Topic/Readings/Activities
- Critiquing Scholarly Articles
- Using the Library Search Activity
- Inter-library Loan (ILL)
- Google Scholar
- Selecting Topics
Assignments (Due before next class)
- Read 100Qs: Part 5
- Collect two articles on your topic
- Become familiar with Pacific University’s library and Google Scholar
- Blog post: What is your topic?
What is your topic?
My research topic is: How does targeted fluency instruction impact the spelling accuracy of struggling readers.
Use of Decodable Texts Topic: The role of decodable texts in supporting early reading confidence and accuracy.
Research question: How does the use of decodable texts influence students’ reading accuracy and confidence?
The data I will collect are running records, Student self-reflections (“How do you feel when reading?”), and Observation notes
Research Topic: What instructional designs and strategies are most effective in facilitating the most learning of reading and phonics within a limited time frame?
I want to focus my research on either how multisensory phonics instruction supports kindergarten students ability to apply alphabetic principle when decoding CVC words OR how does regular, explicit practice with nonsense words impact kindergarten students performance on DIBELS nonsense word fluency measures.
My research topic is: What are effective strategies and best practices to increase engagement and motivation amongst students with disabilities in general Physical Education classes.
I want to focus on Science Fair participation but I’m not sure the route I will take.
Either, Rethinking the Science Fair: Scaffolding for Equity, Inclusion, and Authentic Inquiry which would focus on in-class scaffolding or Scaffolded to Succeed: Building Better Science Fairs for All Students which would focus on actual changes to how Science Fair is set-up and run making it more accessible to all.
The action research topic I have been considering revolves around strategies to improve engagement and motivation in my P.E. classes. Several articles I reviewed discussed how high autonomy supportive teaching styles fosters more student engagement. I am considering, high autonomy supportive teaching strategies to improve engagement and motivation, to narrow my topic.
I am interested in studying whether practicing and improving visual processing has a positive effect on reading time. I could measure words read per minute of various students before doing any visual processing activities. Then, I could implement visual processing training/activities and measure the words read per minute of those same students. I would also measure their visual perception before and after the visual processing training to see if their visual perception did, in fact, improve. Using the pre and post tests, I could compare the before and after results of each student to see if there was improvement in visual perception and (consequently) in reading time. Some examples of activities I could do are visual memory activities, visual discrimination activities or visual closure activities.
For my topic, I have been looking at how saccadic eye movements help with reading fluency. Some people have difficulty with these eye movements which can make reading harder for them. Working on improving saccadic ability can be beneficial since people with shorter fixation duration and less refixations overall have better reading fluency. For this project, I could measure students’ saccadic ability and reading speed before and after the training. By comparing these results, I would be able to see whether the training resulted in improved saccades and/or reading speed.
I am interested in studying the the topic of building tier 2 vocabulary through read-alouds. This is would be specific to Kindergarten/first grade students. This interest me since I was facinatated this year as I taught kindergarten, with how excited the kids became when they would hear a word that they had recently learned from a book or or lesson that was previously taught and how they would puroposefully try to find ways to use the new “big words” in their everyday language. I think this project would be beneficial to explore as my students are very young and haven’t had much exposure to more advanced vocabulary, as well as the fact that our school (and most others I am sure) is incredibly diverse and many students are bilingual or English Language Learners, which makes aquiring new vocabulary even more challenging. An idea that I have in executing this project would be to introduce visual interactive vocabulary cards with definitons to discuss with students before doing read alouds that contain those same topics and/or words so students can hear and connect vocabulary.
I want to focus my research on either how multisensory phonics instruction supports kindergarten students ability to apply alphabetic principle when decoding CVC words OR how does regular, explicit practice with nonsense words impact kindergarten students performance on DIBELS nonsense word fluency measures.
I would like to focus my research on the use of visuals in the classroom. I am still trying to narrow it down to a specific question. I am looking at the use of AAC or the use of visual first/then schedules. I am wondering how the use of aided AAC modeling impacts expressive language development in non verbal preschool students? That is not a very specific question and I am not sure how to go about research project with that question. The other question I have is does the use of first/then visual schedules aid in task initiation/transition difficulties in preschool students with Autism?
My topic will focus on how project duration impacts writing skill acquisition and student self-reported stress levels.
My questions are: How does a 10-week project based learning (PBL) unit in an 8th & 9th grade English Language Arts (ELA) class impact students’ self reported writing skill acquisition in comparison to a 1-week intensive ELA project? How does participation in a 10-week PBL unit impact those same students’ self reported stress levels compared to a 1-week intensive ELA project?