Action Research Summary

1. What is the title of the project?
Evidence of Understanding in an 8th Grade Classroom

2. What is the problem?
What happens when students participate in the process of providing evidence
of their understanding?

3. Describe the instructional intervention.
He challenged the students to provide evidence of their understanding of and
thinking about their reading. After the class read Edgar Allen Poe as a whole,
he gave them stories to read on their own, but they had to provide evidence
that they uderstood what they were reading. The students chose their own
literary standards and then they were to focus on demonstrating literal
understanding, analysis, and interpretation of the Poe stories. Once the
students decided on the standards, they spent the next few
days reading and working on their evidence of understanding the texts.

4. What kind of strategy is the instructional intervention?
The kind of strategy that the instructional intervention is setting objectives.

5. What evidence is presented that the strategy will work?
•Instructional goals should not be too specific. When goals are too narrowly focused they can limit learning (Fraser, 1987; Walberg, 1999).


•If students are encouraged to personalize the teacher's goals, then learning increases. Student ownership enhances learning focus. Studies show the benefits of students setting sub-goals derived from the larger teacher-defined goals (Bandura & Schunk, 1981; Morgan, 1985).


•Some studies indicate that student learning "contracts" are effective in developing student ownership and completion of goals. A contract would be an agreement between student and teacher for a grade the students will receive if they meet established criteria (Kahle & Kelly, 1994; Miller & Kelley, 1994; Vollmer, 1995).

6. How will data be collected to determine if the strategy will work?
Through observations, interviews and class discussion, he documented their
efforts.

7. How was the data analyzed?
Students presented their evidence to the class and they discussed whether their work "met standards" or not. This provoked many interesting discussions about what is good evidence of understanding and the challenges of assessing students learning.

8. What were the results?
By being involved in the process, students were more focused on what they were supposed to be learning and what it meant to provide evidence of their understanding. The discussion of evidence that met standards or not, demonstrated a need to balance the freedom to assess in unique ways and the structure necessary for students to produce effective evidence. He concluded that finding this balance should be a part of the planning in our classrooms and schools.