To

understand how I could best support my 3rd grade students in becoming active participants and self advocates in peer discussions I needed to engage them in many different forms of data collection. Through the methods that I used I hoped to get a clear picture of the attitudes that surround certain discussion opportunities and the growth students experienced in their conversational skills. I began my data collection in the beginning of February, which was the start of my job share contract. It presented an interesting challenge to come into class midyear when so much of the classroom culture had already been established. I approached this by immediately diving into my action research and openly expressing to students my hopes for a classroom with equal participation. I stopped my formal data collection at the end of April, but the work of bringing equitable contribution will always be at the forefront of my practice.

Methods: Data Collection and Analysis

Surveys: I surveyed all of my 23 students in the beginning of my teaching assignment to provide me with valuable feedback on when students were more likely to participate by asking questions and engaging in student dialogue, and how I could help them to be successful by creating situations that would make my students more comfortable. I suspected that this might mean more partner work or small group opportunities, or maybe the students choosing their partners. (Appendix B) A few sample questions are: How comfortable do you feel speaking in front of the whole class during a discussion? What is your favorite way of having a discussion? Once the survey was taken, I entered the student responses into an excel spreadsheet based on their answers. Six of the seven questions were closed, with one open response. The open responses were categorized by themes that emerged. After entering student data, I created different graphs and tables to provide a visual representation of various trends that appeared among students participation (i.e. when they are more likely to ask questions, attitudes towards partner vs. small and large group discussions, etc.). This along with student interviews and classroom observation directly led my teaching. Student Observation: Observation was necessary to have concrete documentation of students self-advocacy (asking clarifying questions), amount of participation and characteristics of a strong discussion. To observe my students I used a variety of methods. Three times throughout my action research I used audio recorders for small group conversations, and video for whole group discussions. I compared various forms of group discussions with a focus on student eye contact, amount and type of questions being asked (either clarifying or probing questions), sharing the air by inviting someone into the discussion, stepping back by not interrupting, and allowing think time between remarks. I also tracked the gender and ethnicity of students who were contributing. To make this observation process more

manageable, I kept a closer look on focus students who caught my attention in my initial observations. These students represented my class make-up: one Hispanic boy, one Hispanic girl, one white boy and one white girl. For both the audio and video recordings I transcribed the conversations keeping close track of the trends and patterns shared with findings from the surveys and interviews. I formed a frequency table to record the findings of the various behaviors listed above. I then compared the two tables of small group and whole group conversations. I wanted to see if there was a trend of greater participation in small vs. whole group conversations. This was done on three different occasions and I paid close attention to speaking sequences amongst students, and exchanges between students and myself. Student Interviews: When conducting my research, interviews were extremely important to add a more elaborate, personal viewpoint of how students felt about listening, participating and asking questions in the classroom. I conducted oral interviews throughout my action research. I choose to interview students after observing various situations that left me still wondering, especially when they involved my focus students mentioned above. My interview questions focused on students feelings and experiences in small group, and whole group discussions and lasted no more than five to seven minutes. Interview questions pushed connections between my teaching strategies and the effectiveness of helping students become active participants. Some examples of my questions included: How do you think your participation was during our discussion? Why? What do you think about sitting in a circle during our class discussions? (Appendix A). This information provided me with qualitative data and student quotes that were used to strengthen my research with actual student narrative. I found myself interviewing my focus students often, but did not limit myself to those students. After interviewing students I tracked their attitudes, interpretations and definitions of various strategies, and conversational preferences. I listened and transcribed the tapes the weekend following the interview. I pulled student quotes that corresponded with both qualitative and quantitative data collected, looking for themes, trends and connections between students opinions towards listening, speaking and asking questions. I was looking for similarities and contrasts between students to better understand the emerging themes. Students as Collaborators: It was important for me to get students involved in the data collection process. I wanted them to be clear of our goals and purpose behind the research. After coming up with norms for classroom discussions, students individually monitored these through a simple chart. These norms included: eye contact, inviting someone in, asking clarifying and probing questions, and wait time (Appendix C). Students also monitored important group work behaviors through the role of an observer. The primary job of this person was to look for moments when

students explained something to another student or when everyone in a group was helping eachother. There was also an opportunity for students to record any specific behaviors and/ or actions that deserved celebration (Appendix D).