Research Reflection 11/9
I collected baseline data today, so I can officially begin my intervention when we return from the holiday on Tuesday. I asked my students two days ago to take a look at the 9 vocabulary words for “Marigolds” and complete a pretty standard homework assignment: word, definition, and sentence. I reminded them about it yesterday and recieved 12 today (of 21) with 2 students absent. I heard a lot of “Oh no! I totally forgot!”s, which is annoying because I reminded them to write it in their agendas on both days.
Work turned-in numbersaside, from a brief looking-over, the quality of the assignments seems pretty standard for this class. I did not recieve work from my GATE identified focus student, which is frustrating, but did get work from the EL, IEP, and both mainstream students, so I should have a good pool of data to sample.
They also took a vocabulary quiz that asked them to match the words to their definitions and then write sentences with the words, with an emphasis on using the words in their correct part of speech. Several students did nothing but write their name on the quiz and turn it over, finished. Others went through it pretty quickly, and a few took the full 20 minutes, painstakingly writing sentences. From just glancing at them as they wrote, I noticed a lot of part of speech mistakes being made consistently – adjectives used as verbs, mostly – and a general sense of what the word sort of means, but an inability to use it effectively in context.
This should give me a lot to work with and I’m hoping the the word squares (which we will begin on Tuesday) will add some depth to students’ understandings of what a word means and how to use it properly.
