Population and Focus Students

Process of Selecting Focus Students

When completing this action research study, I will be using my own students, therefore, I will have to identify students that I may have low expectations for when working with technology. This includes a female, a student from a low SES background, and a student who may be low achieving. To do this, I would read through a randomized list of my students and identify students that meet these criteria and who I do not believe to be specifically skilled when completing technological tasks and activities. Thus, I would choose the students who I held low expectations for from a list of females, students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch, or who are performing below grade level on key standards. If there were multiple students who fit the description, I would ask myself which student would benefit the most from targeted instruction. If this pilot study were used with a wider pool of teachers, I would guide teachers through this same process. This process is informed by other studies from the teacher expectation literature, where teachers identify their expectations for students when looking at their names on a randomized list or on randomized note cards (Rubie-Davies et al., 2014). I would record these students' other qualities and analyze the data to ensure that other, unrelated characteristics do not explain the relationship between the students' target characteristic and the teachers' expectations.

Description of Potential Focus Students and Connection to the Larger Topic

For the size and scope of this study, I have decided to include three focus students. The California Teacher Performance Assessment (Cal TPA-Cycle 1) recommends choosing three focus students for a lesson planning task when working with a standard classroom of about 28 to 32 students. Because my intervention involves the improvement of a lesson plan for a standard-sized classroom, I decided to follow these same guidelines. Below, I have created potential student profiles that are specific enough to reflect the previous literature and my research questions, yet broad enough so that this study could be completed in a multitude of settings. Because I narrowed the focus of my initial I Wonder document, these focus student descriptions correspond most closely to the questions in the center of the graphic organizer, outlined in red.

Student #1

• Because previous research has indicated that female students are often held to lower expectations when completing tasks that involve technology and other STEM topics (Blickenstaff, 2005; Bodzin & Gehringer, 2001; Hedlin & Gunnarsson, 2014; Kamerasde, 2007), I would make sure that one of my focus students identified as a female. These (above) studies shed light on the issue that technological lessons tend to cover topics that are stereo-typically enjoyed by or relevant to male students (Hedlin & Gunnarson, 2014). Here, I would want to ensure that I am planning lessons that give these students a fair chance of succeeding in order to help me readjust any low expectations that I have already begun to act on.

Students #2

• Previous studies have also identified SES as an important student characteristic that can impact the development of teachers' expectations (Blackwell et al., 2014). Although studies with other subjects, such as reading and mathematics, have indicated that teachers hold low expectations for students from low SES backgrounds, research from within the field of technology shows that this may not be the case for students when working specifically with technology (Blackwell et al., 2014; Sorhagen, 2013). Because of these contradicting findings, my second focus student would ideally be from a low SES household.

Students #3

• The literature on teachers' expectations and technology also indicates that students' achievement may be impacted by low teacher expectations (Greenes et al., 2011; Rubie-Davies et al., 2014; Sorhagen, 2013). I would thus ensure to include a student that may be low achieving to see if raising any low expectations that I hold may help to improve student achievement. This student would be identified through multiple measures of classroom achievement, including achievement in reading, mathematics, and technological/STEM achievement.