Running Head: ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT

Actively Processing New Content Dianne J.E. Kraus Wilkes University

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT Abstract The students in the mini-study are 28 AVID sophomore students from diverse cultures, who are college-bound. AVID provides instruction in college readiness skills. The target learning goals for this lesson were that the student will execute collaborative tutorial skills through tutor-led discussions with a focus on higher-level questioning, and the students will generate a higherlevel reflection/summary about the learning process during tutorials. The students are prepared for participation in a tutorial session by observing a mock tutorial that is used to establish group norms and procedures. The instruction is broken into small digestible chunks and the chunks are scaffolded into a logical sequence. The students are given time to interact with their learning in small groups.

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT Actively Processing New Content This mini-study about actively processing new content was designed for the target learning goal that the student will execute collaborative tutorial skills through tutor-led discussions with a focus on higher-level questioning, and the students will generate a higher-level reflection/summary about the learning process during tutorials. (See Appendix) The lesson was chunked into parts to include an introduction to the tutorial, a mocktutorial, a reflection on participant expectations during the tutorial, a transition into the tutorial groups, a tutorial, a summary and a reflection. The lesson was scaffolded to provide the students with a logical progression through the lesson. At the beginning of the lesson the tutors and the teacher held a mock tutorial that incorporated inappropriate student behaviors such as dragging the desk from the opposite side of the room, texting, sleeping, and off-task use of the IPad tablet, side discussions and other behaviors that are engaged in by the students during the tutorials. The teacher asked certain groups of students to observe specific tutors and their behaviors during the mock session. The teacher then stopped the demonstration to ask the students what they observed and the students appeared to understand expectations about appropriate behavior in groups. After reviewing the expectations the tutors moved the students into their groups and began their tutorials while the teacher holds individual conferences with students in the middle of the room. The effect of chunking was to enable the students to process and interact with the content that the teacher was presenting so that everyone was reminded of the tutorial operating rules. The students were expected to focus on higher-level questioning, taking notes and contribute their ideas based on prior experience and common experience to the tutorial.

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT Each tutorial was based on the higher-order questions that the students wrote on their tutorial request forms prior to the start of class. The students were expected to reflect on their learning in their core classes, then to read and highlight the Cornell notes that have been taken in their core classes. The students are then put into groups of common content with five or less participants working with a tutor. There are four college tutors and the students also benefit from the participation of peer tutors. The goal is to have students take ownership for their tutorial by asking questions of the student at the board in order to guide them toward solving the problem. The student at the board reads their question and describes their problem to the group. They help each other clarify their learning and the group discusses the problem with the help and guidance of their tutor. Each student has the opportunity to ask at least one question. They use Cornell notes to document the process and then they write a summary of their learning and make an association to relevance for their discussion with the group at the end of the tutorial. Near the end of the class the students reflect on their participation, their learning and their barriers to success and write a higher-order tutorial reflection. These are turned in with their notes for grading and can be used as supporting evidence for this analysis. The tutors help to guide the students towards the answer but they are trained neither to work at the board nor to give the answers to the students. The student at the board must review learning once the problem is solved by briefly summarizing the steps involved in working out the problem and explaining to the group what they have learned. It is important for the students to discuss what they have learned in small cooperative groups during the tutorial so that they can process the new content, clear up misconceptions like those learned in AP Macroeconomics, practice the skills required for procedural knowledge such as pre-calculus problems, and they

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT also learn how to support each other while participating in a tutor-led discussion. This is a college readiness skill that we implement in the AVID elective class. The lesson went well and the logistics of organizing the tutorial are well established. The students followed the tutorial expectations and worked well in their groups to support the learning of the whole group. The students were also using non-linguistic organizers to connect pieces of information. I would like to see the students take more leadership in the tutorial process and have the tutors facilitate rather than dominate the tutorial process. This will require me to speak to the tutors after the class to de-brief the process and to make recommendations for future improvement. Areas where we need to grow would be to have the students make predictions about their learning. This could be taught to the students during our mini-lessons that the tutors are asked to prepare for the beginning of tutorial days. We ask the tutors to participate in mini-lessons so that they are more involved in the AVID classroom and so that they are active members of the team. My next step after analyzing the video is to work with the tutors to improve their skills at questioning and facilitating the tutorials by allowing the students to lead more and to make predictions associated to their learning. I also plan to have the students analyze the effectiveness of their tutorials based on their grades in their classes. They can also predict future success based on their goals, plans and actions for term four. We are approaching the end of term three and their final grades will be ready for reflection after finals. The students will have the opportunity to reflect on their grades and the tutorial participation to establish a correlation between the quality of their discussions and their success on the final assessments and grades.

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT References Marzano, R. (2007). The Art and Science of Teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT Appendix Rubric for Procedural Knowledge Score 4.0 Score 3.5 Score 3.0 Score 2.5 The student will use complex discussion skills and take ownership of their learning during the tutorial process. In addition to score 3.0 performance partial success at score 4.0 content The student will execute collaborative tutorial skills through tutor-led discussions with a focus on higher-level questioning. No major errors or omissions regarding score 2.0 content and partial success at score 3.0 content. The student will follow the step- by- step tutorial process Partial success at score 2.0 content, but major errors or omissions regarding score 3.0 content With help, partial success at score 2.0 content and score 3.0 content With help, partial success of score 2.0 content, but not at score 3.0 content Even with help, no success

Score 2.0 Score 1.5

Score 1.0 Score 0.5 Score 0.0

ACTIVELY PROCESSING NEW CONTENT Rubric for Declarative Knowledge

Score 4.0 Score 3.5 Score 3.0 Score 2.5

The student will be able to discuss connections and conclusions during the tutorial process and then generate predictions. In addition to score 3.0 performance partial success at score 4.0 content The students will generate a higher-level reflection/summary about the learning process during tutorials. No major errors or omissions regarding score 2.0 content and partial success at score 3.0 content. The students will be able to describe their learning problem during the tutorial. Partial success at score 2.0 content, but major errors or omissions regarding score 3.0 content With help, partial success at score 2.0 content and score 3.0 content With help, partial success of score 2.0 content, but not at score 3.0 content Even with help, no success

Score 2.0 Score 1.5

Score 1.0 Score 0.5 Score 0.0