What happens when writing is incorporated into the science curriculum?
Reflection
When thinking about my own educational practice I am excited by the steps I have taken in Action Research and the growth in my teaching practice I have seen. Through self discovery I have grown so much as an educator and as a person. I can picture many new and exciting things to take with me into teaching. There were many events and experiences that I can think of in my Action Research process that I will reflect on.
How I keep records and assess students is so vital to writing in science. There are many ways teachers think to assess and keep records of student progress. Having completed the whole Action Research with incorporating writing into the science curriculum I learned to be organized and efficient! I can look at a stake of papers that is a foot high now and examine them with the eye of a researcher. I will take this with me throughout my teaching career.
The pressure to get all this data limited my processes as a teacher and took me out of the flow of teaching. I have a teaching style in assessing, and teaching students that is so natural to me, but the pressure to get certain types of data threw me off a little in my teaching. I was not as engaged in teaching and diving in as deep into the process as I normally do. I kept thinking in the back of my mind are they liking the writing activities? Should I be recording this in my journal? This just threw me off a little but I overcame this during the process. Being forced to look more systematically about how to analyze data caused me to think differently about how to engage in assessments in my classroom. This systematic form of analyzing data in my Action Research made me reflect on how to use data to inform my practice in the classroom, for example, I find myself using many assessment techniques from Action Research in my own classroom today (running record, rubrics, exit slips, etc.)
I believe that Action Research has been such a wonderful reflective and constructive experience in developing my teaching. I planned through a whole unit of writing in science and I was the designer as the teacher. I was the teacher as designer in coming up with every lesson, assessment, rubric, etc. I could go in any direction I wanted and this freedom was really eye opening to me because I might not ever get the same opportunity again in my teaching profession to have such freedom. I have grown a lot from this experience as a teacher and educator that I will carry with me throughout my career.
In Action Research I not only learned valuable strategies to teaching writing in science but critical skills of my teaching practices. I learned how to identify challenges in the classroom through my action and assessment that I grew from as a teacher. This experience of identifying challenges by coming into a classroom and being able to examine challenges to overcome is vital to being a great teacher.
My experience of researching the topic of writing in science was a paramount experience that I grew so much from and was one of the main research skills I will take away with me into the workforce. I experienced research like I never had before, in finding my own sources, articles, publications, that were key components to my Action Research. I experienced doing the whole process from start to finish helping me grow in seeing a project through to the end. I can research strategies that I will use in my classroom in the future.
The experience of creating interventions to meet the challenges in the classroom was an amazing experience that a teacher faces every day. Meeting the needs of students is paramount to my teaching philosophy and this inquiry cycle of identifying students needs and meeting those needs with interventions is what I will take with me into my teaching career.
I feel like I am a stronger teacher of writing for having completed my Action Research experience. I feel a new sense of accomplishment in being able to teach students how to write, which is no easy task. This confidence will help me in the future meet my students writing needs and help them grow as writers! I am so thankful for the opportunity to conduct Action Research and this inquiry Action Research model of teaching I will continue in the future to meet student needs and be the best teacher possible.
-Spencer Brown
Reflection
When thinking about my own educational practice I am excited by the steps I have taken in Action Research and the growth in my teaching practice I have seen. Through self discovery I have grown so much as an educator and as a person. I can picture many new and exciting things to take with me into teaching. There were many events and experiences that I can think of in my Action Research process that I will reflect on.
How I keep records and assess students is so vital to writing in science. There are many ways teachers think to assess and keep records of student progress. Having completed the whole Action Research with incorporating writing into the science curriculum I learned to be organized and efficient! I can look at a stake of papers that is a foot high now and examine them with the eye of a researcher. I will take this with me throughout my teaching career.
The pressure to get all this data limited my processes as a teacher and took me out of the flow of teaching. I have a teaching style in assessing, and teaching students that is so natural to me, but the pressure to get certain types of data threw me off a little in my teaching. I was not as engaged in teaching and diving in as deep into the process as I normally do. I kept thinking in the back of my mind are they liking the writing activities? Should I be recording this in my journal? This just threw me off a little but I overcame this during the process. Being forced to look more systematically about how to analyze data caused me to think differently about how to engage in assessments in my classroom. This systematic form of analyzing data in my Action Research made me reflect on how to use data to inform my practice in the classroom, for example, I find myself using many assessment techniques from Action Research in my own classroom today (running record, rubrics, exit slips, etc.)
I believe that Action Research has been such a wonderful reflective and constructive experience in developing my teaching. I planned through a whole unit of writing in science and I was the designer as the teacher. I was the teacher as designer in coming up with every lesson, assessment, rubric, etc. I could go in any direction I wanted and this freedom was really eye opening to me because I might not ever get the same opportunity again in my teaching profession to have such freedom. I have grown a lot from this experience as a teacher and educator that I will carry with me throughout my career.
In Action Research I not only learned valuable strategies to teaching writing in science but critical skills of my teaching practices. I learned how to identify challenges in the classroom through my action and assessment that I grew from as a teacher. This experience of identifying challenges by coming into a classroom and being able to examine challenges to overcome is vital to being a great teacher.
My experience of researching the topic of writing in science was a paramount experience that I grew so much from and was one of the main research skills I will take away with me into the workforce. I experienced research like I never had before, in finding my own sources, articles, publications, that were key components to my Action Research. I experienced doing the whole process from start to finish helping me grow in seeing a project through to the end. I can research strategies that I will use in my classroom in the future.
The experience of creating interventions to meet the challenges in the classroom was an amazing experience that a teacher faces every day. Meeting the needs of students is paramount to my teaching philosophy and this inquiry cycle of identifying students needs and meeting those needs with interventions is what I will take with me into my teaching career.
I feel like I am a stronger teacher of writing for having completed my Action Research experience. I feel a new sense of accomplishment in being able to teach students how to write, which is no easy task. This confidence will help me in the future meet my students writing needs and help them grow as writers! I am so thankful for the opportunity to conduct Action Research and this inquiry Action Research model of teaching I will continue in the future to meet student needs and be the best teacher possible.
-Spencer Brown