Middle school and high school students - Essay Example

Do They Really Dislike Learning Social Studies A Study of Middle School and High School There is an emergence of two dominating ideas related to analyzing the provided information, the first suggested active involvement of students and teachers' enthusiasm laying the way for positive images of social studies in high and mid-school students the second idea was the perceiving of a utilitarian value emphasizing that students were not as negative toward social studies as indicated in researches made before. My instructional environment as well as my interwoven opinions of the author's research takes place in a middle school consisting of 7th and 8th grade classes. The students are organized into six academic teams: three 7th graders and three 8th graders teams. Each team consisted of five core academic subjects: English, Social Studies, Math, Science and Reading. The first notion of the study was in the following up with the first idea: it was discovered that ongoing changes in curriculum design, teaching methodology and administrative practices (especially those of punishment as well as detention) have an affecting attitude on the perceiving perspectives of students and the emphatic notable conclusions of the feeling of boredom, irrelevance of subject and the lack of personal interaction of students with their teachers in class. I teach in a 7th grade Social Studies classroom. There is also a Learning Support teacher that works with Learning Support students that have IEP's on each team. Students are heterogeneously grouped in all classes except Math. This class has two sections of Advanced Math students and three sections of Integrated Math students. Each team also has an inclusion class that all of the Learning Support students attend at the same time. Each inclusion class is provided with a Learning Support teacher or a teaching assistant to help with instruction. I understood and found out that the relationship between student attitudes toward social sciences and educational methodology in schools, differing according to districts as well as the level of income from which they are related to, relates to their achievement towards the curriculum needs and offered possibilities of the better future. Students tend to experience the subject other than memorize and dot down the content and concepts, instead, they would rather induce and reduce into a deduction form the conceptual meanings behind that of which relates them to a "bettering" of their social environment, which is the relational angle between student achievement and student self-applaud ( self-fulfillment): parents care for the achievement as well as reinforced value of the subject by the teachers' backing them up with credits and giving their opinions credentials. There is more general information concerning my teaching environment that would pertain to academic research. My teaching environment is very homogeneous relative to race. Nearly 97% of the students are white. The few minority students are African-American and Latino. The area is rural but has undergone rapid growth over the past decade. Another important fact is that many of the students in my teaching environment are considered low-income students. Nearly half of them receive free or reduced lunches based on criteria set by the federal government. A possible scenario for quantitative research is in the number of teachers who have noticed a decrease in geographic knowledge in the incoming 7th grade students, but they are not sure of the cause. During my stay at one school nearby the district where I live, notable confusion of belonging between students and their subject matters studied at school have been identifying their problems as been meticulous: one student interviewed at the school's nearby bus station, the boy's name was Eric, a middle school student, was as follows, considering his views on education: "If I were to care, then someone should be caring about me. It is not a matter of a child being looked after where everyone just applauds to when being exceptional on paper work, but the fact that what I could desire to change as a citizen could influence my career one day as not to be regarded as a boring system of repetitive routines action, but that of gaining on insightful perception. I don't get the feeling that students get that at school." Another interview, with a standing by, James, who was overhearing the conversation, spoke out: "I believe that school should be a notable fund of raised progress, many great people nowadays are hitched up by their performances even though it doesn't seek any progress whatsoever, it is no wonder that I would rather seek tons of money rather than education with the sort of ridicule I get outside the walls of school wanting to complete my education, if I will to drop out, my chances of world education might be opinionated-based, but the fact is, teachers should be willing to keep me in class if they would like me to keep on being better. Chances of students dropping out might be out of the sort of discipline and character means of self-assessing one's own character, not by being demeaned more than by being asserted as correct. It sometimes feels that students get the feeling we all are competitors of the same subject of wanting to better than our teachers who do not give us the chance to. I couldn't understand." The target audience for the study would be the administration and school board members that are concerned about the results of policy changes. Another possible audience would be parents that are concerned about the quality of Social Studies instruction in their children's schools. Data would be collected in the following manner. In year 1, students entering 7th grade would be given a ten question, multiple choice geography test developed by the 6th and 7th grade teachers. All of these students would have been taught the mixed Geography/History curriculum. These entry tests would be averaged for each student. This would create a baseline. In year two, a different group of student would take the 7th grade entry examination. Scores of students that had been a part of the new instruction would be isolated and compared to their peers. This process would repeat for two more years in order to have sufficient data to analyze. In addition to the 7th grade entry examination, final grades from 6th grade Social Studies and student performance on state standardized tests for Social Studies/Geography would be use to triangulate the findings. Yet, there is a catch. A teacher who once educated me on social studies issues, who educated abroad, discussed a fact she noticed on the students of the different nationalities she educated: "Even as American students, the love of geography was not healthily approved of in their hearts due to a loss of educational character. What I mean by this is their understanding of what the majors of life could collaborate / create parallel wise to their conceiving of everyday life. History seems to be for the greater chane-takers in life that everyday students would like to be alike to by moving their concerns to visual instead of audio education, cinema instead of an audio book about history. The fact is that one state of opinion opposes is the fact that we, as an older generation, had nothing to keep us away from studying or motivating us away from reading but the love of knowledge. I couldn't find this in students mostly due to the fact of the technologically rich life they lead; everything is as simple as accessing in a jiffy and has nothing to do with healthy mental nutrition. It seems that colorfulness of attractive media has an importing effect on their souls over the love of the spiritual sense of gaining knowledge access to their minds for their own futures. There is no patience to make sense without appreciating sensibly and not hastily." This would lead to the following: quantitative research is vital to my field because decisions based on data and the interpretation of data is required under the No Child Left Behind legislation. Quantitative research is a rich source of these data that can guide decisions made by policy makers at all levels in the field of education. A qualitative research project that would suit my educational situation is determining the sources of stress relative to children transitioning from disparate elementary schools into the middle school. A research question for this study could be: What is the transition to middle school like for students in the Groverfield School District These interviews would be structures so the students could share their experiences, both good and bad, relative to transitioning to the middle school. In addition to the surveys, the researcher will need to develop a series of writing prompts for use in English class that allow students to share their feelings in a speech format. The target audience of the research would be 7th grade teachers in the middle school and parents of students transitioning to the middle school from 6th grade. In addition to these groups, the guidance counselors at the middle school will be able to use the study to better understand the transitioning experience of students entering the middle school. Groupings would best be balanced between gender and economic class. They can be randomized according to these criteria. The groupings should also include a broad sampling of students of various academic ability levels. Data on 7th grade students would be gathered through interviews conducted with the faculty advisor during advisor/advisee interaction. These data would be triangulated with journal responses collected in English class and anecdotal evidence collected by the guidance counselor during sessions with students. We would analyze these data by looking for similar themes in each grouping. Reports of bullying that surface in interviews, counseling sessions and journal entries will indicate that this social phenomenon is a real concern for students and teachers accepting transitioning students to the middle school. Qualitative research is important because it largely deals with data from the affective domain. Brain science has shown that this domain and the learner's emotional state greatly affect learning. We cannot just focus on test scores and quantitative research to understand our students. Qualitative research helps shed light on problems that do not show up on standardized tests. An action research scenario for my classroom would deal with the implementation of differentiated instruction. As I attempt to teach in a more inclusive way, action research can provide data that informs my decisions. A hypothesis for this research would be: Differentiated instruction increases student at-task behaviors. Alternative methods of instruction will alter the score of students who dislike education due to the fact of its irrelevance to everyday life. One structure of opinion making would be turning Social Studies into a truth or dare game: where the actions of historical persons of history would measure the mind of the students towards them, for example, would it be wiser to have taken X-person's act in the one-stated time of history towards a certain Y-effect or would it have been better taking X-person's decision in the same case but in a different country, and study the effect of character on crucial decision making, the effect of withdraw from daring as well as taking consideration into thought of how the act will multiply the consequences. The role model of each student in history will geographically map their own template of thinking inside themselves, like the fact of teaching the game Risk to students and giving them a clearer idea, through the gaming process, of how conquest occurs as well as playing on their understanding of monopolizing ideas to gain access to a more powerful stance among everyday incidents and events, besides measuring their following up with the day-to-day news on the CNN comparing it to those of the BBC for example as well as the manner in which discussions are made on talk shows such as Hard Talk on the BBC channel to measure the steadfast manner of gaining access to truth from the guests by their hosts. The role of the researcher in this case is to develop differentiated instruction plans and implement them. The researcher / teacher will make observations during the class of times when the students should be seated and working. Other sources of data used to triangulate the data would be observations taken by administrators, paraprofessionals and other teachers. Student grades could also be introduced to measure success. I would analyze these data by comparing percentages of time at-task during non-differentiated instruction to those observed during differentiated instruction. I would look for other similarities or differences in the overall grades of the students in the class 9 such as lecturing, videos, worksheets, traditional sets of questions in examination forms as well as outside texts and swap them among students to measure what they see their progress in their social studies is in comparison to their other classmates as well as school mates in the same class discipline / grade. I would also compare the observations made by the independent observers to those of my own. That way I can guard against bias. Action research is vital to teaching because teachers that are still teaching conduct it. It is not as sterile as a carefully constructed qualitative or quantitative, giving the researches a more immediate feel. It is highly relevant simply because it is evidence of one teacher's experimentation and observation being shared with another. Action research keeps professional educators in touch with innovation in education all over the world which would be regarded futile or comparatively fruitful in reasonableness of the answers obtained from students and their openness to speak instead of thinking, "well it was better saying that than nothing, at least that's what they want to hear, don't they" statement. The subjects of the research study were 8th and 11th grade students. They were located in a community of about 100,000 permanent residents in a Southwestern area of the United States. The students were selected using a purposeful sample. These students reflected the average age and circumstance of students in their school. The study used a qualitative research methodology (who the addressed important person is in the educational process How long is their effect lasting in them after they leave class How do they carry on with their day according to and in accordance with what they studied in school as well as their grades in the school studies). Upon selecting the sample, the researchers interviewed the selected students. These interviews were recorded on video-tape and then later transcribed. The transcriptions were later reviewed with the purpose of finding themes. The purpose of the study is to determine if students really dislike Social Studies as mentioned before in the sample interview with James and Eric and the sample opinion from my ex-teacher. The data analysis involved the reviewing of transcriptions and identifying common themes. No mention was made relative to who analyzed the data. It can be assumed that the author was the only one involved in this because no one else was mentioned as being a part of the analysis. This leads to question the adequacy of the analysis. The author recognized the need to present and unbiased analysis of the data, but does not explain the method of analysis beyond stating that he was looking for recurring themes. The lack of data to triangulate is a major concern for anyone examining this research study. The presentation of the analysis consisted of a number of quotations from students that support conclusions drawn by the author. The analysis seems to lack rigor. The results of the study conclude that there are two recurring themes that surfaced in the student interviews. The first conclusion drawn by the author is that engaging teachers who are willing to be engaged as well as have the quality of thinking to improve the esteemed value of social studies with the use a variety of teaching methods cause students to like Social Studies. The second theme deals with the lack of utilitarian value in learning about Social Studies. The author draws these conclusions and suggests that students really may not dislike Social Studies as much as research findings have indicated in the past. What they actually dislike are Social Studies teachers and the methods they employ 9 due to the repeptition of the stress on boredom and irrelevance of project studies on the everyday life, negated with the fact that Social studies is figuratively agreeable in the sense of student cooperation with the teachers in class, instead of a dotting down process of stuffed into the brain information to prove that the teacher's method of teaching bureaucratically is a working method. They also fail to grasp how the information presented in class will ever be of use to them therefore. A problem I see with the author's conclusion is that he seems to be using a qualitative study to determine cause and effect. Students dislike Social Studies because they don't see the point and they don't like their teachers. Qualitative studies are intended to paint a picture, or shed light on a situation, but they do not determine causality. The author was aware of many of the limitations of the study. The sample size was very small and all from the same school district that was not very heterogeneous. He also disclosed that the studies he referenced to establish student's negative feelings towards Social Studies were broad quantitative studies, not qualitative studies. It is often difficult to translate conclusions from one methodology to another. In this study, the data analysis, results and conclusion are all interrelated because one builds upon the other. What I learned from reviewing this research report was that any weakness in these interlinked steps of the research process will affect the veracity of all the other parts. A weak data collection procedure will result in compromised conclusions and results. The ability of the research to be generalized, and therefore, of use to others will be lessened unless all three of these areas are rigorous and developed with precision. As the researcher put it in his conclusion: "we could never overemphasize the complexity and difficulty of being a student; the success if being a student relies not only on his or her teachers, but the support of the school district, community, parents, and personal motivation to succeed; further studies, therefore, are not only necessary, but crucial in providing further insight into these factors which in turn will be important in further understanding of students' perceptions regarding social studies." With this, I agree as well. Bibliography: Chiodo, John J, (Spring 2004), Do They Really Dislike Social Studies A Study of Middle School and High School Students; Journal of Social Studies Research Read More