Action Research Plan- Workshop

Workshop and Traditional Classrooms 1

Running Header: Action Research Plan Workshop and Traditional Classrooms

Action Research Plan- Workshop and Traditional Classrooms

Shaina Johnston

CU Denver

Research based: Overland High School


Introduction and Problem Statement

Former President Bill Clinton stated in his speech about Literacy in 1994 that “Literacy is

not a luxury; it is a right and responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the twenty-

first century we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens.”

The goal of most English teachers is to encourage students to become literate in order to

face their world and to reach their full potential as active and contributive citizens. As an

English teacher at Overland High School I share in this belief. The added challenge that comes

with this call to action is the fact that most students at Overland come from low income families

with very diverse cultures and lifestyles. This creates a classroom environment that would fail

under the normal “lecture” type situation. Therefore, the challenge at our school is to develop a

classroom where students are the primary focus and do the majority of the reading, writing, and

thinking. The model that has been instituted is called the “Workshop Model” and is developed

through a program called “Literacy Lab.” Literacy Lab is made up of a group of teachers from

various departments that are adapting a workshop classroom where the students are responsible

for their learning and the teacher is a monitor.

Literacy Lab and the Workshop Model promote a classroom that gives control and

responsibility over to the students. In a typical Workshop class, the teacher will talk to students

about a specific task or goal for the class. The teacher will then model that task for the students

and make sure to answer any questions around that goal. This will only take about 10 minutes of

class time. The teacher then releases control to students (either as individuals or as groups) to

complete the work on their own. This allows the teacher to move around the classroom and infer

with students individually on their personal understandings and sets up a differentiated

instruction without having to plan around that differentiation. It also pushes students to take

control of their learning and actually think during class and not just take notes. The class session

ends with a quick debrief to make sure everyone is on the same page. There may be a couple

“catch” sessions where the teacher pulls students back in for a quick second to mention

something “discovered” by another student, but for the most part, students are working

independently of the teacher.

Literacy Lab was set up to help offset our low test scores. We are trying hard to improve

on CSAP, Explore, PLAN, and ACT. Right now our school sits on the border between

accredited and non-accredited. If we are pushed to the side of non accreditation, our seniors will

suffer having to take a graduation test to verify that they know what they need to prior to leaving

high school. We also risk the school being turned over to the State for drastic plans of

remodeling that could include a full staff turnover. We have a few years to prove that we can

change ourselves before extreme measures would be taken, but we need the evidence that what

we are doing is actually working. Through my Action Research Plan, I will be able to provide

evidence that Literacy Lab is improving students’ knowledge and understanding.

Purpose and Intended Audience The purpose of this research is to provide hard evidence either for or against the use of the

Workshop model in the classroom. My intended audience will consist of the teachers who are

devoting their time to learning this model as well as the administration that has funded Literacy

Lab. The Literacy Lab as a whole has used much of the schools grant funds over the past 3 years

and I want to know that this money is not going to waste.


Research Questions.

My purpose is to determine if the Workshop model is an effective way to teach classes that is

proven to increase test scores and student achievement. I started this topic because the school I

work for (as well as another in our district) has focused a lot of their time, energy, and money

toward educating their teachers on this model. I want to verify that they are not wasting their

money.

Research Questions:

1. What is the difference in overall student achievement?

This is my root question: do the students in the Workshop classes perform better on real

world exams? The way to measure this is to look at student test scores.

a. How is the Workshop model more effective in classroom teaching?

The Workshop model has been discussed as being more effective in classroom teaching,

but can we actually measure it? I am looking for specific reasoning behind the model

being more effective. Basically I want to know what is reproducible in every classroom

setting.

2. How long does it take to Prepare and Follow Up on this model?

The Workshop model is taught by teachers who only have 1-2 classes. For these

teachers, they have plenty of time to prepare and develop their lesson plans because they

are not in the classroom constantly. For those of us who teach a full load of classes, I

want to know if this model is time effective for us as teachers. If it takes a teacher 3

hours to prepare a 90 minute lesson, is that an effective use of their time?

3. Does this model work effectively for the ethnically diverse climate that we have at

Overland High School? One of the main things we discuss constantly at school is how to

solve the achievement gap. I want to know if this model will help with solving that gap.

Context.

Overland High School is situated in Aurora, CO and while it is a part of a rich district, it

is the poorest school within that district. Overland has faced many trials and tribulation during

its 31 years, but the one that has remained constant is our diverse climate. We have over 50

native languages that are spoken in our school of only 2300. We have students from all over the

world all residing in our school. The population that is mostly native to Colorado, consist of

lower income students from various ethnic backgrounds. Our school is labeled as a minority

majority school which basically means that the typical minorities are actually the majorities

within our walls. We have approximately 45% African American, 35% Hispanic, 18% White,

and the rest fall into the last category. These are broad names though, in our African American

group, we have students who range from wealthy Denver families all the way to Somalia

refugees who barely escaped their country.

This diversity is both a blessing and a curse. It is wonderful to get to interact and

experience all these cultures and have real relationships with students from every corner of the

globe. At the same time, the various cultures and economic backgrounds do create some

difficulties when teaching these students as well. When I have a classroom full of 15-16 year

olds who leave school at 3pm to catch the bus to their 4-11pm job so that they can keep up on

bills because their parents are in an out of drugs or jail, the last thing those students usually think

about is school work. They are usually sleep deprived and thinking about more important issues.

Yet we are asked to reach these students and get them to care about school. Now not all students

fall into this category but the ones whose parents have enough to support them, they generally


feel entitled and so won’t work because their parents will take care of them. It creates the

classroom of students who want to know the fundamental question of “why.” As teachers, we

don’t always have a great answer for them. More importantly than having a straight answer, I

feel like we need to show these students “why” or else it will never sink in fully.

Participants The people used in this study are going to be teachers and students who use the Workshop

Model and who do not use the Workshop model. In particular I am looking at 9th

Grade English

because this is the class that has the most relation to me, and it is a set curriculum for every class

so will have the least variation. We are all required to teach certain texts and certain skills each

quarter. This keeps all the classrooms at the same basic pace and level so that students can

transfer among classes as the need arises. It also sets up the perfect balance for me to conduct

this study because I know that Teacher A who teaches the Workshop way will be teaching

exactly the same thing as Teacher C who teaches in a more Traditional way.

Data gathering procedures The primary method of gathering data was through a review of test scores from the CSAP.

These scores provide raw data about students in each teacher’s class. This data also breaks

students down by ethnic groups so I can answer two questions at once. My charts will look like

this:

Table 1 Table 2

These charts will answer both questions 2 and 3. Questions 1 and 1a will need to be

answered through survies conducted by stuents and teachers who both use and do not use the

Workshop model. The surveys are found in the appendix section but their data can be found

here:

Table 3


The student survey is more of a self-reflection as to how well they think they know the

material. This is once again conducted in two Workshop classes and two Non-Workshop

classes. The data will be organized as it is below:

Table 4

Data analysis procedures I gathered and organized my data using several charts as demonstrated above. For survey

questions, I tallied answers of all the students to develop the data found in chart 4. In chart 3,

teacher’s actual answers to time spent was documented into the table for a direct comparison.

For tables 1 and 2, the data was taken straight from CSAP scores provided by the teachers and

the school. This data was then entered into a chart that is easily comparable to each other.

Schedule

Dates: To be done by this time:

Feb. 22-26 Gather data from CSAP and Surveys

March 1-5 Continue to gather any remaining data and start

putting data into graph format.


March 8-11 Evaluating Literature surrounding my topic.

March 15-19 Finalizing all data found

March 22-April 2 Begin analyzing data and comparing the

information gathered to the literature.

April 5-9 Combine all the learning into my Action

Research Project

April 12-16 Finalize project and proof any remaining

sections

April 19-23 Finalize project and turn in to class.

Ethical procedures The impact of this research will either determine the importance of the continued

education of several teachers in the school in the Workshop model or it will discredit it and the

money being used to fund their education can be used elsewhere. The participants are people

who both think that this model is the best and those that think this model is just another “fad” in

the teaching realm. I can see those that have completely adopted this model being very offended

if my data turns out to be inconclusive or against their method, but I still believe it is something

to be explored.

As for my personal findings, I am on the fence for this method of teaching and use it in half

of my classes and not the other half. I have not noticed a difference in my classes directly but

they are two very different classes to begin with and so I need a more direct comparison. I

would like to know the answer to my question about its effectiveness in order to finalize for

myself what method I will continue to use.

If my results are negative, the result will be somewhat detrimental emotionally to those

teachers who believe firmly in this practice because it will disprove what they have been

working so hard at teaching to others for the past two years. Apart from those three individuals,

a negative result would only result in some training that was not necessarily needed and wasted

money by the state. The money that was spent will be the primary loss because any setting

where teachers can collaborate on “best practices” will result in a benefit in some way or

another.

If my results are positive, I am hoping it will improve the funding of this program to spread

to more teachers in our building and beyond so that we can prove to be more effective for our

students across the district and the state.

Checks for rigor

I gathered data from three different sources, teachers, students, and state (CSAP) in order to

try and gather conclusive data from three angles. I am expecting my results to all prove the same

answer if it is for or against this new method of teaching. I expect if a teacher likes it, students

feel like they understand it more, than CSAP scores should back them up. If it is proved

otherwise, I expect at least student surveys and CSAP scores to back that up. Teachers who are

currently using this particular method though are going to be fairly one sided about it anyway

and that is why my survey for them will focus primarily on time during preparation for the

lesson.


Conclusion Through the course of this study, I am assuming I will find a direct connection to students

scoring higher on the CSAP who have experienced a Workshop classroom. I will be honest and

say the reason I think this will be my results is because this is what I have been told in Literacy

Lab. Literacy Lab will obviously support itself to the teachers who are taking the course, so

naturally this is the only data I have been given from a very bias stance. Therefore this is the

assumed result, but I also have limited perspective on the information out there too.

I think my research will prove to be either that Literacy Lab is more effective in the

teaching of materials to students or the data will be inconclusive. I don’t expect to discover that

the data is directly against it. I think if that were the case, the teachers who instruct this course

would not be pushing it so much at our school. Even if they think it is wonderful, any good

teacher looks at data before buying into something whole heartedly so they should have some

backing in it that is unbiased.

This research is valuable to anyone who is a teacher and is looking for a new method of

instruction that is more effective in the classroom. If my findings prove one way or the other,

this is evidence to help in deciding if one should instill this method. My research is however

limited to one school and various students and teachers within that school. The same data could

be very different from another school and another set of teachers and students. I know that

currently in my District, Smoky Hill High School is working with this same model and could

also benefit from this study on a more direct level. Nationally though we as teachers have been

shown the data that states our ranking educationally in the world and we are called to improve

that score, so any practice that will help improve student achievement is worth pursuing. My

research is still valuable in that it is at least one solid account of an unbiased opinion on the

Workshop model.

Anyone who teaches at a minority majority school could benefit from this data and use it

to improve upon their teaching. The more teachers study and research the art of teaching, the

more effective they will become in their own practice of it and I am hopeful that through this

study I can shed unbiased light on one of the latest fads in the teaching world.

References I am gathering articles related to Workshop model in order to have the references and will add to

this document as the week goes along.

Appendices I am still developing these but will post them as I finish them.

Documents

Action Research Plan- Workshop