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Go to my LiveBinder to review chapter information

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Summarizes the purpose of the study:

Understand what average 3rd grade students are thinking about when they push on while experiencing difficulty while engaging in a critical and creative thinking task in math and RELA.

Understand what average 3rd grade students are thinking when they shut down while experiencing difficulty while engaging in a critical and creative thinking task in math and RELA.

Research Questions:
Qualitative: Phenomenology

1. What drives a ___ grade student to be resilient to failed attempts at a higher-order thinking task that requires them to think critically and creatively?

2. What prevents a ___ grade student from persevering through a higher-order thinking task that requires them to think critically and creatively?

Gives and overview of the components of the chapter

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7. Chapter 1: Assumptions and Limitations

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7. Chapter 1: Assumptions and Limitations

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1. Assume to be true but not verified

Teachers do not let students work through struggle long enough to build stamina.

Failure is not celebrated or looked at as a learning experience from which to grow as a learner.

2. Weaknesses in the study

Own district of employment

Teachers have not been professional developed on how to build in resilience and perseverance.

Students have no explicit instruction or guidance on perseverance.

3. Boundaries from the population or sample

WILL IDENTIFY AS THEY ARISE

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1. 21st Century Skills – “a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and charter traits that are believed to be critically important to success in today’s world, particularly collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces…[they] can be applied in all academic subject areas, and in all educational, career, and civic settings throughout a student’s life” (Creative Commons, 2014).

2. College and Career Readiness

3. Fixed Mindset

4. Growth Mindset

5. Higher-Order Thinking - force the brain to take knowledge and apply it to a new situation; learning for transfer takes place when that knowledge and skill are applied to novel contexts and applications (Paige, Sizemore, & Neace, 2013, p. 107).

6. Low-Order Thinking - knowledge recall and comprehension functions that do not go beyond applying knowledge to a situation that is the same or similar as another experience.

7. Perseverance - "... initiating and sustaining a high level of focus and effort in the pursuit of academic goals, despite obstacles, setbacks, and distractions" (Farrington, Roderick, Allensworth, Nagoaka, Keyes, Johnson, Beechum, and Nicole, 2012)

8. Resilience - "...a capacity to overcome acute and/or chronic adversity that is seen as a major threat to a student’s educational development" (FIND THE SOURCE).

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Researcher Stances and Experiential Base (first person)

1. Consider yourself in relation to the research problem: Who am I as a researcher?

Open to what students show and tell me; can put my beliefs aside.

Interested in student perceptions.

(stream of thought...run-on) Supervisor of curriculum and instruction looking for ways to develop these skills and opportunities...to fold them into teaching and learning...to meet rigorous expectations so that students are equipped with skill sets to meet the unknown needs of the future.

2. What do I believe?

The more student-centered the classroom, the more resilient the student, the longer they persevere.

Teachers who focus on student engaged experiences naturally let go of the control which gives some of it to students to work through which develops these skill sets naturally.

Teachers who have student-centered classrooms have activities that allow students to become more independent which naturally develops these skills sets naturally.

3. What are my tacit experiences?

High school teacher in a district that was focused on 21st Century Skills for College & Career Readiness; assessed levels of rigor.

Supervise elementary - watch a lot of chalk & talk and students who are overly-dependent on teachers for direction to get the one correct answer instead of working independently or given tasks that require deeper thinking.

Conceptual Framework (2-3 research streams described and sythesized - major researchers/studies)

1.  Carol Dweck - Growth and Fixed Mindset

2. 21st Century Skills for College & Career Readiness

3. Relation to pedagogical theories (Vygotsky, Dewey, Piaget/D.Pink)

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Qualitative: Phenomenology

1. What drives a ___ grade student to be resilient to failed attempts at a higher-order thinking task that requires them to think critically and creatively?

2. What prevents a ___ grade student from persevering through a higher-order thinking task that requires them to think critically and creatively?

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3. Chapter 1: Purpose & Significance of the Problem

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3. Chapter 1: Purpose & Significance of the Problem

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Purpose: To find out what makes a student keep working to find a viable solution rather than give up and allow others to help them when a difficult task is presented that requires a student to think critically and/or creatively.

Significance:

1. Identify how students perceive tasks and work through them.

2. How will finding an actionable solution to this problem benefit identified audiences?

Identify ways to fold in HOT into teaching and learning practices so that students are using the information rather than simply recalling and summarizing.

3. How does it address a gap in professional practice or knowledge?

Identify reasons why students give up rather than work through to a solution.

Identify reasons why students persevere rather than give up.

4.  Who are the audiences for this?

Elementary teachers, elementary admin, curriculum leaders who work at the elementary level

5. Why would the solution matter to them?

Understand the way students learn through rigorous tasks

Figure out ways to scaffold learning so students can reach these higher order levels of thinking

Build life-long skills for greater chance of success in the future (college & career readiness)

6. How would the research add to existing research on this professional practice?

Be the first to find out what is happening when a student is tasked with a higher-order thinking activity that requires critical and creative thinking

Give a window into the elementary student mind when encountering and responding to HOT tasks that require critical and creative thinking.

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2. Chapter 1: Statement of the Problem to be Researched (1-2 paragraphs)

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2. Chapter 1: Statement of the Problem to be Researched (1-2 paragraphs)

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Students need to build resiliency to persevere through challenging tasks to strengthen higher order thinking skills sets.

1. Include research abt CCS

2. Include research abt 21st Century Skills & unknown future

3. Include research abt College and Career Readiness & how these will help with the unknown

4. Include research abt brain development and how building skills in elementary years sets the trajectory for life.

5. ???Reading scores in 3rd grade for prison predictions???

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my topic - Resiliency & perseverance @ the elementary level involving critical and creative thinking tasks.

So what? I want to figure out what makes an elementary student resilient to challenging higher order thinking tasks while others give up becoming overly-dependent upon others to feed them the answer.

This will hopefully be a phenomenological study that hones in on general education elementary students in the major academic areas.

I don't know if I want to focus on a certain grade level or cluster (i.e. primary or intermendiate)

I don't know if I should hone in on a subject area or can leave it open to all and note differences I find in each subject. Too broad?

What I have already included into research...what am I missing?

I have Webb's Depth of Knowledge to ID what kind of task = higher order

I have 21st Century Skills but not sure if I should keep it at DOK levels 3 and 4 or ID tasks as creative/critical thinking

I am thinking DOK 3-4 because it is easily identifiable where there is a gray area in identifying a task as using creative & critical thinking...does that make sense? Although, I really want to hit on 21st Century Skill sets. Am I getting too broad with opening it to this?

I included 21st Century Skills because my whole purpose for studying this is b/c we need students to be resilient and persevere through difficulties because we are preparing them for a world we cannot predict so we need to build a strong foundation early that allows them to build skill sets to be innovative.

In my research, I've pulled in student engagement b/c my hypothesis is that students who are highly engaged in the activities display more resiliency and persistence than students who are more passive.

Growth and Fixed Mindsets - I pulled in Carol Dweck's work because essentially, that is what I am working through, just not using "today's" terms. I want to focus on the verbiage of the actions, not attribute this solely to Dweck's perspectives. Does that make sense?

Dewey - I'm wondering if I'm getting away from the focus here, but John Dewey is the father of progressive educational theory and keeping the questions alive through deeper digging through the practice of learning.

The gap I found...

The research of persistence & resiliency - focus on secondary, ELL, and special population students. I can't find anything in the way of gen. edu. elementary students working through or giving up when experiencing difficulties with higher-order tasks that demand critical and creative thinking.

I see this as a positive because it warrants a need. Yes?

I see nothing in the way of 21st Century Skills at the elementary level. Is there a viable reason for this? Is it b/c the foundational skills should stay in the elementary?

I just think the Core Standards address higher-ordering thinking and do not see most students working to meet those and teachers diluting the opportunities for rigor that would allow students at the elementary to practice these...which gets to the heart of why doing this study in my own district is difficult.

I know teachers want to do this, but are afraid and do not know how.

I know there are teachers in my previous district (Hatboro-Horsham SD) and one school in Pennridge SD (Seylar Elementary) where the principal, Miles Roe is trying to make 21st Century Skills a focus for 5 years now...in the latter school, Miles is allowing this to grow organically by supporting the "low-hanging fruit" and letting them spread the word as he slowly integrates these skill sets in small increments.

Centennial (where I am) has been in disparate in the way of best practices. They are so far behind and often do what's best for adults, not children. That focus is changing with our most current superintendent (Dave Baugh), I'm just wondering how valid my study can be in my own place of employment.

I want to help be part of the solution in my own working environment. If I did the study at CSD solely, I would need to publicize all of this for validity purposes, yes? I cannot do that. I do not air the state of the district to everyone. Please know that. It would be disrespectful and unfair to all of the work we are doing.

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Here is my concern with elementary and how I see I could work through that.

Concern: Interviewing young students - They want to give adults the perceived correct answer; they aim to please. I want to make sure that I can capture what is happening in the moments that I am observing the students working.

Concern: Interviewing students after they experience the task. With such young students, they can lose focus or find it difficult to verbalize their experience as it happened. The below may fix this...

I am trying to think of a way to quantify what is happening in the moments of working through a higher order thinking activity. This can help guide the discussions and make sure students are not just answering to please me or losing track of their own experiences while in the moment.

Thought - Would the classroom teacher be able to work in a rating system after each task within a higher order thinking activity?

Option 1 - teacher has students keep colored cards on their desks (red = can't move on, need help now, yellow = feeling uneasy but am working on, green = this is easy and I don't need any guidance)

Option 2 - teacher asks students to rate their feelings after each task (1 - 5 of very difficult to very easy).

Within each option, I can do a sociogram of the whole.

Interview the 6-7 students that I follow over the course of November - February.

I want focus on what makes some students resilient and persevere while others give up and wait for the teacher to feed them the steps to get the conclusion.

I would assume this fits directly into Carol Dweck's work with fixed and growth mindsets.

I really want to see how this works when given higher order thinking tasks that pull in the 21st Century thinking skills (particularly critical and creative thinking).

Is that broadening the study?

I was hoping to then focus on 2nd and 3rd grade students since there is a transition between learning skills and using skills to learn.

Are there differences in what resiliency and persistence means at each grade level?

Should I keep it at one grade level?

One subject are or could I stay in the classroom to see the major subject areas to see if there is a crossover to subjects (it's the student's resiliency patterns or a love for one area or another).

Am I going back into many directions?

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Interview 6-7 students

Elementary, grade 3

Third b/c that is when students are transitioning from learning to read TO reading to learn pedagogy

RELA, SS, Science, Math

Choose a subject or watch kids in all 3?

Quantitative Aspect:

Use a method in which students rate each portion of the task before interviews so I have a gauge of where students minds were in the moment of working rather than only after the task is complete.

Quantify how many times the students felt a task was too difficult to work through or were able to continue without the need of immediate help from a teacher.

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1. Chapter 1 : Intro to the Problem (2-3 paragraphs)

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1. Chapter 1 : Intro to the Problem (2-3 paragraphs)

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What are the contexts and any known history of the problem?

1. Elementary students need to have resiliency and perseverance to successfully work through critical and creative thinking which encompasses DOK levels 3-4.

2. Elementary students - students lack stamina to persevere through difficulties in academic tasks. (NEED RESEARCH FOR THIS)

3. Elementary is the level that sets the foundation for the rest of a student's academic career.

What has prior scholarly research indicated about this problem?

1. John Dewey - how students learn

2. How the brain learns - what is appropriate for a higher-ordering thinking skills at 3rd grade?

3. Dweck's growth and fixed mindset

4. Daniel Pink's motivation theory

5. 21st Century Skills @ secondary & post-secondary levels

6. Resiliency and perseverance within ELL, special edu., secondary, and post-secondary students

7. Over-reliance on teacher - NEED TO FIND IT!!!