Action+Research+Plan

These are the areas on which I focused in my Action Research Plan:

__**Problem:**__ 6th grade students at Countryville Middle School historically score low on standard 6.R.2.2, Understanding Figurative Language.

__**Question:**__ Will integrating 21st Century Skills and Tools improve student achievement on standard 6.R.2.2. Specifically, can I engage my students with a global theme and increase their understanding of figurative language?

__**Plan:**__ Integrate 21st Century Skills and Tools into my lesson plans for standard 6.R.2.2. Administer pre and post tests over the standard to gauge student understanding. Use formative assessment in the classroom, over the course of the teaching and after the lesson to check understanding. I plan to have two lesson plans that are globally related and are spread out to keep awareness up as the year progresses.

__**Reflection:**__ This has been a great process. I enjoyed and felt rewarded by having my test scores and formative assessment guide my instruction. I believe that the students benefit by my attention to their progress. I think they learned more than they would have if I hadn't focused on using technology to encourage collaborative work and creativity. My students' computer skills increase, they worked with a technology standard and began discerning between valid and invalid information online.

The blog posts and monthly chats really helped me reflect on my project. Visiting with Cate and Melissa always helped me focus on my standard and come up with an interesting integration idea. Now that I have had this help, I am more confident moving forward on my own.

__**Implications for Future Work:**__ I hope to use my standards to guide my teaching. It makes more sense to spend a week on a standard that everyone in the class understands. It's better to spend a day or two refreshing the memory and then spending more time on need areas. I will continue to use formative assessment with my students and look at pre and post tests.

I based the areas on this outline of an Action Research Plan