Level 3 Inquiry Reflection & Findings

#1 Analysis of your formative & summative assessment data:

 What were the results of your assessment?
The results of my assessment showed an increase in engagement over the lessons
that I implemented, as well as an increase in the number of students that met the
objective. I was able to find that some students need differentiation of product
because they can understand the content but cannot write their responses quite
yet. I found that students are more engaged when they feel more involved in the
learning process.

 Which students achieved the learning objective(s) and which did not?
After my final lesson, two students had not met the objective, one is ELL. One
student has ODD and is newer to the classroom so I was not able to develop much
of a relationship and thought it would be better if my CT, who had an established
rapport, worked with him. I worked one-on-one with the ELL to slowly explain
some of the content and vocabulary words, and she was able to meet the
objective after some one-on-one time.

 Which of the following helped or hindered your students’ learning – teaching

methods, activities, instructional materials, planned differentiation strategies?
My teaching methods, instructional materials, and planned differentiation
strategies helped my students’ learning. I adjusted my teaching methods to meet
the needs of my students and better support them. They engaged with me more
after I changed my teaching methods and made the classroom more positive and
student-centered. The instructional materials I used helped students learning by
providing them with a more interesting and engaging process of learning. My
differentiation strategies helped students because they were able to display their
knowledge however they wanted to, ensuring they were being assessed on the
content of the lesson and no other skills.

 If your assessment(s) did not adequately provide the information you needed
relative to your learning objective(s), how would you change the assessment(s)
you used to gain more appropriate information? If your assessment(s) did provide
adequate data relative to your learning objective(s), what would your next
instructional steps be – what would you do for students who met your objectives
and what would you do for those who did not?
I felt that my final formative assessment provided adequate data relative to my
learning objective. All but 2 students met the objective and I believe one of them
did not meet it due to her English language comprehension. Moving forward, if I
were to do another lesson centered on vocabulary, I would give the ELL student a
page that has out vocab words in English, Spanish, and pictures. Instead of having
her write the names and draw pictures, I could have her draw a line from the
vocab word to the picture it represents. This would tell me if she knew the words
 and their definitions without requiring her to read or write content that she is not
currently able to.

#2 Planning for the success of ELL students: Explicitly describe the instruction and
assessment you planned to meet the needs of ELL students. If you enacted your plan with ELL
students, what were the outcomes for those students? Did these students meet the learning
objective(s)?
There are 2 ELL students in this classroom that require additional support. For these specific
students, I would repeat instructions and expectations one-on-one slowly and explicitly. I also
utilized the bilingual students in the classroom and would ask for help repeating instructions
in their native language if I felt they did not understand. Rather than requiring the students
to write their answers, I asked them to explain it to me verbally. One of these students met
the objective of the lesson. One student did not meet the objective of the lesson, and I feel
that is because I failed to fully translate all the content. There were a couple new words in
the lesson that the student did not know, and she did not know what they were in her home
language either so explaining it was a struggle for me. I met with this student later in the day
to go over the content of the lesson and she understood once she say pictures, after brief
one-on-one instruction, she was able to meet the objective.

#3 Findings from Data Analysis: After looking across/analyzing all of the data collected and
actions taken, what learning statements/claims might you make (minimum of 3 statements)?
For each learning statement, describe the data or evidence that you used to develop that
claim, including proper citations if literature/course connections served as evidence.

A Lack of Initial Engagement Leads to Overall Decreased Engagement

As made evident by my wondering, a main focus of mine is meaningful student engagement.
A lack of engagement during science in this classroom was what initially inspired me to direct
my inquiry work in this direction. I tracked engagement during my lessons by putting a tally
next to a student’s name if I felt they were not engaged or if I had to provide a redirect or
intervention that directly related to their engagement in the lesson or activity. My goal was to
have the overall tallies decrease over time as I implemented my strategies, translating to an
increase in overall engagement.
Due to my initial observations and goals of my inquiry work, I felt it was appropriate
to formally observe a standard science lesson in the classroom and use the engagement, or
rather disengagement, tracking system I used during my lessons to be able to compare my final
findings. I initially used Is and Xs to mark when a student was not engaged and when they
were unsuccessfully redirected. As shown in my initial data collection of standard engagement
levels during science in Appendix A, there were a total of 39 instances of disengagement
among the class (I did not count Xs because I felt some of the redirections were not specific or
relevant to engagement). For context, Appendix B is a photo of field notes I took on the same
day after the lesson was over detailing some of the examples of disengagement I observed. It
was during this reflection that I realized the redirections I recorded were not always for the
purpose of engagement.
During each lesson I implemented using my chosen strategies, I used this tool to
quickly track whole group and individual engagement. As previously mentioned, I adopted the
5 Es framework from Ansberry and Morgan (2007) into my lesson planning for my inquiry
work. For the first lesson I implemented with these strategies, I wanted to start off with some
review of content so students would be able to successfully and meaningfully complete their
activities. I planned to briefly review two pages from their textbook so we could read about
their vocabulary words in context and then move on to the lesson and activity. This lesson had
more instances of disengagement of all my lessons implemented, in the first 10 minutes
(Appendix C). The review was meant to take about 3-5 minutes and it ended up taking us 8
minutes because students were very disengaged and I did not feel they would be able to
successfully complete the activity without the review. After this, it was very difficult to get the
whole class to remain engaged long enough to deliver clear instructions. Once students began
their activity, engagement improved, but there were still more instances of disengagement in
the overall lesson than the other lessons I implemented.
After implementing my other lessons, observing more lessons by my CT, and taking
some time to reflect, I realized that when lessons are not initially engaging to students, it leads
to decreased engagement for the overall lesson. All of my other lessons began with a read
aloud as an engagement technique and students were excited to participate in the science
lesson and learn more about the topic after that. My first lesson began with the structure and
dynamic that students are used to and generally disengaged with: textbook work at their
desks.
For these reasons, I came to the ratiocination that implementing initially engaging
lessons leads to overall increased engagement throughout the lesson. In other words, starting
the lesson in an exciting and interesting way helps students remain engaged in the learning
process. Appendix D provides a screenshot of the spreadsheet I completed after my inquiry
work compiling all of my engagement tracking sheets over time. For readability, rather than
showing tallies, I put a number next to each student’s name to count each instance of
disengagement. Appendix E shows the overall data including the lesson I observed to collect
my initial engagement data to see the change from each lesson.
Increased Engagement Leads to Increased Student Achievement
As previously discussed, my initial observations of a lack of engagement are what led
me to my current wondering. After I decided to pursue this wondering, I began by collecting
some initial data to capture a greater picture of science in this classroom. I was given the
opportunity of grading the first science unit tests, which solidified my dedication to this
wondering. After grading the first unit test, I realized there were only 5 students out of 17 in
the classroom that passed. This led me to adjust my wondering to add a focus on student
achievement. I formed a bit of a hypothesis: If I increase student engagement, overall student
achievement will increase correspondingly.
To begin my work, I considered my literature and found “When teachers focus on
supporting students’ autonomous motives (e.g., interests, needs, preferences, personal goals) to
guide their learning and activity, these instructional acts support students’ engagement” (Jang
& Reeve, 2010, p.588). Using the information provided by Jang and Reeve (2010), I decided
to focus on supporting students’ autonomous motives. I began each day by making sure each
of my students had their basic physical and emotional needs met to set the tone for a positive
day and help develop overall positive relationships with my students. Moving forward, I
designed each of my lessons with student interests and learning preferences in mind after
consulting my classroom assets profile (Appendix F) and class interest inventory (Appendix
G).
 Through observation over time, I found that there were trends of strong engagement
from the whole group during collaborative activities and read-alouds. This observation led me
to the selection of my other two strategies: read aloud for science and O-W-L Charts for
reading comprehension. Ansberry and Morgan (2009) state the following in relation to
implementing read-alouds in science:
More often than other books, fiction and nonfiction picture books stimulate students on
both the emotional and intellectual levels. They are appealing and memorable because
children readily connect with the imaginative illustrations, vivid photographs,
experiences and adventures of characters, engaging storylines, the fascinating
information that supports them in their quest for knowledge and the warm emotions
that surround the reading experience (p.1)
This description led me to realize the benefits of doing a read aloud with a picture book
focusing on the same content rather than having students read from their textbooks. I wanted
to give students opportunities to personally connect to the content and think about how it can
be relevant to them and the read-alouds provided those opportunities. The read aloud for
science strategy served as an initial engagement strategy that also focused on student interests
and learning preferences. Students were much more engaged when seated at the carpet for the
read aloud than when they were at their desks being read a passage from their science
textbook.
The O-W-L Chart reading comprehension strategy provided a second opportunity in
the lesson for student interest and learning preference of collaboration to be focused on. For
each lesson that included an O-W-L chart, I planned the type of “wonderings” that would need
to be posed for us to answer in the “learnings” section of the chart to meet the objectives of the
lesson and increase student achievement. In addition to being meticulous about the wonderings
that needed to be added to the anchor chart, I also added wonderings that were brought up by
students and answered them during our lesson, so students were able to feel a sense of
ownership over the lesson. If a student suggested a wondering that I knew was not going to be
covered in the lesson, I would tell them, “I love that wondering but unfortunately we will not
get to talk about that today in science so let’s talk about it right now briefly.” I would then
provide a succinct explanation for the student and thank them for sharing their amazing
wondering with us so they did not feel like their wondering was being rejected.
The lessons in which I implemented the O-W-L Charts showed overall increased
engagement (Appendix D and Appendix E) as well as a higher percentage of the class meeting
the objective of the lesson (Appendix H). When students were more engaged in the lesson,
they had more opportunity to develop deep conceptual understandings of the topic and meet
the learning objectives. Overall, the increased engagement led to more students meeting
individual lesson objectives and higher performances on science unit tests, with 12 out of 16
students earning passing scores.
O-W-L Charts Help Build Conceptual Understanding in Science
During my initial data collection, I considered the students’ reading levels and how that
may impact their understanding of the content they read in science (Appendix I). With one of
my main engagement strategies being the implementation of a read aloud, I consulted
Ansberry and Morgan (2009) and found the O-W-L reading comprehension strategy. I felt this
strategy best fit the needs of my learners and the content we would be covering. O-W-L charts
consist of 3 sections: observations, wonderings, and learnings. After finding developmentally
appropriate picture books that meaningfully and clearly connected to our science topic, I
would implement a read aloud with the class. After the read aloud and a brief discussion of the
science topic, I ask students to share what they observed from the read aloud in relation to the
science topic and transcribe student contributions. I would then explain a little more about the
science lesson (tell students we are learning about animal needs or the sun and moon) and ask
students to share some wonderings they had about the topic. As previously mentioned, I
immediately addressed any student contributions to the “Wonderings” column that would not
be answered later in the lesson.
Later on, after completion of an activity related to the content of the science lesson, we
would revisit the O-W-L chart as a class and answer our wonderings in the “Learnings”
column. Overall, there was a higher percentage of students that met the lesson objectives when
O-W-L charts were implemented (Appendix J). Students also had higher unit test scores after
O-W-L charts were implemented, with 12 out of 16 students earning passing scores. A sample
O-W-L chart is provided in Appendix J and student work from that day is provided in
Appendix K.

#4 Conclusion/Final Reflection: Reflect upon your inquiry work as a whole. Thoroughly

address the following questions -
 What did you learn about yourself as a teacher?
I was able to identify the types of relationships I would like to develop with the
students in my classroom. I learned that I value extensive planning (especially now as I
am still learning) but I am able to modify lessons on the spot for student learning. I
learned that I need a positive classroom environment just as much as my students do.
I have always strived to create a classroom community, but in this internship, I was
able to see first-hand how much of a difference can be made in engagement and
achievement by creating strong positive relationships with students.

 What were the most powerful adjustments you made during the planning process?
What do you believe would be the most beneficial changes you could make next to
improve student learning?
The most powerful adjustments I made were the changes in my interactions with my
students. I had been influenced by a lot of negative thinking towards students at the
beginning of my internship, but I was able to change that and regain my growth-based
mindset. I thought about my individual students and the kind of behavioral
management they would benefit from. I thought of how each student would like to be
interacted with, and what I felt they may be missing from their instruction. I then
used the data I had about my students to plan for their success. I saw extreme
improvements in engagement and behavior from my first lesson to my last lesson and
I believe it is due to the relationships I built with students and how I interacted with
them.

 What have you learned about using data as a part of your teaching? What did you
learn by evaluating data with your teaching peers (CT, cohort, resource teachers?)
I was able to see how beneficial it is to use data in planning. Data allows us to better
fit our lessons to our students’ needs. The process helped me learn how to collect,
 analyze, and interpret data for future implications for my students. Evaluating my
data with my peers allowed me to see some patterns I was not able to notice on my
own. From collaboration with peers, I was able to gain data collection strategies,
organizational strategies, and help with my interpretations.

 What new wonderings do you have?

In what ways can I create a positive classroom environment in which each of my
students feels welcomed and valued?
In what ways can I continue to integrate subject matter effectively?
In what ways can I promote positive relationships among students in my classroom?
In what ways can I promote engagement throughout all subjects?
 References
Ansberry, K. R., & Morgan, E. R. (2007). More Picture-perfect Science Lessons: Using Children's Books

to Guide Inquiry, K-4. NSTA Press.

Benjamin, A. (2003). Differentiated Instruction: A Guide for Elementary School Teachers. Eye On

Education.

Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2019). The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research:

Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Through Practitioner Inquiry. SAGE Publications.

Developing Metacognition of 5- to 6-Year-Old Children: Evaluating the Effect of a Circling Curriculum

Based on Anji Play. (2022, September 19). NCBI. Retrieved October 15, 2023, from

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9517469/

Frisby, B. N., & Martin, M. M. (2010). Instructor-Student and Student-Student Rapport in the Classroom.

Communication Education, 59(2), 146-164. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520903564362

Jang, H., & Reeve, J. (2010). Engaging Students in Learning Activities: It is Not Autonomy Support or

Structure but Autonomy Support and Structure. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(3), 588-

600. USF LIBRARY. 10.1037/a0019682

Ornek, F., & Saleh, I. M. (Eds.). (2012). Contemporary Science Teaching Approaches: Promoting

Conceptual Understanding in Science. Information Age Pub.

Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
 Appendix E

(The graph above shows the decrease in instances in disengagement over time for each

individual student)

(The graph above shows the decrease in instances of disengagement for the whole class. Each

dot represents a lesson implemented with my chosen strategies in order of implementation.)

Appendix F
Appendix G
Appendix H
Appendix I
Appendix J
Appendix K