A. A problem that is relevant to my educational setting is that my students are
struggling with using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation in their writing.
1. Students in my 8th grade class are not using proper grammar, spelling,
and punctuation in their writing. It is important that my 8th grade students
use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation in their writing because it
makes their writing more coherent and can affect the meaning of what
they write. Perhaps the students are struggling with using proper
grammar, spelling, and punctuation in their writing because they have not
received specific enough instruction.
B An existing data source that I will be using for this is Quill.org. I use this tool to
assign grammar, spelling, and punctuation diagnostics to my students. After they
finish the diagnostic, I can assign lessons that are specific to their needs. This is
useful because I can compare their beginning scores in each skill to their score
after receiving direct instruction and practicing.
a. General Characteristics or Demographics of Participants: they are all 13 or
14 years old, 98% of students are white, 50% of students scored
“proficient” or higher on the PSSAs, 46% of students are from low-income
families, 55% are male, and 45% are female
b. Timeliness of Data: The data is already available in Quill and all I need to
do is download it as an excel file.
c. Type of Data: Quantitative data
d. How the Data was Collected: The data was collected using an interactive
website that assesses students on their grammar, punctuation, and
spelling.
e. How the Data is Relevant to the Problem: The data is relevant to the
problem because the data is about the students’ strengths and
weaknesses in grammar, punctuation, and spelling and it also shows
progress made.
C
I will be analyzing the data from part B which includes the students’ first
diagnostic score (pre-test), the number of lessons they completed, the number of
lessons they completed and scored “proficient”, their average lesson score, and
their second diagnostic score (post-test).
a. The analysis method that I will be using to analyze the pre-test diagnostic
in the median, I will use median to analyze both the number of lessons
they completed as well as the number of lessons they scored “proficient”
in. I chose this method because there is a big difference between the
highest and lowest numbers and there is a wide array of numbers. Using
the average could be deceptive. For the students’ average score on the
lessons, I will use the mean because the numbers are all very similar and
there are no outliers.
b. In each of my classes, Core, College Prep, and Honors, there seemed to
be a wide gap between the highest and lowest score. For the most part,
students scored as “proficient” in over 90% of the lessons that they did in
Quill. In Core, the average lesson score was 88%, in College Prep it was
89.5, and in Honors it was 91%. This tells me that students had a high
comprehension level of what they were learning and were applying it
correctly. The last thing that I noticed was that there was a definite
positive correlation between how many lessons the students scored
proficient in and how many points they gained in their post-test.
c.
D I was able to reach several conclusions based on the data that I collected.
a. The first conclusion was that my subjective judgment of my students being
behind in their grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills was correct and
was supported by their scores in their pre-test. The median score in my
Core class was 48%, the median score in my College Prep class was
60%, and the median score in my Honors class was 52%.
b. Another conclusion that I came to was that the lessons are effective
because the average lesson score across all classes was 89.5% which is
much higher than what they received on the pre-test.
c. A third conclusion that I was able to make was that students who
completed more lessons with a score of “proficient” had a higher
improvement between their pre-test and post-test.
E I could use the data gathered from this activity to continue to improve instruction.
a. The first way I could use it to improve instruction is to provide small group
instruction for concepts that students are still struggling with. This will
provide students with targeted instruction and more opportunities to
practice skills they need to improve.
b. Another way that I could use the data to continuously improve instruction
is to require students to complete more lessons with a “proficient” score
before being able to take the post-test. Since there seems to be a positive
correlation between those who complete more lessons proficiently and
scoring higher on the post-test, this would improve instruction for students.