Conclusion
As I now conclude this action research investigation, I will incorporate a discussion of the significance, limitations and personal reflections. Specifically, this inquiry was undertaken to answer the question:
In what ways does peer conferencing affect student achievement in and attitudes towards writing?
My sub-questions include:
- How do structured worksheets affect the process?
- How does setting specific goals affect the process?
In what ways does peer conferencing affect student achievement in and attitudes towards writing?
My sub-questions include:
- How do structured worksheets affect the process?
- How does setting specific goals affect the process?
Significance
According to the Framework for 21st Century Learning, some of the most important skills for students to possess in society today are communication and collaboration. Through communication, students must be able to articulate their thoughts through various outlets, and one of these outlets is writing. The importance of being able to effectively communicate ideas through writing is increasingly important in a world centered around technology, where written word is most common. With this, it is crucial for teachers to develop student writing skills throughout all grades. This will set them up for future success not only in academia but also in future careers and endeavors.
As children develop, it is also important for them to gain the skills of collaboration, another 21st Century Learning skill. This includes the ability to be able to work effectively with diverse groups as well as demonstrate the willingness to be helpful to others. With this intervention, students were required to collaborate with their peers to help develop their writing skills, which was a task in which they were unfamiliar. The job of collaboration and providing feedback to peers was one that uncovered various themes supporting the importance of the 21st Century Learning skills.
As children develop, it is also important for them to gain the skills of collaboration, another 21st Century Learning skill. This includes the ability to be able to work effectively with diverse groups as well as demonstrate the willingness to be helpful to others. With this intervention, students were required to collaborate with their peers to help develop their writing skills, which was a task in which they were unfamiliar. The job of collaboration and providing feedback to peers was one that uncovered various themes supporting the importance of the 21st Century Learning skills.
I have determined that this investigation has demonstrated significance in the following ways:
1. Students benefit in their own writing when they learn to help others.
Students appear to be able to produce higher level writing after they have the opportunity to examine other students' writing on the same topic. At the conclusion of Phase One, I was unsure as to whether peer feedback would be effective. However, during Phase Two when students were required to ask clarifying questions to help their peers develop their writing and add more details, it became clear that when students were required to think about someone else's writing, they were able to think about their own writing more critically and generate questions for themselves as well. This deeper analysis of their own writing was shown when students felt they had improved in their writing the time after providing questions to their peers. I could see them gradually coming to the realization that they, themselves, had gaps in their writing and could predict where a peer would ask a clarifying question. This realization lead them to the understanding that they needed to fill in gaps in their writing themselves. This idea is supported by research by Grabe and Kaplan (1996), who determined that students who provide feedback to others end up making gains in their own writing. This brings me to the next idea:
2. Students are capable of providing feedback when they have the prior knowledge necessary.
In Phase One, many of the students were unable to provide effective feedback to their peers in terms of grammar or conventions because they did not have the skill set to do so. For example, if a child has poor spelling skills, they will not be able to accurately and appropriately provide feedback to their peer in the areas of spelling. They will be unable to neither identify or correct a misspelled word. This finding is consistent with other areas of conventions. With this in mind, the level of feedback that students provide to each other must be at their own ability level. In Phase Two, students were more predisposed for success because asking clarifying questions was at their ability level, and they were able to support each other in that way.
3. When students have opportunities to help each other, they want to rise to the task and support each other.
Despite student ability or effectiveness in the feedback they provide, students have the desire to be able to be helpful to others. Throughout the process, the effort that every student put in to try to help was very apparent. Even those that missed several potential errors in the feedback they provided in Phase One still demonstrated a sincere desire to help their peers. This aspect of collaboration was positive and shows that students want to be in the role of a supporter. As a teacher, I have found that it is important to instill these motivations in students and encourage them to not only help each other when required for an assignment, but also to use each other as resources throughout their education independently. Students should find that collaboration is something they can participate in through various tasks in life and should develop the skills from a young age.
4. Students can learn how to provide effective feedback gradually through repeated experience.
Some of the students clearly struggled through providing feedback to their peers, as seen in the findings sections of Phase One and Phase Two, but I did notice an improvement in these students' abilities throughout the process. Through my observations, I also recognized an improvement in the students who already were effective in their feedback throughout the process. The clarifying questions they asked showed higher level thinking, demonstrating their understanding of what a detailed paragraph should contain. For all students, more practice with the task of collaboration and providing feedback will improve their effectiveness. Because of the limitation of time in this intervention, I could not examine the improvement in feedback effectiveness over a long period of time, but the idea of "practice makes perfect" leads me to the conclusion that students will improve their effectiveness with more experience and practice.
5. When I provide more modeling of the expectation, students perform better.
Some students who struggled in providing quality questions to their peers in the first assignment in Phase Two were part of a small reteaching group, where I explicitly modeled the types of questions I would ask on their peers' paper. We went through this task a few times, and this repetition helped students to see an example of how to derive an appropriate question. This finding appears to be a theme that can be applied across all educational areas: when students have explicit examples, they are more clear on the expectations and can better perform. This theme answers one of my initial sub-questions, which was "How does setting specific goals affect the peer feedback process?" With the assignments in Phase Two, the specific goal was for students to generate useful clarifying questions to their peer's writing. For some students, this was the goal they had in mind. In the reteaching group, I clarified this expectation even further through the explicit modeling of the feedback task. Giving students the more specific expectation helped students to understand their task and better perform. This brings me to the next idea:
6. The more structure the student receives, the better they perform.
This finding appears to answer my initial sub-question regarding structured rubrics and guides, which was "How do structured worksheets affect the peer feedback process?" During Phase One, students received a step-by-step guide as to what they should be looking for when providing conventions feedback. It also guided them on what to look for in terms of different components of the persuasive essay. Without this guidance, students would not have been clear on what to look for, especially those who have never provided feedback before or who are not especially strong in writing. This scaffold addressed the different components of conventions and had them look specifically for grammar, spelling, capitalization, etc. The idea of providing shared rubrics so that everyone looks for the same things and are on the same page is supported by McLeod, Brown, & Sledge (2009), who found that students can be as effective as a teacher in providing feedback if they receive a reliable assessment instrument. With practice, this is something I think my students could eventually reach.
7. These results all help to inform my future teaching in many ways.
The findings from this intervention further instilled in me the importance of communication and collaboration. Being a skilled writer who can effectively communicate ideas using details and critical thinking is a paramount competence to have, and this is a task that does not come naturally for all students. The writing process needs to be explicitly taught, including the editing process. With the editing process, I have learned that students' first instinct is to ask for support from a teacher. I have learned that it will be important in my classroom to develop the instinct to collaboration with peers and use independence instead of the teacher. With this, students need many opportunities to collaborate. In my classroom, it will be important to provide experiences collaborating in diverse partnerships and groups to develop the skills necessary to be effective throughout life as an active participant. From my research, I will also be taking with me the idea that students also need many opportunities to try new tasks. Whether it is independent work or collaboration, students improve through practice and exposure. It is important to first model the desired outcome, provide several examples, and give the chance to try, explore, experiment, and work through the tasks.
1. Students benefit in their own writing when they learn to help others.
Students appear to be able to produce higher level writing after they have the opportunity to examine other students' writing on the same topic. At the conclusion of Phase One, I was unsure as to whether peer feedback would be effective. However, during Phase Two when students were required to ask clarifying questions to help their peers develop their writing and add more details, it became clear that when students were required to think about someone else's writing, they were able to think about their own writing more critically and generate questions for themselves as well. This deeper analysis of their own writing was shown when students felt they had improved in their writing the time after providing questions to their peers. I could see them gradually coming to the realization that they, themselves, had gaps in their writing and could predict where a peer would ask a clarifying question. This realization lead them to the understanding that they needed to fill in gaps in their writing themselves. This idea is supported by research by Grabe and Kaplan (1996), who determined that students who provide feedback to others end up making gains in their own writing. This brings me to the next idea:
2. Students are capable of providing feedback when they have the prior knowledge necessary.
In Phase One, many of the students were unable to provide effective feedback to their peers in terms of grammar or conventions because they did not have the skill set to do so. For example, if a child has poor spelling skills, they will not be able to accurately and appropriately provide feedback to their peer in the areas of spelling. They will be unable to neither identify or correct a misspelled word. This finding is consistent with other areas of conventions. With this in mind, the level of feedback that students provide to each other must be at their own ability level. In Phase Two, students were more predisposed for success because asking clarifying questions was at their ability level, and they were able to support each other in that way.
3. When students have opportunities to help each other, they want to rise to the task and support each other.
Despite student ability or effectiveness in the feedback they provide, students have the desire to be able to be helpful to others. Throughout the process, the effort that every student put in to try to help was very apparent. Even those that missed several potential errors in the feedback they provided in Phase One still demonstrated a sincere desire to help their peers. This aspect of collaboration was positive and shows that students want to be in the role of a supporter. As a teacher, I have found that it is important to instill these motivations in students and encourage them to not only help each other when required for an assignment, but also to use each other as resources throughout their education independently. Students should find that collaboration is something they can participate in through various tasks in life and should develop the skills from a young age.
4. Students can learn how to provide effective feedback gradually through repeated experience.
Some of the students clearly struggled through providing feedback to their peers, as seen in the findings sections of Phase One and Phase Two, but I did notice an improvement in these students' abilities throughout the process. Through my observations, I also recognized an improvement in the students who already were effective in their feedback throughout the process. The clarifying questions they asked showed higher level thinking, demonstrating their understanding of what a detailed paragraph should contain. For all students, more practice with the task of collaboration and providing feedback will improve their effectiveness. Because of the limitation of time in this intervention, I could not examine the improvement in feedback effectiveness over a long period of time, but the idea of "practice makes perfect" leads me to the conclusion that students will improve their effectiveness with more experience and practice.
5. When I provide more modeling of the expectation, students perform better.
Some students who struggled in providing quality questions to their peers in the first assignment in Phase Two were part of a small reteaching group, where I explicitly modeled the types of questions I would ask on their peers' paper. We went through this task a few times, and this repetition helped students to see an example of how to derive an appropriate question. This finding appears to be a theme that can be applied across all educational areas: when students have explicit examples, they are more clear on the expectations and can better perform. This theme answers one of my initial sub-questions, which was "How does setting specific goals affect the peer feedback process?" With the assignments in Phase Two, the specific goal was for students to generate useful clarifying questions to their peer's writing. For some students, this was the goal they had in mind. In the reteaching group, I clarified this expectation even further through the explicit modeling of the feedback task. Giving students the more specific expectation helped students to understand their task and better perform. This brings me to the next idea:
6. The more structure the student receives, the better they perform.
This finding appears to answer my initial sub-question regarding structured rubrics and guides, which was "How do structured worksheets affect the peer feedback process?" During Phase One, students received a step-by-step guide as to what they should be looking for when providing conventions feedback. It also guided them on what to look for in terms of different components of the persuasive essay. Without this guidance, students would not have been clear on what to look for, especially those who have never provided feedback before or who are not especially strong in writing. This scaffold addressed the different components of conventions and had them look specifically for grammar, spelling, capitalization, etc. The idea of providing shared rubrics so that everyone looks for the same things and are on the same page is supported by McLeod, Brown, & Sledge (2009), who found that students can be as effective as a teacher in providing feedback if they receive a reliable assessment instrument. With practice, this is something I think my students could eventually reach.
7. These results all help to inform my future teaching in many ways.
The findings from this intervention further instilled in me the importance of communication and collaboration. Being a skilled writer who can effectively communicate ideas using details and critical thinking is a paramount competence to have, and this is a task that does not come naturally for all students. The writing process needs to be explicitly taught, including the editing process. With the editing process, I have learned that students' first instinct is to ask for support from a teacher. I have learned that it will be important in my classroom to develop the instinct to collaboration with peers and use independence instead of the teacher. With this, students need many opportunities to collaborate. In my classroom, it will be important to provide experiences collaborating in diverse partnerships and groups to develop the skills necessary to be effective throughout life as an active participant. From my research, I will also be taking with me the idea that students also need many opportunities to try new tasks. Whether it is independent work or collaboration, students improve through practice and exposure. It is important to first model the desired outcome, provide several examples, and give the chance to try, explore, experiment, and work through the tasks.
Limitations
With my action research, a few limitations became apparent through the process.
1. Time
The most obvious limitation from this research that I recognized was the amount of time I had to complete the process. My student teaching placement was four months long, and the intervention was only able to be for two months, as it took some time to identify a need and complete the initial assessment of need. There was also some pause in the implementation of Phase One, as the school had a two week Spring Break. The school also had the opportunity to pilot the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), which took up another full week of potential instruction time. With this in mind, the amount of time I had to complete Phase One and Phase Two was somewhat limited. I would have also liked to complete a Phase Three, but because the school year was wrapping up, time did not allow for this. With more time for each phase, I feel that I could have more effectively examined the improvement in peer feedback effectiveness over a longer period as well as give students more opportunities to practice their new feedback skills.
2. Sample Size
Another limitation that affected my action research was the small sample size. My classroom of third graders was only 24 students, which is only representative of a small population of third graders. Even though I was able to come to conclusions and find themes through the research among my specific classroom, it is difficult to generalize these results to other populations. It would be interesting to see if different results would become apparent with groups of students from different age, different skill levels, or different backgrounds.
3. Teacher-Researcher Bias
Because I have acted as the teacher in this classroom for some time, I am subject to having researcher bias. I know these students and their capabilities, so I am more prone to have some bias when interpreting student work and, ultimately, results. This is also true for my teacher observations: it is difficult to be completely unbiased when taking anecdotal records. Throughout the process, I did my best to look at the data from an impartial standpoint, but this research would be more sound if it were examined from an outside party with no background knowledge of these particular students. Having more researchers completing observations, examining student work, and analyzing data creates less chance for bias, as a consensus must be reached. It is important to recognize the potential of teacher-researcher bias in order to attempt to combat potential biases. However, despite this limitation, it is important for teachers to continue to complete action research and work towards looking at their classrooms from a data viewpoint.
1. Time
The most obvious limitation from this research that I recognized was the amount of time I had to complete the process. My student teaching placement was four months long, and the intervention was only able to be for two months, as it took some time to identify a need and complete the initial assessment of need. There was also some pause in the implementation of Phase One, as the school had a two week Spring Break. The school also had the opportunity to pilot the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), which took up another full week of potential instruction time. With this in mind, the amount of time I had to complete Phase One and Phase Two was somewhat limited. I would have also liked to complete a Phase Three, but because the school year was wrapping up, time did not allow for this. With more time for each phase, I feel that I could have more effectively examined the improvement in peer feedback effectiveness over a longer period as well as give students more opportunities to practice their new feedback skills.
2. Sample Size
Another limitation that affected my action research was the small sample size. My classroom of third graders was only 24 students, which is only representative of a small population of third graders. Even though I was able to come to conclusions and find themes through the research among my specific classroom, it is difficult to generalize these results to other populations. It would be interesting to see if different results would become apparent with groups of students from different age, different skill levels, or different backgrounds.
3. Teacher-Researcher Bias
Because I have acted as the teacher in this classroom for some time, I am subject to having researcher bias. I know these students and their capabilities, so I am more prone to have some bias when interpreting student work and, ultimately, results. This is also true for my teacher observations: it is difficult to be completely unbiased when taking anecdotal records. Throughout the process, I did my best to look at the data from an impartial standpoint, but this research would be more sound if it were examined from an outside party with no background knowledge of these particular students. Having more researchers completing observations, examining student work, and analyzing data creates less chance for bias, as a consensus must be reached. It is important to recognize the potential of teacher-researcher bias in order to attempt to combat potential biases. However, despite this limitation, it is important for teachers to continue to complete action research and work towards looking at their classrooms from a data viewpoint.
Reflection
The action research process as a whole has truly been one to advance my abilities as an educator and as a reflective practitioner. As a teacher, it is important to have the skill set to identify a problem among a class of students, look for potential solutions, use solutions as interventions, and collect and analyze data. This is the best way to examine teaching practices and understand what is working and what needs improvement. The idea that my practices will need to change from year to year with each group of students depending on their specific needs is something that I am taking with me from this action research. With that idea in mind, using data to support the change that is needed each year is a highly effective way to determine what is best for students. This data driven mindset helps me to acquire information about my students and figure out how to best meet their individual needs. It is empowering for teachers to know that they can examine a problem and find a solution through the action research process.