Olympic Gold and Research

(image cite) As the Olympics in Beijing end, I think about how much closer in proximity to the events I was just a couple weeks ago. I also think about my students growing up and succeeding as the Olympics athletes did. I think about them earning their own gold medals and breaking world records on their own.

I am busy planning totally awesome activities for the first week of school, which begins on Tuesday, and I am preparing my research study which also begins. My project is focusing on answering 3 totally awesome research questions:

1) Scores on which type of an ongoing formal assessment – multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank – better represent a recently immigrated EL’s opinion of his/her own science content understanding as measured through a weekly survey, written artifacts, and informal interviews?

2) Which classroom warm-up activity – silent reading or journal entries –raises scores the most on an English reading comprehension posttest?

3) What student grouping – tetrads grouped according to science understanding or English fluency – raises scores the most on weekly science content quizzes, an English reading comprehension posttest, and a science content posttest?