Reflection
Impact on students
Before I implemented math rotations, students seemed unmotivated and bored with math. When it came to learning a new topic, students would shut down or show negative attitudes toward learning a new topic. Before math rotations were implemented, students did not seem confident when giving answers to basic math facts. After math rotations, students were excited to learn new topics and math applications and wanted to participate in rotations. Students loved to practice their math facts every day, and many students asked me to be peer helpers in the classroom when they completed their own math work. When I asked students to answer basic math facts for me, students recalled their facts much faster than before, and did not hesitate when answering. I think that seeing themselves achieve in math has increased their confidence and attitudes towards math to a higher level than in the beginning of the year.
During the implementation of math rotations, students took a pre-test before each topic. According to the student data, students' pre-test scores improved going into each topic. In my math curriculum, the order of topics I worked through build off one another, and I realized that students were able to retain more information from one topic to the next in comparison to when I used to teach in whole group.
Impact on current teaching
After implementing math rotations, I realized that backwards planning can help me develop pre-tests. Something that I have not done before this year was looking at the end of the chapter test, and using it to plan a chapter instruction. After knowing what students would be tested on, I would create a pre-test with similar content, and emphasize instruction on the the most missed skills. This realization of backwards planning when making the pre-tests also lead me to a realization of how powerful differentiated leveled groups can be. When I knew the strengths and weaknesses of my students in a small group setting, it made it easier for me to provide accommodations or create appropriate challenges to students in their leveled groups. If I am able to meet students at their needs, I will be able to keep them engaged and on task during lessons.
Impact on professional growth
When it comes to professional growth, my action plan showed me how exciting it can be to read successes of other teachers, and try to implement their activities and successes in my classroom. I am someone who likes to learn new ideas and am not afraid to take risks. After doing my literature review, I realized that reading case studies on specific topics and implementing the ideas of the successes inside of my classroom is something that I will do in the future in order to perform best practices in my subjects.
What was learned
After my action research, I learned that student relationships and time management helped me be successful in implementing my action research and plan. Building relationships early in the year helped me eliminate off-task or distracting behaviors, and I feel like I had almost all of my instructional time with students. When it came to implementing rotations during the middle of the year, I was able to focus on instruction and the delivery of content without having that many behavioral issues. This was a result to establishing relationships with students during the beginning of the year. When it came to time management, I usually thought of this idea in the classroom during lessons, but time management is also critical when planning. During my action research and plan, I would not have been able to successfully implement my rotations if I did not have time management in relation to planning for instruction. Setting time aside after school to create my flipped videos and ClassKick lessons was necessary in order to have successful rotations. Visual timers not only helped me during rotations, but they also let students know when to start or stop an activity before rotations.
What questions remain?
After completing my action research, I asked myself a few questions upon reflection: What if I started rotations in the beginning of the year? Would I be able to implement rotations by myself? How would rotations look different with a larger class size? In my opinion, if I were to start rotations in the beginning of the year, I think that students would get the routine down by the winter, but I do think I would need to model how to rotate and use manipulatives or play games. In response to my second question, I think that after implementing math rotations with the help of my CADRE associate and grade-level partner, I can implement them by myself early next year, but I do think it was beneficial having someone to guide me as I first implemented them this year. When it comes to my last question, I can only imagine how rotations would look differently, but I most likely will not know the specifics until the day I have more students in my classroom.
impact on future teachiing
In the future, I think math rotations are something that I can incorporate in reading or writing. Now that I have an idea of how to do rotations in math, I can tailor rotations to fit the content of reading and writing. After my first action plan and research of best practices, I now know how to search for topics in case studies and how to analyze the actions that were implemented in each of the studies. In the future, I can do this type of research again, but on topics of reading or writing. If I was able to find successes in math through rotations, I do believe that I can do this with different subjects and content, too. The last thing I want to do in the future is implement math rotations in the beginning of the year. Now that I know what types of activities that showed successes in math rotations and how to use pre-tests to make groups for instruction, I know that I need to slowly implement one or two components of rotations every week in order for all students to know expectations as soon as possible. Since I was able to increase engagement, fact fluency, and achievement in math through rotations, I strongly believe that I can do it again next year, and also implement rotations in reading or writing, too.