Self Efficacy Paper

Students often struggle to challenge themselves and take ownership over their own learning and growth. Therefor, it is important to provide students the tools to form a positive outlook towards learning with the hope that students will believe in their ability to achieve. Therefor my research question is this; Can differentiated task based menus with choices geared to readiness level increase fourth grade student’s self-efficacy and skill in math? I expected that by providing students with a differentiated instruction based menu students would feel a sense of power, ownership, and self-efficacy over their own learning. In addition, I hoped that increased self-efficacy would increase student learning as attribution theory suggests should be

Student’s time on task was observed and measured using a checklist. Students with high levels of self-efficacy believe if they work hard they will be successful. I predicted student’s time on task would increase as the differentiated task based menu was utilized. Formative assessments were used to measure student progress and growth towards the learning target. Formative assessments were used to inform students of their progress and growth towards the learning target as well as inform instruction and allow me to meet the needs of all students. In addition, I was able to give students choice at their appropriate level of readiness when they were using the menu. I believe it is powerful for self-efficacy to be self reported. Therefor, I included two methods of data collection that would allow students to report their own feels about math and their progress towards the learning targets. Students were given a survey to measure their feelings about math and show the belief their actions are related to their understanding and success in math. The second form of self-reported data required students to reflect on their ability to complete a task related to the unit of

I selected two students at higher levels of readiness, two students at an average or medium level of readiness, and two students at lower level of readiness who had given consent and whose parents had given consent. These students were selected based on their performance in the beginning of the year Everyday Math Pre-assessment. I also selected this sample by taking student attendance, and student behavior into account. I selected students who had good attendance. I selected three students who are generally on task and three students who are often off task or distracted during independent work. Therefore, because I selected a variety of students based on readiness levels and behavior this sample will be generalizable within my classroom. It is reasonable to assume that other students in my classroom would provide the same or similar results when compared to the students chosen to participate in the study. It will not be generalizable to other classroom populations; however, are reliable based on this specific classroom population. Students at a high, average, and low level of readiness accurately reflect the needs and ability levels of the student population within this specific classroom. These findings may be applied within my classroom to better instructional practices as well as utilized in classrooms with similar populations. It can be reasonably assumed that findings as result of this study can benefit