At long last, my rough draft of the final research project is ready! I would very much appreciate any feedback that peers have to offer! Click to see the paper. :)
Lisa,
I would be happy to view your paper and provide you with feedback. I will add APA and opinion together in the feedback. I hope this is ok. I am no APA expert. I always suggest using the dreaded blue book, the quick reference sheets from the LRC, and OWL as an authority on the guidelines.
Title pg
Not sure about needing the comma on the title pg between Alaska and Southeast. I do not use one between Alaska and Anchorage.
Pg 2
Abstract, no indent 150-250 words include all acronyms used in the paper (Purdue Owl)
This study sounds like a fantastic way to engage your beginning readers and teach active reading how neat!
I imagine the Introduction is on pg 3 just ended up on 2 with the addition into the blog?
The reading station process sounds busy. I imagine a bit stressful at times but is necessary to maximize the learning time.
What about leaning on the children that are more advanced in their reading to help the others that are catching up, grouping them together this way. I know it doesn’t seem fair to the advancing students but may reduce the workload for you and help the children teaching the others learn too.
I like the mini lessons idea, good plan to keep the students working and on task.
In the sentence on pg 6 that starts…She concludes, that used in tandem, these…(should there be commas here, maybe?
Your pre and pst assessment chart is well laid out and easy to read…love it…even though I am tired I could easily understand it the change category with the + signs made it super simple to comprehend major improvements for the most part, that is exciting! Student #2 must be a true creature of habit!
Pg 9 Observation 2nd paragraph, 89% instead of 89 percent
NICE COLOR CODED BAR GRAPH LOVE IT
Effective learning tool scores 89% on task is great!
I enjoyed reading the comments. Youngsters demonstrating talent The comments actually apply to us adults…too funny, especially this one, “Helping people (write) makes me a better writer.” How sweet.
Pg 13 Interval Time Sampling
Use % signs after 88 and 70 Note: APA 6th manual pgs 111 & 112 for this rule
Pg 15 Should Based on my research, I think the answer is yes be ‘yes’ a qualified ‘yes’ (do not know for sure, just wondering) Sorry
Pg 17 instead of using It’s maybe better to use It has or The experience has if you would like to use a word other than It. I am taking a class currently where we are not allowed to begin sentences with the word, “It” is why I said something
Awesome Job!
Sorry I am so tired to not give a more exciting feedback than I normally would if I read this in the morning. It is late for me and I am tired but have to work on another paper in the morning so I didn’t want to keep you waiting.
I hope this feedback is of use to you. Your writing is very good and in little need of editing,
Carrollea
Thanks so much Carrollea. Your comments are so very helpful. I'm looking forward to making some of the changes you suggested. I'm really wanting to turn this baby in and be done! Thanks again.
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Tracie Weisz
11/10/2013 08:23:10 am
Lisa - your research is really interesting and impressive. I think this is a question many teachers struggle with in the elementary grades - how to utilize the effectiveness of one to one or small group instruction and have the other children doing more than just busy work, yet keeping them on task so that you can get your work done. My only (tiny) criticism is that I keep on coming back to your research question. It struck me when I first started reading the paper, and each time you came back to it, I thought about it again. I think your question as it stands, "What do I do with my class during reading groups?", led me to believe that you would be trying out a variety of strategies, and then settling on one. So initially I was a little confused when you honed in immediately on The Daily Five. It then became clear that you would be trying out this one particular strategy (well, five really) with your class to determine if this would be a good way to manage your reading groups and still accomplish your primary goal of being able to give students that valuable individual time. I think this is great, but I think that your question is really more about whether The Daily Five is an effective learning strategy that meets your goals, and the needs of your students during reading time, while still upholding the learning criteria that you value most. Do you see what I mean? I think your question as it stands is kind of wide open, but really your research is much more focused than that. My guess is that when you originally started thinking about this that may have been your question, but really you were already doing some research long before you started this project. You read a lot, and decided that The Daily Five was one you were really willing to give some time to test out.
This is really interesting, because The Daily Five isn't really a "program", but a series of clear strategies around practices that are proven to improve reading, as well as build independent behaviors. That means a teacher can be pretty flexible with it, and can adapt it to fit whatever reading program they are working with. I think it's a great solution to your problem!
Thanks so much for reading my paper and giving me your thoughts. You were right on target with your thoughts on what led me to my choice. I really struggled with the very question you were asking. I would love to do a study really comparing the outcomes of different approaches but I felt like it far exceeded what I could do in this amount of time. Another limitation I found was that virtually all the literature supporting the Daily Five, was found in connection with the website of the authors themselves. I didn't want to do a literature review that read like a listing of advertisements. I was a little frustrated by this. I guess the thing to do might be to change my basic question in the paper. I will be thinking a lot more about this.
Thanks again! I really appreciate your feedback. Lisa
I really enjoyed reading your paper. This was a wonderful study and I am happy to hear how well it turned out for you and your students. I agree with Tracie, I think your research question is about The Daily Five and supported by other published work. I think you did a great just of "painting a picture" of the problem you were having during reading. I felt like I was looking in at your class as you were describing the scene.
A few things I would suggest going back and taking another look at: APA in text citations (this is frustrating to learn at first but once you figure it out it'll take no time at all), your abstract should be on its own page with no indent for the paragraph, I personally do not think you need to write your research question before you start your introduction because you already have it in there, you go back and fourth a little when writing 1st grade or first grade (I would personally go with first grade but I don't think it matters as long as you are consistent-this is the same for italicizing The Daily Five or not, and percent vs %), I would spell out didn't, isn't, it's, etc. I was told to always spell out each word in a professional paper, I would also take out the first sentence in the literature review section I don't think you need it, I read "did an interesting study entitled" in that section as well and I think you meant "titled," this section is really strong in your paper but you forgot to put in your theoretical framework-what you believe you have found/what you think you are going to prove. It drops off at the end without telling the reader why. I would also reconsider the one sentence paragraphs and putting your charts and graphs in an appendix instead of the body of the paper. Remember the paper is suppose to be qualitative not quantitative. Most of these are small nit picky things, nothing really major aside from the APA and theoretical framework.
It's very hard to give feedback when the paper is imbedded the way it is. If I could make changes on the paper and sent it back to you that would probably serve you better. Either way I think your paper is coming along nicely. Great work!
Thanks for your feedback, Jamie. I'm sorry it was so hard with it just on the website. You went the extra mile to give me so many good details.
I'm a little foggy on theoretical framework still. Thank you for bringing it up. Honestly, I didn't even know it was needed. I'm learning a lot through the fixing process. Thanks, again.
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