Third week: The (pleasant) outcomes of the 1st Self-access activity

On the day I wrote the previous post, I had already attended the lesson in which the learners had done their  self-access activity, but since I had had no time for analysis, the post had to be postponed.

The activities observed during this first self-access activity were highly rewarding:

• The learners sent the corresponding exercises on the self-access activity on time, a very significant indication of motivation and commitment.

• Though it had not even been suggested, they prepared a PowerPoint presentation for the 5-minute presentation they had been assigned as the extension task of the activity, and they were really interesting!

• Their engagement in the debate was lively and they acted their role in a very credible way, which indicates they took the activity seriously.

There were, however, some things to improve and reflect upon:

• The extension activities had been initially considered part of the self-access task, which was a mistake my tutors made me realise. The fact the writing task amounted to 50% of the task might have led to misunderstanding the seriousness of this stage.

• The results I had initially expected for the reading comprehension tasks, based on the learners' profiles, were much more optimistic. These were their scores: 7/9 and 11/18 for one student and 6/9 and 7/18 for the other. In ou next lesson, I will analyse each one of the tasks to identify reasons for misunderstanding which might have led to these results.

Next steps
On the other hand, they were asssigned the second self-access activity and we discussed the structure and purpose of the next kind of academic essay: cause-effect. On this occasion, they had to choose an environmental issue to present it in class, justifying its importance.

Some additional (mathematical!) issues

 

Apart from having made me realised the mistaken inclusion of the writig task as a core component of the self-access activity, my tutors also helped me realise the importance of including mathematical rigour to our project. We read two chapters of the book by Norton (2009) to find a sensible connection between the data we are collecting and a statistical way to approach it as the basis for the forecoming conclusions. This is a prticularly sensitive item since I have not been involved in this level of mathematical reflection in years, so I need to catch up as soon as possible with it.

There is no more to say for now. Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Víctor Lugo

References

Jadranka. (Photographer). (2008). Sometimes I think that I don't know that much - But math sucks!. [Online Image]. Retrieved on September 28, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/stonkinja/2914788579/sizes/o/.

Norton, L. S., (2009). Action research in teaching and learning: A practical guide to conducting pedagogical research in universities. Oxon, England: Routledge.

Optick. (Photographer). (2006). Interference with a rainbow. [Online Image]. Retrieved on September 28, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/optick/116793142/sizes/l/.

Second week

Second week and still lots of work ahead...

Now we have already jumped in the water!

I post this late because some health problems made me prioritise other tasks and I could not come back before. On September 16, 2009 we held a session in which learners were presented with the details of the research project: they showed interest and motivation and asked lots of questions related to schedules, objectives, kind of tasks and ways of delivering the entire process. They submitted the basic information of both learner profiles, though the initial survey has not been filled out by them. I will send a reminder later this week, and hope to be able to include the information collected there in the core analysis of the paper.

In the same session they were allowed thirty minutes to write the argumentative essay which will be used as a data collection instrument: it will be compared to the essay they will write on the last session of the research project to identify possible changes.

The first self-access activity was assigned in the same lesson, I described its outline and answered their questions. They were a bit puzzled about the topic -political correctness, since they had never heard of it. The results of the controlled practice activities will be described in our next record here. I received both completed guides on Monday and Tuesday, the learner who sent it the latest complained of having to do too much! I will analyse the amount and the complexity of the tasks assigned so that they do not feel it as a burden.

Finally, there are lots of information I have collected during these days and I need to find the most appropriate way to start the analysis as soon as possible because I am eager to see results. By the way, I did some theoretical work on kinds of data -quantitative and qualitative, and I need to fine-tune my selection of data collection tools to avoid mismatches between the information collected and the ways to measure them, so that no effort is wasted and the most appropriate choices are made and the information collected is effectively used and reliably analysed.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Víctor Lugo

Reeferences
Moonjazz. (2008). (Photographer) Wall of water. [Online Image]. Retrieved on September 23, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonjazz/2221423093/.

First week of my project

What a week! (and still lots of challenges ahead)
This week was really rewarding for my research project.
First of all, I got immediate acceptance from my students to take active part in the project: it sets a high -and challenging, point of departure and makes me feel I might have been going in the right direction with the activities I have implemented since last February, even though they have not been dealing with writing skills development very much.

Additionally, I was highly surprised when I saw their enthusiasm while we did the PowerPoint presentation for the listening and speaking activity we had done last week in our LASAM course. They especially enjoyed the use of the oddcast photoface© avatars.
I was also given carte blanche by the director of the specialty, an issue which reinforces the positive perception they have of the work I have been doing over these months.

The fact we only have lessons every Wednesday might delay the first stage of piloting the data collection instruments I have chosen, but since they had not signed the consent letters, sending the link for the survey earlier seemed a bit abusive. I will do it next week. In the meantime, I have already sent them the learner profile document for them to start collecting external data (e.g. the learning style test and the personality factors)and getting acquainted with the information contained therein.

In general, a great week, but there is only one concern: I still need to fine-tune the research project since the one I had originally designed could not be put into practice. I hope to finish by Saturday and when I am ready, I will come back for more reflections.

Bye for now.

Reference
Pencil with the words writing. (n.d.). [Online Image]. Retrieved on September 11, 2009 from http://sp.englishbaby.com/lessons/2936/member_submitted/writing_skills_success_in_20_minutes_a_day!