ONE TIP Finding

When I began planning this TIP, I believed that the most telling piece of data that would answer the question of whether podcasting actually improved students oral reading ability was the one minute oral reading assessments administered at the beginning of the TIP and at the end. The one minute tests assessed students in the following ways;

• Fluency-Automaticity (words correct per minute)
• and a Multidimensional Fluency Scale that gave a grade based on a rubric that combined the following Expression/volume, Phrasing and intonation, Smoothness, and pace.

I believed that what I should see is that students would read more words per minute at the end of the TIP because they created 4 podcasts that they had created should have provided them with oral reading practice that should've boosted their scores on the second test. The results were not what I anticipated. WCPM on their first test was 160 on average. That average went DOWN on the second test, to 153. The obvious conclusion is that podcasting actually makes kids dumber, as evidenced by the decline in the wpm scores ;-). However, that doesn't tell the whole story. The scores on the multidimensional fluency scale went up from an average of 10.1 out of 16 to 11.1. That represents almost a 10% increase, versus a 4 % decline on the wpm scores. What do I conclude? I think that the students raced through the first test at the expense of using proper expression, phrasing etc..., and that after making podcasts they realized that there's more to reading fluency than reading quickly and as a result they read slower, but with more emphasis on the other aspects of reading fluency.

I do have some other conclusions based on student surveys and my own evaluation of the podcasts themselves. Perhaps tomorrow I'll post those. But right now, my brain is tired after a long week of work. (it's Wed. the start of my weekend...)

Data Reflection Assignment

Analysis of Data Reflection

The main question of my TIP was, “how does podcasting affect student performance in reading fluency?” The following is my response to that question based on the data that I’ve collected. The main data that I’m basing this response on is student achievement on their one minute oral reading test scores and the overall performance change from the first podcast to the second.

The ‘cwpm’ test results seem to suggest two things, both of which seem to support the conclusion that podcasting positively impacted student’s oral reading ability. The first finding that I came across is that the majority of students ‘correct words per minute’ scores improved on the 2nd test. Some students, however, did not improve their ‘correct words per minute’,and in fact their totals dropped. The positive thing that I noticed in almost all these cases is that their scores for expression, smoothness, phrasing, intonation and pace all increased, even though the amount of words read in one minute decreased. This leads me to think that students slowed their reading down some for the sake of increasing their expression, pacing, intonation and phrasing. Perhaps the first time through the test they raced a little at the expense of these other oral reading attributes, and the 2nd test is a truer indication of their best oral reading performance.

However, to muddy the waters further, the students whose cwpm scores went down are nearly all in grade eight. The younger students, who tended to have weaker oral reading skills as a whole, made consistent improvements in their cwpm scores. I personally think that they had more room to grow, wheras the gr. 8’s were closer to a maximum word per minute rate during the first test. I mean, there’s got to be a ceiling for the amount of words even the most stellar oral reader can effectively read in one minute.

After having graded their 2nd podcast, I can definitely say that there was a distinct improvement in the quality of their oral reading from their first effort.

Overview of Data Sources

I just wanted to take a moment and list the various types of data that I've collected, basically so that I can organize and assess what to focus in on.

1. Correct Word per Minute Scores

• I've got 2 test results. One was done at the beginning of the semester - January, and the 2nd was done at the end of the TIP - Early March. What do I expect to see? Probably not much. The point of taking the tests was to see if student reading fluency, in this case, automaticity, improved over the period that they focused on making their podcasts. I think that there will not be a significant improvement because, A - the time period was too short = 9 weeks. B - the 2nd reading segment was a different one, and was slightly harder in my opinion. I think this kind of sacks the validity of this as an indicator of whether they improved. I mean, technically, the passage was a form intended for their age group, but, who's to say it was equal in difficulty? Does this matter? Oh well, it is what it is, and I'll try to make some observations from the results.
• they also were assessed on 4 areas of fluency. I basically gave a quick response, based on a rubric after each student finished their test. Very subjective data. I'm not sure how useful that will be.

2. Student reaction servey results

• I focused the questions on their feelings about reading aloud, having their podcasts made public and the affect on motivation, their feelings about pcasting, and whether they felt that their oral reading improved in their opinion. Now, I realize that this is also very subjective, imperfect data. I think I'll be able to make some reasonable conclusions based on what I've found.

3. The Podcasts Themselves

• I just realized that the podcasts themselves are data and can provide insight into whether their oral reading improved. Wonder why that never hit me before? duh!

Conclusions? I need to sit down and analyse the data this week.

Podcasts Wrapped Up

The final podcast due date has come and gone, and of the 2 that I've listened to, I'd have to say that there's been quite an improvement over the first one. That's encouraging. Except, that is, for one of my new students. He's still trying to finish his 1st one...3 weeks after the due date. Not good. It doesn't help that his reading grade level is 1.5, and he's in gr. 6. Ouch.

Survey of Kid's Podcasting Reactions

Last time I mentioned that the whole individual podcasting project had gone quite smoothly, considering we were working with technology. It seems that I had spoken too soon! The next day I was flooded with reports of tech hiccups. My sage advice was....any guesses??? "Ummm, sometimes Audacity behaves strangely....it's not my fault it's an open source, free program....do what I do when it's acting up....RESTART your computer and try again." Funny thing is, it seemed to do the trick, because everyone seemed good to go after that! Well, there are 2 students having trouble giving me a working copy, but that's getting worked out too.

So, my kids are currently working on their 2nd, and final individual podcast. It's due next week, and I've graded their first projects already - record turn around time, for me, to be sure!!! Anyway, here are my reflections...

• I quickly realized that my rubric needed tweaking. Isn't that ALWAYS the case with rubrics? The next rubric will break down the oral reading skills into different categories so that the project grade puts more emphasis on their oral reading. It will also be more specific in regards to music and production value.
• kids are kids. Some of them did not include the most important part of the pcast - the oral reading segment from their book. Others put too much emphasis on the song they imported - yeah, cause I'm grading them on whether Eminem's song is good or not.
• I could tell that some kids practiced a lot. YES!! Isn't that the whole point of this? It was hard to dock grades from kids who I know worked hard on practicing and yet, still had errors/flaws.
• survey results are quite revealing and useful. I'll try and reflect on them in my next post. If you want to see the questions I posed, you can go to the surveys at www.greatreading.wordpress.com -you should also have access to the latest pcasts there too.

Well, that's all for now. I've got kids coming into class...

Student Reflections on their First Individual Podcast

My students have completed their first individual podcasts and will be handing them in over the next couple of days. I had a chance to ask them how it went during todays class. What follows is an overview of what they shared.

• - when asked how long it took them, most of them said about 2-4 hours. One gr. 6 boy said 20 minutes...I'm thinking that it'll show.


• - when asked what took the longest, they said that practising what to say and recording quality speaking/reading took the most time. Ka-CHING. That's exactly what I hoped the answer would be. From what I've been reading, fluency improves through practice reading aloud, and through performance reading. So that's encouraging.


• tech related problems seem to be minimal, and kids are game to solve the problems they are running into. I'm so encouraged by their willingness to do this at home. All I basically had to do was train them during one week of class time, then give them the due date for their first individual project , and Voila! great kids. just great.


• So funny listening to kids share how they holed up in their rooms and kicked their parents out of the house so that they could record in peace. They're soooo shy! I have to laugh. I asked them if they shared their projects with their parents. NOOO WWayyyy! I found that funny. I mean, I'd be so interested in what my kid was doing for school projects, especially if it was a little unique.
  

That basically sums up what they shared today in class. Here are some other things rumbling in my mind.

• I'm requiring them to include music in their intro/outro. But, I am not stipulating that it needs to be royalty free. Basically, I figure 50cent won't care one jot if some kid in Saudi Arabia is using 10 seconds of one song to do some school assignment. Is this bad??? Not that I care a whole lot. to be frank. But, maybe I'm just not well informed on the issue.


• I want to survey the kids and get some more data on how they are feeling about podcasting and whether they feel they're improving their oral fluency. But, I'm not sure what to ask, and how to formulate the questions/answers. I guess I should get that data collected this week. Kind of a halfway checkpoint. Any suggestions??


• as for data, does anyone else feel like their collecting a jumble of data that they can hopefully distill into something meaningfull when the time comes??? I guess I'd rather err on the side of having more than enough data and chopping some. Then again, a 6 page paper doesn't allow for a whole heap of data to be analysed and reported on. (hallelujah)

That's about all for now. In case you were wondering, I do not have the podcasts on itunes. I'm just uploading them to a general "Great Reading" blog, courtesy of Wordpress. Here's the address if you're at all curious. http://www.greatreading.wordpress.com/

tata.

New Week, New Reflections

This post will be a short reflection on what has been accomplished so far, and what I need to think about for the next week.

Students spent last week working in groups in the lab on their first blog. Today's the day that the first section hands in their first podcast. That means that individuals will begin working on their own projects at home. The first individual pcast is due next Saturday.

As for data collection, I'm considering putting together another survey to gather their opinions about podcasting. I'm not sure what exactly I'll ask on it. I think I'd like to find out if they enjoy pcasting, and if they feel it's positively impacting their oral reading. I wonder if they see a connection between the activity and its purpose.

As it is now, the TIP is underway and I basically have the next 2 weeks to watch and see how it develops.

Oh yeah, last week I took some video footage of the kids working in the lab. It should provide the visuals for the MM presentation. I plan on creating an audio track that plays over the video that combines my voice with snippets from their podcasts. The theme of my MM presentation is "change", or "progress", or "growth" or something like that , and hopefully I'll be able to show how student's oral reading ability improved over the course of the study. I think it should come together nicely.

Smooth Sailing...with tech? Not likely!

I'm sure glad that I'm implementing my TIP in an elective subject because the pressure to fulfill a set curriculum is non existent and that's good, considering that my podcast creation schedule is bogging down. Oh well, I think I will still be able to have students create 3 total podcasts over the span of this TIP.

So far things have been going pretty well. I've collected the following data;

• Words Correct Per Minute score
• An initial score that rates their expression, pacing, volume, and clarity
• Survey results that focused on their feelings and attitudes regarding reading aloud
• my own reflections in this blog
• video footage of my kids recording their podcasts - some pretty good footage, I think!

After having worked with 2 classes of middle schoolers, here's what I'm noticing;

• the gr. 8 students are better at using the technology, but are more adept at reading and don't benefit as much from the practice of oral reading
• When working in groups in school, some kids are reluctant to read with apropriate volume and expression. Others have no problem with it.
• I don't see the required effort on the kids part to really strive to produce a flawless oral reading performance. I think their just happy to get their track recorded, regardless of whether they've made some mistakes.
• I think that I'll get better results when they do their individual projects next week, because they'll be doing the recording at home, away from the pressure of their peers. They'll also have only one thing to focus on and I think they'll hear the areas that need fixing more easily.
• I feel that I'll need to hammer home to kids that the major focus of my assessment is on their oral reading ability.
• I'm wondering if I should allow them to mess with the pitch of their voice, or will that hamper my assessment of their fluency? I think it won't, so I'll let them, besides, why should I be a killjoy?
• My kids were mortified that I posted their podcasts on our class wordpress site. Interestingly, the gr. 6's were less concerned - I guess they are less self conscious because puberty hasn't hit yet.
• I think my early take on whether podcasting improves oral reading fluency is that traditional, non-techy approaches are probably more effective. But maybe that's my old school bias coming out...and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts!

Initial Tests Done and My Reaction So Far

The first class of the 2nd semester is over and step one of my TIP is complete. Gathering data on their initial reading fluency scores. I conducted 1 minute oral reading assessments that assessed their words correct per minute, and their ability to use proper expression, volume, pacing, and phrasing.

My initial reaction? Well, I have a feeling that this reading fluency focus would be better with a younger group of students. Despite the fact that almost all my students are not native English speakers, their scores tended to be quite good. This leads me to think that there's just not going to be much room to grow with this group. Y'know, part of me was hoping to have some major breakthrough with tremendously needy and weak readers. Well, dang it, it turns out they can read just fine without me, thank you very much!

Oh well, the flipside is that these gr. 8 students will have the maturity to make some pretty sweet podcasts!

Here's an image that captures my facial expression at the end

of a workweek.

(actually, it's Jakob. On his first glass bottomed boat ride)

Rough Plan for TIP Implementation

Tommorrow is it. The day that I begin my TIP with my the new students in my Reading Class. I thought, that since this my reflection journal, it would be appropriate to walk through some of the things I need to do in the first week and a half of this course to ensure that my TIP takes off.

1.) Assess Student Initial Reading Fluency

• I will conduct individual, grade specific, 1 minute oral reading assessments. These 1 minute tests will provide me with the following data - the percentage of words correct that they read - the number of correct words per minute that they read - and I will score them on expression and phrasing using a rubric. These are 3 different sources of data that I'll be collecting from one simple 1 minute test. These tests will occur 3 times in the five week block. Personally, I think 3 times is overdoing it, so maybe I'll cut it to 2. Ideally this should be done over a longer period than 5 weeks, but, that's what I've got.

2.) Podcast Instruction

• I hope to introduce my middle schoolers to podcasting in a step by step way. The first thing I'll do is play a few, including one that I created in year 2.
• Then I'll give them a chance to create a class product together in which each of them will have a scripted line. All of this will be done while the LCD projector is on and kids can see how Audacity works. I hope that this gets kids over the fear of the mic. and hearing their own voice, as well as showing them that they don't need to be intimidated by the technology because it really is simple to use.
• After that lesson, we'll head to the computer lab and get them to create a podcast as a group. This podcast will require them to read orally from the stories they are reading so that they are practicing reading orally with the hope that it impacts their reading fluency. i don't think I'll require a script...but we'll see. More of a storyboard would be better, I think.
• Once they've done a class collaboration, and a group podcast, they'll be required to make one on their own. Actually, they'll make 2 over the span of the next 4 weeks.

3.) Data Collection

• I had initially thought that I'd collect data about student attitudes towards oral reading and creating podcasts. I thought this would be important in order to "triangulate" data - as I understand triangulating data.... Thoughts??? How much and what type of data should I be concerning myself with???

Well, that's my vision for now. There's more to it, but that'll take me through the next 14 days at least.

Gentlemen....Start Your Engines

It's Thursday here in the Magic Kingdom, and I'm halfway through my weekend. Yes, you may not know it, but our weekends here are Thursday and Friday. So the weekly schedule that our course is based on doesn't quite align with our work week here. In any case, this Sunday will mark the beginning of my TIP implementation. It's the first day of 2nd semester, and I'll be starting my "Podcasting and it's Impact on Reading Fluency" TIP with a fresh batch of students who have signed up for my Reading elective.

Here's me doing my best Ricky Bobby as I rev my engines and get set for the checkered flag...