ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
This assignment is designed to help you focus your study as early as possible. You will present an outline proposal for the study in which you will clearly identify the topic to be studied, the methodologies you propose to use and at least one additional learning outcome that you hope to meet whist engaged in the study.
The proposal will also review your developmental process in terms of selecting your study so, for example, you might indicate what your initial idea was, how you went about selecting and rejecting ideas and how you decided upon the final idea. You will refer to relevant literature in your work. A proposal pro-forma will be supplied to assist you with this work.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
Demonstrate a critical understanding of the topic to be studied
Demonstrate clear, critical and focused understanding of the additional learning that engaging in the study will help achieve
Grade descriptors (please read these carefully, you should check your response against these descriptors):
Grade Pass
You show that you have:
an in depth and critical understanding of the topic under investigation an ability to critically reflect on and analyse current practice and identify issues for future development a critical understanding of the methodologies to be applied to the project and how they might help you to acquire the necessary data a clear and focused understanding of specific learning to be achieved in addition to the generic learning outcomes
In addition the assignment will show:
an ability to write in a formal academic style understanding of the conventions of referencing
Grade Fail
The assignment will show significant weaknesses in some or all of the following areas. It will be deemed to have not ...
... middle of paper ...
...ted out that facing with a broad range of different pupil needs and ability levels teachers needed to develop new strategies and to formalize existing “craft knowledge” in order to create optimal learning opportunities for different pupils within a single lesson. This can be relevant to this study as differentiation strategies are considered essential to effective teaching, and they have the clear objective of creating optimal learning opportunities.
The Elton report (1989) suggests that poorly differentiated lessons can cause behavioural problems. Behaviour management is one of the additional learning outcomes I expect to achieve with the study.
Regarding action research methodology, there will be no theory/practice gap because theory and practice will be developed together 'there is nothing so practical as a good theory' (Greenwood, et al., 1993, pag 187).
For this lesson I still need to learn how to analyze instructional goals and differentiated instructional strategies. When I transfer to a university to further my education; in my educational classes I will learn about this. In addition to student teaching, I will be learning how to handle future situations with the appropriate grade level. Lastly, I will ask for advice from art teachers and teachers in general to find out more information on differentiated instructional strategies.
Students are being tested on elements that were seen on their pre-test. More specifically, the students are being tested on elements of the pre-test that they did not score well on. After more than four weeks of instruction on these elements, this assessment will project the evidence of student learning in regard to five specific learning goals. I will collect this data by having students complete the test with their answers for this assessment. By using a multiple choice test, students can receive immediate feedback on their assessment because a machine automatically tabulates correct and incorrect answers as the test is fed through the machine. My rationale for this data-collection method is based on the fact that it provides immediate feedback to the students and myself. Quick turnaround is essential when evaluating the evidence of student
Effective teachers in a differentiated classroom have always considered their students’ uniqueness (i.e, academic needs, talents, interests, learning styles) in planning, teaching, and evaluating lessons. Tomlinson (1999) describes other features of this approach, among them the engagement of students through different learning modalities; each student’s competition with self; flexibility in various aspects of the school day; teacher as diagnostician; multiple ...
Furthermore it is important for teachers to differentiate instruction in the classroom; this facilitates student achievement and preparation for international competiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access (Conklin, 2010 ). Differentiated instruction is demonstrated in...
Cohen, L., Morrison, K. and Manion, L. (2011) Research Methods in Education. 7th ed. London: Routledge.
[Note: Please note that this assignment was written in March/April 2014, and so the content was current or recent at the time.]
(1) Reflect on what you think might be some of the characteristics of the differentiated classroom based on your reading thus far. Tomlinson lists eight principles that guide differentiated instruction (Chapter 2: 1999). To what extent is each of these principles reflected in your classroom? Look at the brief profiles of Lin, Rafael, Serena, Trevor, Lesley, Danny, and Theo (Chapter 2; 2001). Who do they remind you of in your school or classroom?
This article hasn’t provided an introduction; however a lengthy summary of the study which identifies the problem, purpose and rationale for the research study has been provided in the background. The introduction should give the reader a general sense of what the document is about, and preferably persuade the reader to continue reading. This prepares the reader for reading the rest of the document (Burns & Grove, 2001 p.636; Nieswiadomy, 2008 p.380; Stockhausen and Conrick, 2002).
In light of my School Experience (SE), I will be analysing, discussing and evaluating an aspect of classroom practice. The practice that I have chosen is ‘Behaviour Management’. Behaviour management plays a key role within the classroom and there are a number of techniques used by teachers on a day to day basis. I will look at these techniques in detail, analysing and evaluating them with the work of behaviour management authors and also taking into account my SE observations.
There are many areas for potential failure in the learner-centered classroom. Doyle states that student resistance is the biggest obstacle to overcome. The student often doesn’t understand the concept and is not receptive to it. The greatest way to deal with this potential failure is to explain the ‘why’ to the students. Students that understand why they are to do a task and understand how to apply it are more likely to overcome it.
Currently I am co teaching a fifth grade class of eleven students. The class is a general education class with four students who have disabilities. My main focus for the class is teaching the human body system and implementing writing into the class. Differentiation of instruction is something we need to show that we are implanting in our classroom. There are four levels of differentiation of instruction; content, process, product, and affect. What we teach, how we teach it; how students demonstrate what they have learned, and how students feel about what they are learning is what DI is about. Educators need to start by choosing the best content that will help all of their students. The content not only has to relate to the subject matter, but need to connect to their culture. The process is also a crucial component of DI and Santamaria feels that the best thing to do for the students is having them work in groups, but Utley took an individual approach to DI. Santamaria feels that cooperative learning stimulates learning. The last component to DI is the product. This could be as simple as allowing the students to present their final product
When teachers differentiate their lesson, the students are more engaged to learn. Students have some choice in their learning activities, which motivates students to want to learn and also puts more learning responsibility on the students. Some students may prefer to work alone or in groups and some students like to be hands-on. By differentiating the lesson, all students’ needs are being met. “Differentiated Instruction gives students a range of ways to access curriculum, instruction and assessment. DI engages students to interact and participate in the classroom in a richer way. It is based on the assumption that all students differ in their learning styles, strengths, needs and abilities and that classroom activities should be adapted to meet these differences
This allowed students to develop a better and deeper understanding of what they were learning.
Before action research, the traditional research was the main method of research conduct by schools. Traditional research finds are often generalizations about a concern or problem. This type of research is similar to the scientific method. First, one must identify the problem. Second-ly, form a question, then perform the research. Third, predict response to the question such as a hypothesis. Next, perform some experiment in which the data is examined to verify if the data supports our hypothesis. Afterward, a comprehensive written report is made based on the obser-vations and provides a resolution of the problem.
Research philosophy, refers to the development of knowledge adopted by the researchers in their research (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). In other words, it is the theory that used to direct the researcher for conducting the procedure of research design, research strategy, questionnaire design and sampling (Malhotra, 2009). It is very important to have a clear understanding of the research philosophy so that we could examine the assumptions about the way we view the world, which are contained in the research philosophy we choose, knowing that whether they are appropriate or not (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009), three major ways of thinking about research philosophy are examined: ontology, epistemology and axiology. Each of them carries significant differences which will have an impact on the way we consider the research procedures. Ontology, “is concerned with nature of reality”, while epistemology “concerns what constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study and axiology “studies judgements about value” (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009, p110, p112, p116). This study is intent on creating some “facts” from objective evaluations which are made by the subjects. Therefore, epistemology will be chosen for this study as the way of thinking about the research philosophy.