Lesson Study Cycle 2
Lesson Overview |
This year of distance learning has offered unique and unprecedented challenges. Students are isolated at home, away from supportive peers, teachers, and a typical learning environment. In my own class and through talking with other teachers, I have noticed a common issue that appears to be more acute than in previous years: Students report being unmotivated and disengaged. I have noticed that many students demonstrate low levels of persistence when faced with barriers and obstacles; when they encounter confusion or distraction they often give up on the work. Furthermore, it is difficult for teachers to measure when students are engaged or disengaged because the majority of students are not comfortable showing themselves on camera or even unmuting themselves to participate in class discussions verbally. I approached this lesson study cycle with a focus on the broad topic of motivation and engagement and how I might support students to develop more motivation and perseverance through increased engagement.
The research team consisted of myself, Timothy Ro and Michael Chin |
Research QuestionHow can we build student confidence and non-cognitive skills to overcome barriers in their own learning?
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Theory of ActionIf we have students set goals, engage in periodic meta reflection, and provide strategies for them to get unstuck
Then they will develop academic perseverance Resulting in increased long term motivation and engagement in a measurable way. |
Lesson Goals |
Content Goals:
Equity Goal: Students will engage in personal goal setting, periodic meta reflections and utilize specific strategies to overcome barriers during a difficult literacy task, enabling all students to continue to be motivated, engaged and develop skills when faced with a challenge. |
Learn more about my
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Research Themes |
1) Relationships: Students do better when they experience positive relationships and connectedness with their peers and teachers.
2) Relevance: Students experience increased engagement and motivation when they feel the subjects and classwork are relevant to their lives. 3) Autonomy: Student agency and autonomy can have a positive impact on motivation and engagement. 4) Noncognitive strategies: If I want my students to experience success academically and in life beyond academia, it is important to help them develop the noncognitive skills of persistence and using metacognitive strategies. |
Focus Student 1Areas of Strength:
Strong writing skills Emotionally open Enjoys music and art Close with grandmother Self aware Areas of Growth: Motivation Anxiety Verbal participation Executive functioning (following directions, turning things in on time) |
Focus Student 2Areas of Strength:
Visual learner Does best when supported individually Loves her dogs, thrift shopping, and going to the beach Aspires to go into Coast Guard Optimistic about school Areas of Growth: Fear of failure Distractions at home Turning work in on time Following directions |
Focus Student 3Areas of Strength:
Aspires to go to college (Aerospace Engineering!) Cares about doing well Self aware Unique life experiences Areas of Growth: Completing work completely and to a high level Motivation & Engagement |
Lesson Slides
Student Thinking
During the Lesson
During the lesson, students were asked to reflect on how they work best. I then asked them to choose the grouping option that would be most conducive to them completing the learning activity. Students used avatars (photos that they selected to represent themselves) to visually display which of the grouping options they had selected.
This task allowed students autonomy and presented an opportunity to use metacognitive skills. It also served as data as I could quickly visually assess which students were engaged in the activity, and which students had failed to move their avatar to a grouping selection. |
I brought students back into the main zoom room approximately half way through class and the assigned activity to conduct a metacognitive check in. Students were asked to place their avatar along this spectrum as a way to indicate their comprehension and perception of their own progress toward the learning goal.
Depending on how students evaluated their progress, they were offered strategies to help them overcome and barriers. These strategies included one-on-one help from the teacher, graphic organizers, audio recording of the reading, and encouragement. The same number of students displayed engagement throughout all three metacognitive checks. In the end, 17 of 23 students showed consistent engagement throughout the class. |
Additional Student Work Samples
Students were given options for how they would represent their comprehension of the piece of literature we were analyzing. At four points during the reading they were prompted to stop and complete a comprehension check that they could either complete as a written summary, a verbal (Flipgrid) summary, or a Google Drawing sketch.
Focus Student One
This student chose to represent their comprehension by sketching what had happened in each section of the story.
Focus Student Two
This student chose to represent their comprehension in different ways at different points. Below you can see one sketch, a written summary, and a written analysis of the theme.
Focus Student Three
This student chose to complete all four of the comprehension checks as written summaries.
After the Lesson:
Metacognitive Reflection
This student often struggles to engage and can be resistive to tasks that they do not consider valuable. This exit card completed at the end of class shows the student's thinking around metacognition and how metacognitive reflection can help them stay focused and on task. It is clear from this Exit Card that the student was attentive during our discussion of metacognition and was able to identify a strategy that they can use. When they state one strategy they can use to ensure they are making progress is "to only be working on the assignment I am supposed to be," they are reflecting on how to avoid distractions.
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This student struggled to understand how metacognition is related to them and their ability to make progress toward academic and personal goals. When asked to provide an example of metacognition, they provided an example related to the piece of literature we had read in class. They were able to identify what worked well for them about the lesson.
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This student demonstrates that they fully grasp metacognition by providing an example of a metacognitive practice they have utilized in their own life. They were able to identify that the comprehension checks built into the lesson were not helpful to them personally but they understood the purpose and utility for others. Furthermore, they were able to identify an very specific strategy that they had utilized during the lesson that enabled them to make progress toward completing the assignment.
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Reflective Practice
Lesson Highlights:
Lingering Questions:
Our equity commentator, veteran teacher Lisa Griffin, noticed that during the lesson many students were hesitant to share their ideas verbally as well as in the chat. Students who were sharing ideas in the chat were almost entirely sending them as private messages so only the teacher could read them. This suggested to her that here seems to be some lingering issues of safety for students and potentially there was something unresolved amongst this group of students that pre-dated my experience with them. One suggestion to facilitate further academic safety was to use non-qualitative language when responding to student comments and ideas.
- Teacher encouraged student self-assessment and reflection throughout the lesson by celebrating self-awareness and having students engage in goal setting and periodic metacognitive reflection.
- A mixture of structures for participation and support were available to students.
- Multiple ways students could engage and express their learning.
Lingering Questions:
Our equity commentator, veteran teacher Lisa Griffin, noticed that during the lesson many students were hesitant to share their ideas verbally as well as in the chat. Students who were sharing ideas in the chat were almost entirely sending them as private messages so only the teacher could read them. This suggested to her that here seems to be some lingering issues of safety for students and potentially there was something unresolved amongst this group of students that pre-dated my experience with them. One suggestion to facilitate further academic safety was to use non-qualitative language when responding to student comments and ideas.
Takeaways:
This lesson study cycle presented some unique challenges: at the time I was designing the lesson and reviewing scholarly research on the topic of motivation and engagement, I had not yet met any of the students I would be teaching and I was unsure where we would be in the project at the time of the lesson. The problem that this posed was that so much of the research discussed how important relationships and rapport are for student motivation and engagement. This inspired and motivated me to hit the ground running on day one in order to start building those imperative relationships that I was hoping to leverage during the lesson. I scheduled individual meetings with all 50 of my new students within the first two weeks of the semester. I reviewed their work from previously classes that I was granted access to by their former teachers. I also had them complete multiple assignments designed to help me get to know them, their interests and their personalities while simultaneously giving them an opportunity to open themselves up to me. I responded to each project and exit card with personalized, friendly messages inquiring about them as people and sharing common interests and experiences that I noticed. My big takeaway from this scramble to build rapport is that it pays off, but also takes time. Observers noted that the class environment was welcoming and most students appeared to be comfortable with me. Both of those things feel like huge wins after only having known the students for two weeks at this point. At the same time, two of the students that I identified as focus students due to their record of disengagement throughout the school year failed to show up for class or engage in any way, shape or form. I clearly still have some relationship building to do with them before they are able to engage and cultivate motivation to participate.
Another takeaway from this lesson study cycle is that it is valuable to experiment with activities, scaffolds and structures that I am not sure about. I was initially incredibly hesitant to try out the comprehension checks and metacognitive reflections that became the cornerstones of my lesson. I was fearful that students would hate them, that the stop-and-go nature of the activity would feel cumbersome to students causing them to disengage. At the end of the day, these fears were unfounded. I had multiple students indicate that the comprehension checks built in at various points in the piece of literature were actually helpful and facilitated understanding and retention. I also had several students reflect in exit cards that they were better able to identify strategies that they could use to keep themselves motivated and on task. Some students indicated that the comprehension checks and metacognitive check ins were not especially useful for them personally but they understood how others would find them helpful. This all goes to show that the strategies I was concerned about worked extremely well for many students and for those that didn't find them useful, they were not deal breakers. This reflection pushes me to be more experimental in my practice going forward.
Another takeaway from this lesson study cycle is that it is valuable to experiment with activities, scaffolds and structures that I am not sure about. I was initially incredibly hesitant to try out the comprehension checks and metacognitive reflections that became the cornerstones of my lesson. I was fearful that students would hate them, that the stop-and-go nature of the activity would feel cumbersome to students causing them to disengage. At the end of the day, these fears were unfounded. I had multiple students indicate that the comprehension checks built in at various points in the piece of literature were actually helpful and facilitated understanding and retention. I also had several students reflect in exit cards that they were better able to identify strategies that they could use to keep themselves motivated and on task. Some students indicated that the comprehension checks and metacognitive check ins were not especially useful for them personally but they understood how others would find them helpful. This all goes to show that the strategies I was concerned about worked extremely well for many students and for those that didn't find them useful, they were not deal breakers. This reflection pushes me to be more experimental in my practice going forward.