Data Collection

My research took place during our unit over Kitchen Basics. This unit covered content including equipment identification, cooking methods and terminology, kitchen math and measuring, recipe reading and writing, and dining etiquette. To identify prior knowledge, students were given a pretest over these topics. Then, based off of the pretest, I was able to utilize the observations and reflections to make instructional changes to enhance student achievement leading up to the post test.

To analyze student engagement in my classroom, I took observational data tallying on task and off task behaviors. Each time we were in the classroom, I would randomly select six students to observe. Every 5 minutes, I tallied behaviors I was seeing, and would determine if those selected students were on or off task. I would rotate which students I was selecting each day we were in the classroom.

In order to understand how groups were working together, students responded to kitchen lab reflections bi-weekly. The students answered questions regarding how they were individually performing, in addition to how they were working as a group. The reflections provided opportunities for the group to discuss any improvements that should be made, and how to act on them during the next kitchen lab.