4 March 2019
What is the observed impact after the ‘Take Action’ phase?
Now that I have gathered my data, processed and cleaned it into reliable evidence, I am left with evidence that shows the before and after effects of my Inquiry on students' writing and engagement. From my evidence, I am able to identify that my students' writing improved. I am also able to conclude through student voice, attendance to class, teacher observations of active engagement in class and completion of class activities that my students' enjoyed the Creative Writing Unit. What I am still unclear on, however, is the direct impact of flipped learning on the overall effectiveness of the unit of learning. While students' grades indicated an improvement in writing skills, their writing improved generally rather than specifically to the skills emphasised in the online videos and tutorials. While they were generally more engaged in this unit than in previous years, student voice suggested that while my boys enjoyed the videos as they looked forward to seeing what the next day was going to be about and that it gave them an increased sense of confidence in the class, they also liked that the lessons were "different for a change". Something I had not considered when I set out on this spiral of inquiry, was the cohort of students, who were different to last years. School reporting suggests that this year's group of students are decidedly more academically capable than last years. Therefore this alone could have been the major contributing factor to the outcome of their learning, rather than flipped learning per se!
How is the observed impact different from or similar to the anticipated one?
The observed impacts of the inquiry are in many respects similar to the anticipated impacts at the end of the Learn Phase of the inquiry, as I had been wondering throughout the process of the inquiry whether the trends in my students' writing were a direct result of flipped learning. I expressed these thoughts in an earlier assessment. Interestingly, there were also some differences that emerged. The one thing that became clear was that whether it was flipped learning, the cohort, a change in the my normal way of teaching, increased excitement from me in my delivery, the writing of my students definitely improved. This was the intended impact but one I was not entirely sure would be achieved. Significantly, while I anticipated seeing a correlation between achievement and engagement and metacognitive thinking, engagement was directly observed through high submission of students' work, high attendance to class, between 90 and 100% engagement in class activities most days and a near 100% up-take of the flipped preparation, there was no direct link or evidence of metacognitive thinking. Although I would still like to believe that flipped learning did illicit deeper thinking, increased student agency in the classroom and greater collaboration between students, my data collection tools failed me in this regard (I overlooked this area). Therefore, I still only have assumptions about the correlation between flipped learning boosting metacognitive thinking.
What is the impact on future inquiry/practice?
I find myself wondering now, whether increased student engagement could boost metacognitive thinking skills. I am left thinking about all the components that effect change and learning. I am left thinking that it is very easy to assume because one makes a change to one area of one's practice, that is the thing responsible for the impacts observed. I am left thinking that perhaps I have underestimated the fragile microcosm that is the classroom and how it is a delicate balance between a multitude of variable factors and that in actual fact it is very difficult to pinpoint the one thing that has the most impact sometimes. I am left in awe of those who carry out research regularly and how much thought they have to put in their process to ensure that most accurate and unbiased impacts that help to influence the rest of us and our practice, and I am grateful to them for sharing their work. Next time, I would narrow my inquiry to only focus on one thing at a time. I would then use those findings to help support the next inquiry.
References:
Ministry of Education (n.d.). Stories from the field. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leading-learning/Spiral-of-inquiry-leaders-leading-learning/Stories-from-the-field
Stoll, L., and Temperley, J. (2015). Narrowing the Gap with Spirals of Enquiry: Evaluation of Whole Education’s Pilot. Whole Education, UK. Retrieved from http://www.wholeeducation.org/download,634
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