I plan on leveraging tech tools in my action research study. For one, students will be using technology themselves in their research portion of my study. As a method, though, I'm using google forms to administer a pre- and post- test of my student's content knowledge to see how well they comprehend the anchor texts we read as a class. I'm using this tool because it's an efficient way to sort responses from 89 students. Google forms will allow me to see quick summaries of student answers (in the form of a pie graph); it will also allow more in-depth viewing of each student's answer to each question. Since there are 10 questions in my pre- and post- tests, I'll have a grand total of 890 "data points" to review. Using a form will help me to do this in a way that is manageable and makes sense.
Data from the google forms pre- and post- tests will show students' understanding of our reading material before and after a close read. It will help sort out what students already knew, and what they learned solely from reading. I have already administered the pre- test, and a brief review revealed that my students knew very little about the content of the texts we're reading in our PBL unit. My tests are comprised of multiple choice, short answer, and true/false questions, so they should offer students a chance to show what they know both by identifying correct answers and by creating their own responses.
This relates to my driving question, "What is the impact of aligning PBL to Common Core standards?" because the reading material covered is CCSS-aligned for complexity, but given the treatment of being taught in the context of a PBL unit. When triangulated with observations and student work samples, it will help me know how a PBL treatment affects students reading comprehension of certain texts.
Data from the google forms pre- and post- tests will show students' understanding of our reading material before and after a close read. It will help sort out what students already knew, and what they learned solely from reading. I have already administered the pre- test, and a brief review revealed that my students knew very little about the content of the texts we're reading in our PBL unit. My tests are comprised of multiple choice, short answer, and true/false questions, so they should offer students a chance to show what they know both by identifying correct answers and by creating their own responses.
This relates to my driving question, "What is the impact of aligning PBL to Common Core standards?" because the reading material covered is CCSS-aligned for complexity, but given the treatment of being taught in the context of a PBL unit. When triangulated with observations and student work samples, it will help me know how a PBL treatment affects students reading comprehension of certain texts.