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Action Research Plan

This project uses the participatory action research method in which I both act as participant and seek to learn from the outcomes. The method seems well-suited to research in the middle school classroom environment and, in particular, to research in the classrooms at Island Pacific School. The students there are often asked for their input on school matters and are comfortable and frank in giving their feedback and opinions.

Purpose

The purpose of my action research plan is to improve the quality of discussion among middle school students. I want to see if I create opportunities for my students to engage in reflective discourse on conversations captured or recorded by emerging web 2.0 technologies, in what ways, if any, will those opportunities help them develop the capacity for meaningful conversation or critical discourse?

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Situation

Middle school students wander off-topic easily and take a long time to move beyond superficial matters in any sort of dialogue.

Cycle 1

Research Question 1

If I create opportunities for my students to engage in reflective discourse on conversations captured or recorded by Instant Messaging, in what ways, if any, will those opportunities help them develop an awareness of their influence on the flow of a conversation.

This cycle will be conducted with a group of 14 grade 8 students who will discuss a specific question about a text they are reading in the normal course of their studies in a 15-minute online session using Google Chat. The students will then be asked to read a transcript of the discussion and to analyze it for a.) student participation and b.) on- and off-topic comments.

I expect to some initial resistance to the exercise. These students have participated in online discussions before and have found them frustrating because their conversations have been undisciplined, to paraphrase a couple students. However, they have never been asked to review what they said online. I expect that when I ask them to do this, they will begin to see that they have some influence over the quality of the online experience. Evidence one way or the other will come in the form of a short writing assignment in which I will ask the students to reflect on how their contributions, whatever they were, shaped the conversation.

The exercise will be repeated with a new question on a new text. If the first round was successful in making students more aware of the effect of their contributions, we should see an improvement in ratio of on- to off-topic comments.

Research Question 2

If I create opportunities for my students to engage in reflective discourse on conversations captured or recorded in a blog or wiki, in what ways, if any, will those opportunities help them develop an awareness of their influence on the content of a conversation?

This cycle will be conducted with the same group of students. This time they will be asked to contribute comments to a blog or wiki set up to explore a more complex question relating a text they are reading in the normal course of their studies. The blogging or wiki editing will take place over a week.
Blog or wiki dialogues take place asynchronously. Studies suggest that this sort of communication, as opposed to the synchronous dialogue in an online chat, increases a person’s ability to process information (Hratinksy) and that should give the students richer data for analysis. They’ll be asked to examine the comments for three types of contributions: a.) task-related, such as assignment dates, b.) content-related and c.) social-support related, such kudos for well-written comments or words of encouragement. The students will also again be asked to evaluate their own contributions.

The exercise will be repeated with a new question on a new text. If the first round was successful in making students more aware of their influence on the quality of conversation, we should see an increase in the proportion of content-related comments.

Research Question 3

If I create opportunities for my students to engage in reflective discourse on conversations captured or recorded in a blog or wiki, in what ways, if any, will those opportunities help them develop an awareness of their influence on the quality of a conversation?

This repeats the experiment in Research Question 2, but instead of analyzing blog or wiki comments from types of contributions, we will make an analysis of the quality of a conversation by looking through content-related comments for evidence of higher level thinking. This will be measured by counting verbs and question stems associated with the various levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.

Cycle 2

Research Question 4

Can the lessons learned working with grade 8 students be transferred to other grades in the school? What, if any, accommodations must be made for developmental differences in students of different ages?

In this cycle, research questions one, two and three will be repeated with grades 6, 7 and 9 students at Island Pacific School.
However, should a different question of direction of study arise from Cycle One, it will be pursued instead or as well.