Inquiry 2015
It doesn’t go unrecognized that the teaching profession has one of the highest turnover rates amongst new teachers. One also doesn’t have to be told that the job of an educator is one that is both demanding and under-appreciated. There are many known factors that contribute to the feelings of burnout and fatigue in teaching.These feelings are more commonly thought of and spoken of amongst in-service teachers, however, contrary to popular belief, pre-service teachers are highly susceptible to the same burnout effects during their internship. Fimian and Blanton said it best, “Student teachers are in a precarious position in that their knowledge of pedagogy and child development is still naive, and they are asked to work in ambiguous situations that require them to be both ‘‘student’’ and ‘‘teacher’’ (Fimian & Blanton, 1987).” Student teachers commonly experience and cope with self imposed high expectations, a heightened desire to achieve a sense of positive self efficacy, stressful learning environments, and collaborating teacher relationships.
In the midst of the first semester as a final year residents, I became aware of a shift in attitude, motivation, and health due to the perceived pressures and expectations of our program. Though independently working to cope with these problems, I eventually realized this experience of “burnout” was not unique, but felt broadly throughout our program. We hold a personal value of maintaining good mental and emotional health, and feel that incorporating that into our professional career is something that is very important and worth looking into. The goal of my inquiry is to support current and future pre-service teachers that may experience similar circumstances by providing resources and strategies.
Our data shows that residents are stressed and feel the effects of their schools environments. The USF counseling centers resources and seminar and critical friend groups showed to be beneficial resources and interventions to cope with the stresses and demands of being a pre-service teacher
As graduates of the UTRPP, it is our hope to see the residency programs, and others alike, set in place preventative support for preservice teachers with the intention to help maintain a healthy mental and emotional health and professional self-efficacy. Thus, preservice teacher burnout rates will ideally be lowered and first and second year teachers graduating from teacher preparation programs will enter the classroom having had appropriate support and strategies for coping with the stresses of the teaching profession.
In the midst of the first semester as a final year residents, I became aware of a shift in attitude, motivation, and health due to the perceived pressures and expectations of our program. Though independently working to cope with these problems, I eventually realized this experience of “burnout” was not unique, but felt broadly throughout our program. We hold a personal value of maintaining good mental and emotional health, and feel that incorporating that into our professional career is something that is very important and worth looking into. The goal of my inquiry is to support current and future pre-service teachers that may experience similar circumstances by providing resources and strategies.
Our data shows that residents are stressed and feel the effects of their schools environments. The USF counseling centers resources and seminar and critical friend groups showed to be beneficial resources and interventions to cope with the stresses and demands of being a pre-service teacher
As graduates of the UTRPP, it is our hope to see the residency programs, and others alike, set in place preventative support for preservice teachers with the intention to help maintain a healthy mental and emotional health and professional self-efficacy. Thus, preservice teacher burnout rates will ideally be lowered and first and second year teachers graduating from teacher preparation programs will enter the classroom having had appropriate support and strategies for coping with the stresses of the teaching profession.
Inquiry 2014
DEMOGRAPHICS
This semester as a USF pre-service resident, I am in a co-taught classroom environment. I have two collaborating teachers, however I am primarily in the homeroom class with 18 students. My two CT’s previously taught second grade, and this year looped to third grade with their second grade class to third grade. Between my two collaborating teachers there are 34 students. During the school day the two adjacent classrooms join into one classroom for math and science instruction. For the majority of my in-classroom experience, I am in one classroom for literacy instruction. During the language arts block with my primary collaborating teacher, I observe shared reading, guided reading groups, reading assessments, and whole group reading instruction. The information in the chart below displays the individual demographics of the 7 students in my student sample. TIME LINE
March Week 1: March 24th -28th · Find and read research for annotated bibliography. · Finish writing brief and annotated bibliographies. · Begin thinking about ways of collecting data. · Work with main wondering to ‘tighten up’ my question. April Week 2: March 31st-April 5th · Finalize ideas for data collection and discuss these methods with mentor. · Create a context clues strategy survey for students to complete. · Consider collecting data from a small sample of students. Week 3: April 7th -11th · Take pictures of students’ “reading passage progress” graphs. · Take anecdotal notes as students take a reading assessment. Week 4: April 14th -18th · Give students survey to complete. · Graph data from surveys. · Organize data collected so far. · Start to code data. · Analyze data by looking for trends or habits in individuals and groups. |
MAIN WONDERING
What effect does direct instruction and modeling of context clues strategies have on students reading scores on assessments? SUB WONDERING How frequently are context clues strategies embedded currently in the classroom instruction? RATIONALE Throughout this semester my inquiry wondering has been staring me in the face. This semester my collaborating teachers and their colleagues’ conversations constantly seem to come down to the same dilemma. When discussing students performance, they concluded that there is a lack of vocabulary knowledge among their third graders. During shared reading, guided reading, and reading assessments their third grade students are struggling with applying strategies to figure out the meaning of unknown words. Thus, students’ vocabulary background knowledge is negatively affecting, and their reading assessment scores suffer. Every Friday our students take a practice reading assessment and record their scores and times, in order to monitor their progress with stamina and performance. During my time in the classroom, there is a difference in how students perform in a whole group shared reading lesson and when they are independently reading a passage. The difference that I have observed is the amount of strategy use. During shared reading students are discussing schema, selectively underlining the text, circling unknown words and chunking them, and rereading the text around a unknown word to infer the meaning. While students are left to their own devices they seem to be reading through the passage, and answering the questions in order to be the first one done. When we review the passage students reveal that they skipped over words that they didn’t know how to pronounce or didn’t know the meaning to, and they didn’t use strategies to help them figure out the meaning of the word or what the author was trying to convey. My inquiry was developed from this observed trend. When students are unable to apply strategies being taught and modeled in the classroom on an independent reading assessment, my collaborating teachers and I are left to wonder why students are making the choice not to use strategies that will help their comprehension. Why do students choose not to use context clues to help them comprehend the meaning of unknown words? What can teachers do in the classroom to motivate students to routinely use strategies that they see in instruction on reading assessments? The purpose of my inquiry is to discover the potential impact explicit instruction on context clues, inferencing, background knowledge, and schema in a whole-group and small group setting will have on a third graders’ comprehension of complex text, the meaning of unknown words, and the main idea of on-level text. |
DATA.
Claims & Implications.
For this student sample, I found my data to be inconclusive. My findings did not answer my wondering or provide me with viable evidence to make any claims.
In the future, I will sample a more diverse group of students to collect data for. I will teach strategies to students based on their level of readiness and where they need growth, This differentiation will allow me to better assess context clues instruction and its effects on students reading assessment scores.
In the future, I will sample a more diverse group of students to collect data for. I will teach strategies to students based on their level of readiness and where they need growth, This differentiation will allow me to better assess context clues instruction and its effects on students reading assessment scores.