AMANDA TURNER
4TH GRADE- HTS
PROBLEM OF PRACTICE
Analysis
Upon careful analysis of my two fourth-grade classes, I have noticed that my students struggle to provide evidence and elaboration for their academic thinking.
Memory Box
Why Does This Problem Exist?
Despite being provided with clear learning targets, success criteria, extensive modeling, and the use of certain graphic organizers like “Evidence Organizers” and “Boxes and Bullets”, I have determined this is a weakness because students are struggling to recall main points(main ideas) and key details.
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Therefore, I want to incorporate Memory Box into each of my classes.
Increased student achievement on formative assessments.
Increased student achievement on summative assessments.
Students will have richer discourse during classroom discussions.
Cause & Effect
conclusion
I think this problem may exist because students need additional time to solidify their learning so that it becomes part of their long term memory. Once students utilize the Memory Box tool, their ability to recall main concepts will lead to greater student achievement.
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Based on feedback from fourth-grade students, the Eureka, Amplify Science, and Wit and Wisdom curriculum is rigorous for students.
Students expressed they lack confidence in their ability to retain key details.
They also stated that they know the answers while we are reading and learning, but have trouble recalling this in future lessons.
Why Does this Problem Exist?
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Reading for Meaning
Single Sentence Summaries
Since my problem of practice was mainly retention of key ideas, I decided to incorporate Memory Box into my lessons.
Possible Tools
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Memory Box is an easy, student friendly tool that will allow them to record everything they remember about a topic. They can use words, pictures, or numbers.
Memory Box will allow me to see what students seem to remember and what may still be “fuzzy” to them.
The use of Memory Box should give students adequate processing time to solidify their understanding of each concept we discuss in class.
This tool will allow students to have a visual representation of what they are learning and will hold them accountable for their own learning.
Why Memory Box?
I am going to incorporate Memory Box to test the idea that rehearsing the concept increases student ability to retain core ideas.
Why Memory Box?
How will using Memory Box affect students’ ability to remember key ideas?
Inquiry Purpose
Formative Assessments
Summative Assessments
Student Surveys
How Will I Know Memory Box is Working?
Students will be able to support their thinking which will result in higher achievement on each summative assessment.
Student surveys will gauge the benefits of using this tool to help them retain main ideas and key details.
If the principle of repetition, variation, and depth of thought improves students’ retention of key ideas, then using the Memory Box tool will lead to higher levels of student mastery.
Expected Results
Before incorporating Memory Box, my students struggled to retain key facts about our unit topics. Their answers were bare minimal with the majority of the students showing little evidence of in-depth knowledge.
Before Memory Box
After Memory Box
Comparison
Since implementing the Memory Box strategy, students have continued to increase their mastery on summative assessments, they are more engaged during classroom activities and show growth on formative assessments, and they also have much richer classroom discussions.
Summative Assessment Data
Classroom Discussion Data
Every two weeks throughout my action research, I tracked the percentage or quality responses provided by students during our classroom discussions. These responses were during whole class discussions and during cooperative learning activities.
Date: 12-13-23 | Date: 1-17-24 | Date: 1-31-24 | Date: 2-7-24 | Date: 2-21-24 | Date: 3-6-24 | Date: 3-20-24 |
33% | 59% | 67% | 73% | 79% | 81% | 82% |
Student Surveys
Data Analysis
I did get the results I expected. Students showed remarkable growth. During the first unit, students were able to increase their mastery from 53%-73%. I attribute this to the Memory Box tool because when this tool was implemented, I saw a huge shift in their ability to retain key concepts and use those to give effective responses both in class and on their assessments. Throughout the year, I have continued to see an increase in student achievement. During our Earth’s Features unit, the percentage of student mastery went to 81%. At the conclusion of our Vision and Light, student mastery had increased to 96%. Memory Box really helped them solidify their knowledge of scientific concepts. Their ability to verbally express their knowledge and to write high quality scientific explanations has really strengthened. When I revisit energy sources, earth’s features, and vision and light, students can still explain key concepts in depth. The utilization of Memory Box has decreased the amount of spiral review I normally need to do to ensure students can recall key concepts.
Adjustments to the Action Research
The Memory Box tool was so fast and easy to implement. Most importantly, it was effective and had a huge impact to students’ ability to solidify their thinking which led to an increase in student achievement. So, I initially planned to use Memory Box during science, but decided to use it with my guided reading group and during my geometry unit in math. Students’ ability to retell the important story events has grown. Memory Box was also beneficial in math. Geometry has tons of vocabulary and diverse shapes. Using this tool to solidify their learning has led to greater understanding.
Expected Results?
Absolutely! The principle of repetition, variation, and depth of thought improves students’ retention of key ideas. So using the Memory Box tool has lead to higher levels of student mastery.
First, I shared this tool with my fellow 4th grade teacher.
Co-Teacher
School Level PLCs
District Level
Time to Share
I will share this tool with HTS teachers during our school level PLCs.
In the future, I will share my results with other teachers in my school district.