Lecture Notes, Active Participation, and Student Understanding in a Sixth Grade Technology Classroom by Holly R. Bemis-Schurtz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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Lecture Notes, Active Participation, and Student Understanding

in a Sixth Grade Technology Classroom

Holly R. Bemis-Schurtz

hollyrae@nmsu.edu

An Action Research Project

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Curriculum and Instruction

Specialization in Learning Technologies

New Mexico State University

Las Cruces, New Mexico

December 4, 2005

Abstract

    In this study the Lecture Notes strategy (Fetzer, 2004, chap. 18) was examined with relationship to students’ active participation and understanding. The purpose of the study was improving the implementation of the strategy in the researcher’s classroom, because the strategy was requested by administration at the school site as part of a school wide professional development plan.

    The study commenced over a two-week period during which the students’ participation was observed. Students completed a pre and post questionnaire demonstrating recall of cognitive academic language and completed a graphic organizer, all of which were measured according to rubrics designed to check for understanding. Results from the study indicated that the majority of students improved understanding, but that participation went down over time, suggesting that the strategy should be implemented on a short timetable for authentic purposes. The teacher researcher plans to implement the strategy in the future with a more creative use of graphic organizers on a shorter timeframe.