Garlets Draft Proposal Introduction and statement of problem The problem of my practice involves the difficulty of engaging my students

both inside and outside the classroom. Mathematics and school seem irrelevant to the well-being of many of my students as a result of their home life and personal choices. My student population is comprised of at risk youth. At risk students are identified as students who have been expelled, are court ordered, or are placed by an Individualized Education Program (IEP). To narrow my topic for action research, my focus will reside on the homework habits of my students, that is, the outside portion of their education. Homework remains fully relevant to the field of teaching and thus to the field of learning for students because many teachers utilize this as a tool to practice and rely on in order for the students to undergo mastery of the material. The problem I am personally experiencing in my environment is a complete lack of motivation by my students to engage in any sort of take home assignment or personally driven home activity. My students lose notes and assignments frequently and disregard any sort of homework. The problem of my own experience is that my students apathy toward homework cannot tell me where they are missing comprehension and where they need to focus their learning. Typically, students common misconceptions in homework offer areas to focus class time on; however, I am missing that element of formative assessment. Research question(s) How will at risk students react to a homework intervention? If I were to offer a small portion at the end of my class assess my students ability to display comprehension of the newly presented material and thus eliminating the need to assign homework, would my students show improvement in their overall test scores and long-term comprehension of material? Does the

perception of homework and the possible stigmatism attached affect the nature of students motivation, and can this be used to redirect the students to participation and improvement? This is my question and the intervention initially discussed in this section is how I will answer the question concerning motivation and its relationship specifically to homework. Theoretical framework When I think of introducing some sort of homework intervention into the academic lives of my students, my hope is to engage them using the material and bridging a gap that might exist between their extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The theoretical framework established form this thought is the self-determination theory (SDT) in regard to educational environments. In regard to motivation, Ryan and Deci (2000) assert the most basic distinction is between intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable, and extrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome (p. 55). Furthermore, the importance of being cognoscente of this theory is tremendous because my students have displayed a complete lack of any sort of intrinsic motivation. My hope is that I can connect an opportunity such as a homework intervention associated with extrinsic motivators (i.e. timely grades) with understanding material (associated with intrinsic motivation). Ryan and Deci (2000) further make the point that intrinsic motivation results in highquality learning and creativity (p. 55). This is what I desire for my students, not only to be motivated to do well and succeed concerning their grades, but I desire for them to investigate and explore for the sake of their curiosity and creativity, especially in regard to mathematics. The problem identified from my student population is a severe lack of completion in homework, and for that matter most classroom work. My students tend to be attracted to note taking and low risk

activities in regard to identifying their own understandings of the material; this may reveal a completely different theoretical framework that is most likely relevant. Nonetheless, I am basing the low homework completion rate on severed motivating factors. Research Design and Data Collection Methods The research setting will be within my mathematics classes. The participants will be comprised of my Geometry and Algebra II students. The research is taking place in an at risk charter school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The number of participants will be approximately x. There will be y males and z females. The age range of my participants will be between 14 and 19 years old. The participants will be almost entirely African American; however there are a few Latino and Native American participants. The identity of each participant will be protected by a coding system. The research approach I am taking for my action research question is both qualitative and quantitative. My desire is to not only observe changes through qualitative measurements but also to receive useful information from carefully implemented surveys and interviews, giving me a combination of data regarding the connection of a students personally perceived motivation and the scores associated with the newly implemented intervention. The combination of both research designs allows me to have both objective and subjective data in regard to the opinions of my test subjects. From both sets of data, I can make sufficient conclusions about what changes need to be made in order to continually provide a balanced environment for the most effective types of learning.

Therefore, my data collection methods will be comprised of quantitative data in the form of grades and homework completion. In the form of qualitative data, the participants will provide data in the form of surveys and interviews. I will ensure the trustworthiness of my data using a diverse set of collection methods and triangulating the sources of data in order to observe consistence among my participants. Concerning the quantitative data, I will ensure the reliability of the data using internal consistency through the employment of the Kuder-Richardson formula 21 (Mertler, 2009, p. 125). Due to time constraints, I will not be able to undergo a test retest method of ensuring reliability. Data analysis As a mathematician, I will look for patterns in my research, and thus employ inductive analysis to important themes. This will be accomplished through the location of words and phrases addressing specific topics regarding my action research questions. I will also be able to categorize these results in order to continually locate important trends. In order to analyze the quantitative data, I will observe the measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion, and the measures of relationship. The foreseeable limitations of my study include but are not limited to my participant size, the diversity of my participants and the time frame of my study. Ideally, I would like to conduct research on my question for a much longer period of time to observe patterns that exist over a longer period of time. Timeline Data collection schedule: November 5-November 17 Data Analysis: November 10- November 24* * My intention is to begin analyzing the first weeks data on November 10th and continue through November 24th.

References Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2000) Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology. (25) pp. 54-67. Mertler, Craig A. (2009) Action research: Teachers as researchers in the classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE publications, Inc.