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...