Making Sense of the Senseless

"If statistics are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers." - Edward Tufte


That quote by Tufte has been fueling my work the past couple of weeks.  Data collection has been many things, but it has seldom been boring.  This process has had its fair share of twists and turns.  This is the first time I have done such an in-depth research project and I did not know to anticipate many of the twists I have encountered.

I ended up with 18 students who completed the consent forms, differentiated instruction, and surveys for my study.  This number was down considerably from my original sample population but some students never returned completed consent forms, opted out, or just never completed the work.

My work on this project has been similar to that of Grimes & Warschauer (2008) where they examined how differentiated instruction impacted student learning.  In my study, students completed differentiated instruction using technology and I measured how their achievement changed via a pre and post-test.  One of the most interesting things I found while collecting data was just how many students did not complete any of the differentiated work on their own.  I was also interested in how their perceptions of differentiated instruction may shift by going through the process.  I measured this via student surveys.

I received the pre and post-tests back from the math department this week and am working with the math teachers to score them (they are not all computational and feature a few short answer questions, plus I am not a whiz with math!).  I will have the numbers crunched and analyzed in the next couple of days.

Grimes, D., & Warschauer, M. (2008). Learning with Laptops: A Multi-Method Case Study. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 38(3), 305–332. 

The Why Behind the What

Being on fall break this week has left my data collection on pause.  But it has given me time to reflect on how I have come up to this point in this process.

Settling on a topic for my research project was never a difficult decision.  It was more of a narrowing down in what is very important to me.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love all of my students in some way or another.  But I have always been drawn to the kids at each end of the scale, both high and low ability.  That is in part what motivated me to come back to school in the first place to get my second Masters degree: being better equipped to help kids on the far ends of the scale.

I decided to get my talented and gifted certification while completing my rank one designation.  I really enjoy working with gifted students in many ways.  They have their own unique types of challenges but I enjoy the challenge that they offer me and try to challenge and grow them in return.  I have been a co-sponsor for KYA and KUNA all six years I have taught.  I have been the Academic Team coach for all six years of teaching as well.  I enjoy working closely with the Odyssey of the Mind team and have coached and judged for them for several years as well.

Student achievement is something that is always on the forefront of every educator's mind.  It is a pertinent and omnipresent part of our profession.  So it was a natural fit for me to start out my initial drafts of my research question with gifted students and achievement in mind.  I did not want to choose my own classroom for my study.  My student rosters did not offer enough gifted population to pull from.  I wanted to get a little bit out of my comfort zone that my content provides.  After speaking with my advisor, I chose math.  With a few back and forth revisions I settled on the following research question:

How does differentiated learning impact gifted students' achievement in math?

As we come back to school after fall break, I continue to collect the consent forms and share the data from the students' surveys, pre-, and post-tests as I can.  This week sets up as a critical period to collect, organize, and begin to analyze data.

Crazy Little Thing Called Research

With all respect to Queen's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love", I was feeling like this with regards to research a couple of weeks ago:

This thing called research, I just can't handle it
This thing called research, I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Ooh ooh ooh ooh

That was the status quo until I completed my IRB form and got approval to begin research from the board.  I feel like I have a sense of direction and purpose since then.  

The purpose of my research question is to examine how differentiated learning impacts gifted students' achievement in math.  The study is mostly quantitative in nature.  I may add some anonymous qualitative observation notes from student observations later.

My research is live since being IRB approved.  My work is taking place at North Middle School in Smith County (both pseudonyms).  I am collaborating with the math department in my study.  This study is taking place between units.  They have just finished their rational numbers unit.  Students who achieved a 4, or mastery on the rational numbers summative test, were eligible for the study.  The math website Buzzmath was selected for the differentiated coursework on irrational numbers for these students.  Irrational numbers were chosen as an enrichment topic to challenge the gifted population.  We also developed a pre-test and post-test to measure how achievement was impacted by differentiated learning.  

I sent out informed consent forms to over 60 seventh-grade students who were identified gifted in math this week.  34 of those came back signed and then students were able to complete the differentiated learning disposition survey at that time.  Along with the pre-test and post-test, the survey results will round out my quantitative research data.  They began their work mid-week last week and are on fall break this week.  I will provide more updates on the actual data as they occur.

My study is set up to be a repeated measures t test at this point.  I plan to run data through StatCruch once I receive all three data sets from my student population.

Although this has been a crazy journey so far up to this point, I am starting to feel better about it with a definite direction and purpose now.