Action Plan
What was implemented?
In my classroom, peer conferencing in writing was implemented into the sharing portion of our writing block. Within my district's writing curriculum, there is a five to ten minute portion of time at the end of each forty-five minute writing block, where students are sharing their writing that they worked on that day. This was the time where my students were peer conferencing with each other and giving and receiving specific feedback on their writing.
How was it implemented?
Peer conferencing was implemented during the sharing portion of our writing block. This is a ten minute window where students are sharing what they are working on in their writing. This was time for my young writers to get ideas from their peers, receive feedback, see changes that can be made, and what is going well in their writing. During this sharing portion, students met with partners where they gave and received feedback on their writing. Students told their partner something they liked about the other's writing, asked one question about the partner’s writing, and gave one suggestion on their partner's writing. This fostered a collaborative and non-threatening learning environment where students were able to see themselves grow as authors.
When was it implemented?
Peer conferencing was implemented each day during the end of our writing block. The peer conferencing took place for a maximum of ten minutes. Each day, I switched students partners that they conferred with, this way students were given feedback from different authors. The study began January 29th, 2020 and was concluded on March 10th, 2020. The detailed calendar is provided below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tNhSmNwlFItcOdZr5VvyY32cxEWJh7Oe/view?usp=sharing
Why were these strategies choosen?
These strategies were chosen because they support the viable, tested, and verified curriculum provided by my district. Peer conferencing was chosen because after reviewing research, it showed that peer review has many benefits for not only students engagement but also improvement in students' work. Peer review is a wonderful way for young authors to become “unstuck” in their writing. When students meet with their peers they can ask questions, gather ideas, and receive suggestions for the piece of writing that they are working on. Peer conferencing allows students to receive feedback on their writing each and every day in their own language with a peer who is at their same writing level as the author themselves. Students are able to empower each other along with helping each other improve their writing.
How did you differentiate instruction/work with students to enhance individual student learning?
In order to differentiate instruction to ensure that students were able to achieve their highest learning potential, differentiated instruction was used in various ways through visuals, modeling, and collaboration. After modeling for students how to correctly peer conference in writing, students were provided with a checklist that showed them the different aspects that should be happening during peer conferencing. For example, what it looks like being respectful to your partner, telling your partner something you like about their writing, asking your partner one thing about their writing and giving your partner one suggestion on their writing. Having a checklist helped students not only stay on task but also ensured that they were completing all aspects of the peer conference. Visual models were also created to be used for students. As a class we modeled examples and non-examples of how to peer conference. This was used for my students who are more visual learners so they can see how their peer conference should look like and sound like in a more concrete fashion. My students and I also created anchor charts that I posted on the board to help with peer conferencing.
Why are these strategies best for the population outlined in the rationale?
Peer conferencing was the best strategy for my students because my students rely on peer interaction to enhance and engage their learning. When it was time for writing, my students liked to bounce ideas off of each other, see how other writers approached problems, and simply share their writing with other writers. I found that my students loved being able to share their writing. This was their favorite part of our writing time block. After completing district assessments in math and reading, many of my students were scoring proficient or above. However, I found that writing was the area where my students could improve and challenge themselves to express their creativity and continue to grow.
How were diverse learning needs accounted for?
Diverse learning was accounted for when peer conferencing was being modeled and discussed. I wanted to ensure that I was addressing that students are all different. When we are writing as authors we can give other authors our suggestions and feedback. However, I took into account that my young authors may have wrote about topics, of which some of their peers were not familiar. I had to model and teach my students that there was diversity in our writing and that is okay. Diverse needs were also taken into consideration when I was planning how to teach peer conferencing by using the checklists. I found that students used the checklists as a reminder to ensure they were incorporating all aspects of the peer conferencing effectively.
How did the study support culturally responsive practices to positively impact student learning?
The study created an equitable and accessible learning environment because every student was an author in our classroom. We were constantly learning, improving, and growing as writers. While creating the peer conferencing model, as a classroom, we fostered the positive learning environment of giving and receiving of both positive and constructive feedback. This was completed by modeling examples and non-examples of how to respectfully take and give feedback in our writing.
Internal Stakeholders
During my study, I collaborated with various stakeholders to improve my research. Within my building, I worked with my grade level team, principal, and instructional facilitator. I worked with my grade level team to ensure I was providing effective and viable writing curriculum to my district's standards. I worked with my principal at the beginning of my action research in order to ensure I was meeting my district's expectations for research. I also used my school's instructional facilitator to help me develop my time on task data collection sheet. Working with stakeholders within my building allowed me to provide the most purposeful instruction to my students.
Outside of my building, I worked with stakeholders including my cadre associate, cadre cohort, and my graduate studies professors. My cadre associate helped me conduct the research within my classroom each week. My associate also assisted me with modeling examples and non-examples of peer conferencing to my students. I collaborated with my cadre cohort and discussed how to best implement certain aspects of my study and how to use the data collected. My professors helped me to better my action research along with how to use my data to improve my instruction.