Friday, March 8, 2019

Week 30 - Reflect on Evidence (Take Action)

Week 30 - Reflect on Evidence (Take Action)
4 March 2019

Describe the data collected:
The qualitative and quantitative data I collected was through: 
1. A brief survey in the form of a letter home to whanau which was used to determine whether my inquiry would be at all possible or not. It was used to determine access to the internet and related devices at home, as well as whether families valued such methods of learning and would support the experiment. 

2. Student Voice in the form of a Google form to gauge at various points in the spiral of inquiry what my students' feelings and experiences were towards the flipped learning experiment. 

3. Identical pre and post-tests which were designed to test the effectiveness of flipped videos on my students' creative writing.

All of these methods of data collection took place in the Learn and Take Action Phase of the Spiral of Inquiry.  I have been lucky enough to have gathered all the data I set out to gather and have prepared it by collating it into a spreadsheet for reflection.  By doing this I am able to gauge the 'big picture' (data becomes evidence) as all the information is on one sheet and I am able to look for trends rather than only see things, one learner at a time.  I ensured that my data was cleaned before I added it to my spreadsheet for analysis.  

The method I used to clean my data was to get the writing samples moderated by another member of my faculty who did not have any bias towards the students or my inquiry.  I also scoured student voice forms for "proper responses".  If some students clearly were not taking the questions seriously, I discounted their voice before analyzing and interpreting it as evidence. 


Explain how you are analysing your data:
I have analysed my data by creating a spreadsheet to record my findings for each test.  For the writing samples, the way I have coded the samples by applying the AsTTle Writing Rubrics writing strands to my table for reflection.  This Rubric generates a raw score that can be converted to a curriculum level.  It is very valuable as it looks at writing from seven areas of focus and ranging from L1 to L5 of the curriculum.  It provides a very good picture of where each students' strengths are weaknesses lie but most importantly shows a trend in strengths and weaknesses in the class, which could be interpreted due to the effects of the inquiry.

Reflect on your evidence so far:
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! Hmmm!

References:
Riel, M. (2014, August 5).T8 Analyzing Data.

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