Data for Pilot

Today I entered in the data for the STUDENT CHOICE portion of my pilot. Right away I saw some interesting results. The average on-task score of the students was 13/20 minutes. Not bad, not bad. I had a large result for Talking (off-task) and Being Distracted by Others (off-task). Now we will have to see if my TEACHER CHOICE data shows any differences! So exciting. As you also know I will be collecting a fresh batch of data all of April in person because I found the video taping too difficult to work with. I can't WAIT to see if this effects my data or not.

Also I'm looking at some changes in my classroom for September. I'm thinking of taking the 8 trapezoid tables and splitting them so they can go around the outside of the room. I want to open up the middle of the room for a giant carpet area. The kids have requested Bean Bag chairs. Not too sure if I will give in to this request but I'm interested in trying it. I have had ball chairs before but storing them is a HUGE nightmare. I have a very small space! I am considering purchasing flip form risers to go around the carpet area and also for use when I have my projector up and running. I do want my projector mounted on the ceiling! That would solve so many space issues.

I was delighted that one of my parents has hooked me up on Twitter was some more fabulous thinkers!!! Teachers who are looking into changing their work space and experimenting. I can tell you it's been great. If you read back through my blog it will detail for you what has worked and what has not. Next year I go from 20 kids to 28...so my creative juices are flowing! I did have the kids draw me layouts because I told them, we have to fit 28 kids in here! How can we do that? And no I refuse to bring back desks. But I can tell you only 2 of my 20 even want desks back. They have tubs for storage (that I bought) and my ikea shelves are a dream!

I'm currently on Ed Leave as of tomorrow!! So I hope to be blogging more and getting more of my data completed.

You can find me on twitter at @sdaviss12

Problems with my Pilot

I've been working on my pilot project for my masters research and have realized something.

Video taping students and then trying to figure out what they are doing at their work station is almost IMPOSSIBLE. Although I have repositioned my cameras to take 2 tables only for 20 minutes and then switch to the other 2 tables this has not helped the problem.

I have also discovered that when children are off screen I can't tell whether it is on-task or off. So it messes up my data.

New plan: I'm going to go back into the classroom and record the data first hand so that I don't have to rely on video cameras. This will alter my research a little because now I will have another teacher in the room and myself watching students. Will this make them act differently? Perhaps however, they will react in that way through 8 viewings so this should not effect my data in the end.

To recap, I am studying if students who choose their work space stay more on-task than students who are told where to sit during work time.

I am also NOW on ed leave! So this will allow me to work full time on my masters.