Spanish Teaching Fellow
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
Independent School Teaching Residency Program
Methods
My inquiry was conducted in my Spanish 2 class which consists of eight freshmen and one sophomore for the academic year of 2019-2020. The Roxbury Latin School is an all-boys school that offers rigorous academics, and this is no exception in modern language courses. Students are required to take a minimum of three-years of language, but for many this is well beyond their second year of language since they are coming in with previous knowledge. It should also be noted that for better or for worse, students are required to take three years of latin, this being their third.
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Hoping to improve my students' grammar, I focused my inquiry on feedback. Ultimately, it provided students the opportunity to re-do their work after receiving feedback on a written assessment prior to receiving their grade (summative versus formative assessments.) And to provide students different kinds of feedback, as highlighted in Hattie and Timperley. In this section, I will be discussing the methods I used to collect data and provide a short description.
Surveys
Throughout the year I had students fill out an in-class survey in English. The first survey was given in early October with the purpose of getting to understand what students saw as feedback, their relationship with feedback and their thoughts on re-writing an assignment. I used surveys to collect input on written feedback to validate Hattie & Timperley idea that qualitative feedback is effective when differentiated from quantitative feedback
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The second survey was given soon after the winter break in early January and the purpose of this was to get a better understanding of what kind of feedback students wanted. Moreover to better understand their views on peer-feedback as it goes back to the idea of self-regulation as a language student. Moreover, students completed a brief reflection after completing a group assignment that focused on their group work and who they would prefer to work with in the future, and why.
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The third survey was given in February and re-asked students their understanding of feedback, a word association with feedback in the classroom, and a list of pros and cons for rewriting an assessment, which they have done many times in the course. The purpose of this survey was to see if students' interpretation of feedback had changed, their feelings or thoughts about feedback had changed and to understand how helpful they found the re-writing cycle (without calling that in the classroom).
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Students completed all the surveys hand-written, in-class and in English. Moreover, I reminded students in-class, prior to handing out the surveys, and written at the top of the survey that their grade was not associated with the surveys, and that it would not shape who they are in the classroom. The surveys were done individually in silence and I allotted about fifteen minutes for each survey, which was plenty.
Observations & Journaling
Classroom observations were written by hand in-class and focused on student interaction during activities. They were done on white paper and no particular organizational structure. Depending on the day and date it was either written in bullet points or drawn out with arrows to point student interactions and give an idea of where they were in the classroom. The purpose of these observations were to note when students were asking or relying on one another to get their questions, particularly grammar focused. Most of my observations consisted of specific examples when students asked one another a question versus asking me for help. Moreover, I also noted when questions were asked to specific students versus in general and across the room to anyone. Additionally, I noted feedback on whether students enjoyed or did not enjoy the assessment and why. This gave me a better sense about what kind of activities they liked, their thoughts on the feedback cycle so far, and what kind of feedback they felt like they were still missing.
Outsider Observations
I was observed by members outside of the language department, and received feedback on the classroom dynamic, student participation and engagement, as well as the style of oral feedback I was giving. One observer spoke no Spanish which provided an interesting insight because their focus was more on classroom dynamic and student interaction. Meanwhile the second observer did know French and was able to decipher what was happening. He also observed student engagement and dynamic in the classroom, particularly when students were doing work or revising each other's assessment.
Libritos & Assessments
Students were given a small notebook where they were to write short responses and answer in class questions they would later get feedback on. These were meant to be formative assessments and received no grade, but they were not aware of this. The reason why they were not informed about the assessment being ungraded is because I wanted them to put their full-effort. These small books were described as a space to have a dialogue with me about their writing. Every couple weeks or after a few assessments / short questions, I would collect the book and give feedback on their writing, specifically grammar focused. Students were then given the book, and encouraged to look through the feedback for a few minutes in class. These informal assessments were also meant to provide me with an idea of how their writing was developing and what grammatical mistakes they were making prior to a major assessment.