Spring Conference - Action Research

2014 Spring Conference

The sessions I attended at the 2014 Spring Conference were about the following: Standards Based Grading, Providing students with more choice in the classroom, Providing students with choice in their writing, Classroom management, and Differentiation.  I was excited (and maybe a little nervous) to finally attend this conference to see what the process was like for the second year students presenting their action research.  After reading their abstracts and action research papers I began to feel a bit of relief; I was going in the right direction after all!  

I thought it was very interesting to see how each student began their presentation - I learned a few new 'ice breaker' activities and it really got me thinking about what I will do to introduce the people in my group next year, as well as some activities to use in the classroom to introduce students or just move around!  Some of the sessions I attended had folders with paper copies of the information, while others provided us with a link to their presentation online.  It was nice to have the information right in front of me, however I really liked having access to the online information because there were links available to access some of the resources they used and it was very helpful to be able to go right to it and save it for later reference.

Reflecting on my experience at the conference, I think I am going to create a more detailed action research question/goal.  The action research I am working on right now is 'how to create more meaningful assessments in the art room'.  I think this will be an ongoing research topic, as grading practices seem to change all the time.  After attending the writing session I did at the conference, I would like to research about how to incorporate more writing into my middle school art class.  During that session I wrote down quite a few ideas just based on what the presenter had tried in her classroom and it really got me thinking about what more I could do.  I was also very interested in the session I attended about providing students with choice in the classroom (choice seating, writing activities, etc.).  I may also look into providing some choice in my classroom.

Action Research Update

My action research goal is to create more meaningful assessments for my students.  I have been doing a lot of research on the standards-based grading process as well as creating more meaningful and effective rubrics for the projects I teach.  I have been updating my grading rubrics to focus more on the standards and power targets, according to my ELO's.  I have been sharing the rubrics with students at the beginning of projects so that they know what they need to do to fully complete an assignment.  One thing I have started doing with my fifth grade students is showing them each grading rubric on the board and going through each part of the rubric; I go into detail about how students can show proficiency, and what might warrant lower scores in each category.  I have noticed that students ask a lot of questions during this time; in the past I had assumed that students knew how a rubric worked and hadn't given them this important opportunity to ask these questions.  In addition, when students receive their work with the rubric they are very eager to see their points and I have noticed fewer questions about why they received a score they did.

I have always struggled with 'data collection' as well as showing data.  I am trying to figure out how I want to show the data I have collected and will collect in the future.  Reading the action research reports for the upcoming Spring Conference has been extremely helpful in the planning and writing for my own research report.  I will be attending a few sessions that focus on standard'based grading so I am hopeful to learn a lot more information about this grading style.  It has been very helpful to read the review of literature as well; I have found a few books and articles that are very helpful!

Goal Update

My Goals:

1. Initiate a BMS student art exhibit.

2. Begin an Art Club at the middle school level.

3. Host a summer Art Camp for students at the middle school level.

The strategies I have used so far toward achieving these goals is researching and planning!  I am hoping to complete each of this goals throughout the next school year, so the planning at this point is crucial.  I will continue to advance these goals by choosing dates and times for each of them, creating a proposal to be discussed with administration, writing informational handouts for students and parents and deciding on multiple projects for the art club and summer camp students to work on.

One way I have begun to overcome some of the barriers I mentioned in a previous post is that I have been talking with other art teachers about how they display their student's work at the middle school level.  I really enjoy talking with other teachers and will rely on this research to help make the best decisions for the Byron Middle School art shows.

One of the barriers I mentioned before is that of TIME!  I seem to keep catching myself saying, "Good, now that this week/month/day is over, I will have more time."  The time has yet to show up in my classroom!  I will continue to work on each of these goals to prepare implementation next school year.