Change of Heart...

After my conference with my site supervisor over which topic to use for my action research project, I had a change of heart.  I originally emailed her the 3 different topics so she could look ahead and determine key points for each research or add some topics that we could discuss.  Our school is currently taking on a huge project called the curriculum project.  This is helping our campus get aligned instructionally, so she wanted me to do my action research on one of the components within this project.  She decided that the explicit vocabulary instruction research was not as practical for our campus, but the other two were great choices.  She wanted me to make the final decision because she believed it should be the topic I am most interested in.  I am going with the topic on the use of effective warm- ups.  This is part of our school project and teachers on our campus are slowly starting to implement them, but we still have some that are skeptical about making the change to their lesson plans and adding warm-ups.  Together, my principal and I agreed that this would be a perfect research project that will benefit myself, our teachers, and our students.  

Purpose of action research project

The purpose of my action research project is to implement explicit vocabulary instruction and to determine which methods will provide the most effective instruction for ELL students.  At my Elementary campus, our students are constantly struggling with vocabulary and it is a skill that we perform low in every year when it comes to standardized testing.  We do not have a vocabulary curriculum and from my experience, I have trouble deciding how to teach vocabulary and which methods to use.  There's no structure or strategy behind it.  My ELL students and teachers that teach ELL students will benefit from this action research because at the end of the project I will know which methods and strategies are most effective and will be able to implement them in my everyday teaching and share my findings with the rest of my staff.  This will increase the student's vocabulary bank, which will improve their fluency, which will intern increase their overall reading comprehension.  

How educational leaders might use blogs

Educators can use blogs to share instructional strategies that have been implemented and that work well with their students.  Teachers love to borrow great ideas for their classrooms and a blog is the perfect place to get ideas and share some of your own.

Educators need to vent every now and then on issues in their classroom or school.  A blog is a great place to do that, you have others that are in your shoes and are probably experiencing the same issues.  It would be nice to have a place to reflect and a place for others to read to see that they are not alone.

Action Research- what I have learned

Action research is research intended to bring about change of some kind, usually with a social justice focus.  This approach is a continual process that consists of reflection and action.  Action research involves clarifying and diagnosing a practical situation that needs to be improved, formulating action strategies for improving the situation or resolving the problem, implementing the action strategies and evaluating their effectiveness, and clarifying the situation, resulting in new definitions of problems or ares for improvement. 

As a fourth grade teacher in a self contained classroom I see first hand how important vocabulary development and the lack of vocabulary can greatly effect all subject aread.  Vocabulary and word recognition are the foundation for all learning in all areas of education.  The school I currently teach at is 85% economically disadvantaged and the majority of our students are ELL.  Year after year, we see that our students are struggling with over all reading comprehension because they do not have a strong enough vocabular.  These vocabulary skills must be taught in the classroom.  This brought me to the idea of my action research project covering the topic of explicit vocabulary instruction and which methods will provide the most effective instruction.  I believe an action research study will be beneficial in solving this particular problem because it will prove that vocabulary instruction has to be taught, especially in elementary school, in order for students to improve in comprehension.  It will also give effective methods to teachers and educators that work best and that can easily be implemented in the classroom. I think that at my school in particular, teachers tend to forget to teach vocabulary because there is just not enough time in the day with the standardized testing preparations.  This study will highlight the importance of on going vocabulary instruction.