Notre Dame of Maryland University
Action Research Planning Worksheet
In the second week of each of your placements, review the School Improvement Plan or
School Performance Plan with your mentor and identify an area of need that can be
addressed using small group or whole-class intervention. While the area of need will be
very specific in the classroom (multiplication facts), you need to gain an understanding
of how that need relates to the entire school as outlined in the SIP/SPP (such as raising
math achievement).
Complete this document in preparation for your Action Research Project , e-portfolio
10.2. Share this document with your mentor and supervisor prior to beginning your
intervention project.
Remember, no student names should appear in either the planning documents, the final
report or any attached documents
What is the identified
need in your classroom?
Why is this a problem?
The seventh graders in my 4th period class still do not have
multiplication facts memorized; this causes problems as we
try to teach them more advanced mathematical concepts
such as factoring algebraic equations.
Or
Four out of the 25 kindergartners in my classroom still can’t
identify colors. This is a skill that is usually learned before
kindergarten and it puts these students at a disadvantage to
their peers.
Or
Three of the students in this class are at risk of failing the
English HSA, which they need to graduate.
What is the identified
need at the school level
(reference the SIP or the
SPP)?
As outlined in goal 1 “Student achievement will increase in
the area of reading and math for all students.” And Action 1:
“Teachers will identify student strengths and challenges
based on data. These data will be used to plan instruction
and monitor student performance.” I believe that this is an
important topic to address in terms of increasing student
math achievement. Action 3 for this goal also states “Student
achievement will increase for special education students in
the area of reading and math by at least 10%,” and several of
the students in the 4th period class do receive special
education services.
Or
Goal #1 is based on the premise that “All students will
achieve or exceed grade level expectations.” While goal #1
specifically refers to meeting grade level expectations in
math and reading, identifying colors is an important skill
that all kindergarten students must master. They need this
skill to sort things into categories and identify descriptive
factors of things (Common Core ELA Standard 5 for K and
1) and by first grade, students should be able to distinguish
between defining (triangles are closed) and nondefining
(color) attributes of geometric objects (Common Core 1.G 1).
Therefore, an ability to identify color is important to both
math and reading as outlined by the common core.
Who will this
intervention impact?
The entire 4th period class
Or
Four students in the kindergarten class
What is your intervention
plan? (specifically, what
do you plan to do)
How often will this take
place?
How long will this last?
Every day the first 7 minutes of class will be devoted to
multiplication remediation. The intervention will last for 4
weeks, the schedule for each week is below:
Monday: Students will review facts in a modified form
(grouping facts into 0s and 1s, doubles, fives, nines and
others)
Tuesdays: Students will sort facts into groups
Wednesday: Students will review mnemonic strategies
associated with solving facts in each category
Thursday: Students will review steps to solving problems
with steps in each category
Friday: Students will complete a multiplication quiz
OR
The four students will be pulled each day at rest-time for 15
minutes of intervention.
1) All students will receive flash-cards with colors to
review each day
2) At the beginning of each session, the students will be
read one book from various books with “colors”
mentioned: the book will focus on the color of the
day.
3) Each day of the first week, the instructor will collect
several objects from the classroom focusing on the
color of the day. Students will discuss what the color
is and what they know about it. What are some things
that are usually “red”
4) Each day in the second week the instructor will pick
two colors to focus on, students will compare the two
colors and learn to discriminate among them
5) Each week, an additional color will be added to the
grouping (week 3=3 colors at a time)
6) Students will go through flashcards each day as
review, but each Friday the instructor will record the
flashcard results on a special form.
Has this particular
intervention plan ever
been tried before? Please
list two references that
lead you to believe that
this is a plan worth
trying.
Multiplication Intervention:
Wood, D. K., Frank, A. R & Wacker, D. P. (1998). Teaching
multiplication facts to students with disabilities. Journal of
Applied Behavioral Analysis, 31 (3), 323-338.
Wright, J., School-Wide Strategies for Managing
Mathematics:
http://www.jimwrightonline.com/php/interventionista/
interventionista_intv_list.php?prob_type=mathematics
Color Intervention
http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/activities-to-teachtoddlers-colors
http://www.ideasforpreschoolers.com/colors.php
What kind of data will
you collect?
- What is your
“baseline”
- How will you
know whether or
not students have
improved?
- What is your
ultimate goal in
terms of data
Please identify your
1) Pre-test of multiplication facts (record time)
2) Weekly multiplication tests (record time)
3) The goal is for students to achieve 100% accuracy of
a 20 item test in 5 minutes.
Colors
1) Pre-test of flash cards
2) Weekly recorded flash-card trials
3) The goal is to have all students achieve 100%
accuracy on all colors on the first try
specific research question
Multiplication:
Does a multi-faceted approach to teaching multiplication
improve the accuracy and speed at which students can
complete multiplication facts?
Colors:
Does an intervention involving flash-cards and real-world
application improve kindergarteners ability to identify
colors?
Notre Dame of Maryland University
Action Research Final Write-Up
The final product for each of your action research or intervention projects will be
a formal document outlining the research project and the results. This does not
need to be written in a narrative (ie, bulleted lists and charts may be used, but the
descriptions do need to be full and clear). The report should be about 4 pages
long.
Upload to e-portfolio 10.2 using the “Undergraduate Action Research” rubric
Remember, no student names should appear in either the planning documents,
the final report or any attached documents
The write-up must contain the following information.
1. A brief introduction outlining the type of project this is and the
skills/content areas addressed (1/4 of a page)
2. Statement and Description of the problem (1/2 page)
a. At the Classroom Level
b. As identified in the SIP/SPP or Common Core or State Testing
c. An explanation regarding why this is a problem.
3. Statement of specific research questions (1-2 questions)
4. Description of the Sample Identified (1/4 of a page)
a. Description of why have they been chosen (based on what initial
data?)
b. ABSOLUTLY REQUIRED: Demographic Summary outlining
gender, race/ethnicity, age and identification of whether students
receive special education, TESOL or G/T services
5. Description of Intervention (1 page)
a. Give a brief “review of the literature” describe 3-4 sources that you
have located that informed your decision to do this specific
intervention. (This can be done as an annotated bibliography)
b. Outline the steps in your process (specifically, what did you do?)
c. How often did you work with students on this skill? And for how
long?
d. What kind of data did you collect and when did you collect it?
e. Attach samples of tests, work-sheets, flash cards or other materials
utilized (delete or “black out” student names).
6. Results (1 page) (remember to remove any indentifying information)
a. Summarize the results (what is the difference between pre-test and
post-test?)
b. Present the pre-test data (in a table)
c. Present the post-test data (in a table—is there a change?)
d. Explain, in your own words, what the results mean for your
classroom
7. Discussion/Reflection (1 page)
a. Summarize the purpose of the project and what you found
b. Outline the next steps you would take with this class or this group
of students
c. Outline whether or not you believe this intervention would be
successful with another group of students. What would you change?