RUNNING HEAD: DATA PLAN 1

Data Plan – Assignment Week 5

Johnny Hughes

Capella University

Dr. Amy Gaskins

ED 5508

May 12, 2018

 2

Data Plan

Teachers have one ultimate goal, and that is to teach or convey a lesson to a student or

group of students in the most efficient and productive manner possible. Teachers must plan their

lessons and address obstacles they and their students may face. One tool educators use to address

those obstacles is action research. This is a method for the teacher to refine his or her methods of

instruction in an attempt to improve those methods (Sagor, 2018). The following essay will entail

an action research plan the author is creating to help his students gain higher mastery of

mathematical concepts.

Background and Setting

The research plan will be conducted on students at a public charter school in Aiken, SC.

This school is a Title 1 school but attracts students from households with parents that are more

involved than the rest of the community. This is exhibited in the high attendance at school

celebration nights and parent-teacher conferences. Also, the school does not have transportation

or provide lunches. The parents must bring their children to the school, pack their lunches, and

perform required volunteer work at the school. This also leads to the presence of parents who are

more involved than ones from schools in the surrounding area.

The author’s fifth grade class consists of 45 students which are split via tracking into two

separate groups: a higher-level class and a lower one. The lower-scoring class will be the group

this proposed plan will be performed on. That class consists of 23 students who on the Scholastic

Math Inventory (SMI) test scored extremely low scores, all in the kindergarten to third grade

range, which is not on level for fifth grade students. That SMI test has been given to them three

times throughout the school year. Each time, the group as a whole has shown steady score

increases indicating growth. More than 80% of the students are now one grade level higher in the
 3

ability level when in the most recent assessment compared to the one given at the beginning of

the year.

Of those 23 students, five of them leave for the last 45 minutes of class for remedial help

related to learning difficulties in reading skills. Four of those five students have extremely low

scores as shown by the SMI assessment and in their class grades. Also, the class has four

minorities students but no English language learning (ELL) students. None of them have

physical limitations or difficulties.

Problem/Research Question

The problem is the class scores extremely low in mathematical ability. When speaking to

their English Language Arts (ELA) teacher, those same students struggle with writing and

reading as well. Using a cursory comparison of their mathematics versus reading scores on the

third quarter report cards printed 3 weeks ago, there does seem to be a correlation between low

scores in the two subjects. Also, very few of the students in the class are able to get word

problems and text-based problems correct, which is another factor leading to the following

question.

The question posed is: do students who struggle with mathematics also struggle with

reading and writing?

Data Sources

The main data source will be the SMI and SRI assessments. Another source of data will

be a pre and post assessment. Also, the students’ general report card grades will be used to verify

the SMI/SRI assessments are showing the same results. Finally, qualitative statements related to

the students’ abilities and levels will be attained from the students’ ELA teacher and compared to

those of the author of this paper.

 4

Action to Implement

The action to increase the students’ mathematical abilities will focus on math-related

vocabulary and the incorporation of more reading and writing into math assignments. The

following actions will be implemented:

 The ELA teacher gives a weekly spelling and vocabulary list of 20 words. I will work

with that teacher to add math-related words to that weekly list.

 I will incorporate and use more reading related math worksheets into daily and weekly

assignments. I will start by adding two-word problem worksheets per week.

 I will give the students a word problem quiz Monday and score it. I will then give the

same level word problem quiz 2 to 3 weeks later to see if there were increases in scores.

Both quizzes will contain problems using vocabulary given to the ELA teacher. These

will act as pre-assessments and post-assessments.

 I will communicate to the parents the concerns and problems related to this issue and

suggest they increase their working with their children on both mathematics and reading.

While this may not have measurable results, communication with parents is always a

positive endeavour.

Data Analysis

A fourth SMI and SRI assessment will be given to the students in the next two to three

weeks. Data will be collected by comparing the SMI and SRI scores against each other. The

Scholastic SMI and SRI scores were given three times throughout the school year and show

constant growth with few outliers or unusual results. The SMI/SRI assessments represent

appropriate forms of data sources that would show comprehension levels of text-based

mathematics for a fifth-grade class (Johnson, 2012). To verify those scores are consistent with
 5

other scores from throughout the year, they will be compared to the students’ quarterly report

card grades.

After 2 to 3 weeks of performing the proposed actions, I will compare the students new

scores and see if there is consistent grown in both ELA and mathematics. A Venn diagram could

be created with the intersection section showing students who score well in both categories. I

will also view the scores on the pre-assessment and post-assessment quiz that contains similar

word problems using vocabulary given on the ELA vocabulary list.

 6

References

Johnson, A. P. (2012). A short guide to action research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

ISBN: 9780132685863.

Sagor, R. (2018). Guiding School improvement with action research. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/100047/chapters/What-Is-Action-Research

%C2%A2.aspx