a better use of their time to work alone than with others; However, the same percentage of students stated that it helps them to talk about their writing with others and to have others read what they have written.
This is perplexing because it tells me that they don't value each other's voices academically, but still feel like the kind of feedback you can get by sharing your work is necessary and helpful.
While it may be argued that they were asked who they would most like to receive feedback from, not whether or not they valued it, their written responses supported the contradictions that are seen here. When asked why they chose "my teacher" for who they want feedback from, my students responded as follows:
It was from this that I realized what my authentic goal for my students was, and I began to realize some of the observations that I have made that support what I really want for my students moving forward. My goal would be to help students to find support in each other through the writing process.
As I watched my students continue to build relationships with me, I saw peer to peer relationships developing a little more unsteadily. Given their responses to the questions above, this did not surprise me. My hope was that through this research, I could help my students to feel more able to participate in collaborative work, to trust each other enough to give and receive feedback, and to be more positive about their writing abilities.
This is perplexing because it tells me that they don't value each other's voices academically, but still feel like the kind of feedback you can get by sharing your work is necessary and helpful.
While it may be argued that they were asked who they would most like to receive feedback from, not whether or not they valued it, their written responses supported the contradictions that are seen here. When asked why they chose "my teacher" for who they want feedback from, my students responded as follows:
- "I chose that because i would trust the instincts of my teacher much more than my friends or the people around me.”
- "Because my teacher is the one in charge, so knowing what they want makes it easier to do the assignment correct."
- "If someone is going to give me writing advice I want it to be from the teacher for two reasons. First, they are the teacher, meaning they got a degree and know what they are talking about, unlike some of the students. Second, I feel that peers and friends are hesitant to make the corrections you really need in fear of hurting your feelings, which in reality is just hurting you and your technique. A teacher realizes this and for that reason will make the necessary corrections."
It was from this that I realized what my authentic goal for my students was, and I began to realize some of the observations that I have made that support what I really want for my students moving forward. My goal would be to help students to find support in each other through the writing process.
As I watched my students continue to build relationships with me, I saw peer to peer relationships developing a little more unsteadily. Given their responses to the questions above, this did not surprise me. My hope was that through this research, I could help my students to feel more able to participate in collaborative work, to trust each other enough to give and receive feedback, and to be more positive about their writing abilities.
My Action Research Question
In a world where writing is a part of everyday life, and working with others is essential and unavoidable, I want to create an environment in my classroom that doesn't just involve collaboration; I want to teach them how to engage in it effectively. While my students are ultimately writing their own novel, that doesn't mean they cannot collaborate along the way, or learn how to ask questions and value each others voices in the writing process. I may be the teacher, but I don't always have all of the answers or have to give answers since my belief is that often not knowing leads to the best kind of questions that can propel a project forward.
I am concerned that my students feel they should be talking to each other, but are scared or self-conscious about doing it, or are protecting themselves by vocally putting others down (even jokingly). Student peer to peer talk is essential, and my students see that, but they don't know how to do it.
These thoughts have led me to the following question:
Subquestions:
I am concerned that my students feel they should be talking to each other, but are scared or self-conscious about doing it, or are protecting themselves by vocally putting others down (even jokingly). Student peer to peer talk is essential, and my students see that, but they don't know how to do it.
These thoughts have led me to the following question:
- How can I create small group communities within the larger classroom community to facilitate successful peer workshop?
Subquestions:
- How can I help students feel successful and productive with their peers in small group activities?
- What effect does regular peer feedback have on student confidence?